Websters Defines Apple Fans As "sheeple"

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sheeple

Sheeple
informal
: people who are docile, compliant, or easily influenced : people likened to sheep
James Nichols, who ran the family farm here, stamped dollar bills with red ink in protest against currency and told his neighbors that they were “sheeple” for obeying authority like livestock. — Sara Rimer and James Bennet
Apple's debuted a battery case for the juice-sucking iPhone—an ungainly lumpy case the sheeple will happily shell out $99 for. — Doug Criss

Just one of those funny things that caught my attention. I did informal surveys of people I talked to online for roughly ten years and, along with discovering not one of them knew the simple distinction between a lynch mob and a democracy, I discovered most preferred to make up their own definitions for some words and were suspicious of the common dictionary despite being totally clueless that, for the most part, dictionaries merely contain popular definitions. Its what some of us like to call "Babylon" and Never-ending Three Stooges Armageddon where they all fight over stupid crap without a clue as to what they are actually fighting for.

 

The real question is will Sheeple become a real formal plural noun in the next 50-100 years? Because somehow I doubt Apple will still be a corporation and a brand in the far future when the word sheeple finally becomes appropriated into the English language as a formal noun.

Corporate identity names don't last forever. So I don't think Apple being an example in the dictionary 400 years down the line would be possible. Take for example: the oldest brand name in the world is Zildjian, who makes brass percussion and musical instruments. They were started in 1623 AD and they still exist today. Yet why don't we see zildjian as an identifiable noun in the dictionary.

Xerox started out as a copy machine company. Now it's a real word in the English language. Xerox was started in 1900(ish) and they managed to seal their name in the english language forever. But not Zildjian. Apple doesn't count because apple was a proper noun before the Apple corporation started. But that didn't stop those greedy lawyers at Apple from suing other companies that use the word Apple in their name: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2409669,00.asp So yes, the people who enslave themselves Apple are sheeple no doubt!

 

People who buy any brand name because of the brand name are sheeple and deserve to be labeled as such.

Generally people who NEED THAT iPHONE are basically braindead morons.

 

I drink Pepsi and prefer to 3M & Napa, Axalta products just because my favorite NASCAR drivers is sponsored by them.

They're what I see getting around the track every week, so brand names and commercialization actually does work as it's intended there.

I'm also a believer that everybody has specific brands they choose regardless of research etc. you come to know your brand and product and stick by it. I don't think they should be labeled as sheep just because of this, the stats will tell you that if 30% went for one brand, then 70% went for another. So who's the sheep in all that? Is everybody a sheep because they buy things that other people buy I mean it really doesn't make any sense it's just a toss around terminology that allows one person to put another person down.

"You're a sheep" they'll say.

Well, bahhhhhh bahhhhhhh bahhhhhhh boooorrrrring.

 

Again, common dictionaries merely contain popular words and popular definitions. There is no "Proper English" committee or some such nonsense that decides what is a proper noun. It used to be that more dictionaries listed words and definitions according to their historical use, but nobody cares to buy them anymore. The Oxford English dictionary has a few more technical scientific definitions and, somewhat, strained definitions for specific words, but that's just academics acting like they should own the English language because, of course, they can't afford to buy control of the language and tend to believe the mindless masses are insane and should not be allowed to determine such things.

 

Coming back onto the Hip Forums after a long hiatus and throwing in my $0.02, with the spread of online availability of such things like user-editable dictionaries and encyclopedias a la Urban Dictionary and Wikipedia, who's to say who really defines common, popular and new vernacular these days. I do, however, lean toward the definition of sheeple being more people who are like sheep rather than it sharing the last few letters with Apple and being more brand related. Sheeple just as easily flock to a new product from Microsoft, Google or Amazon to name a few.

 

I'm the type of person who picks something and sticks with it. For example; As a teenager I hated the taste of beer but still drank it because it was the thing to do. We always got Budweiser (maybe that was sheepish). Now, I'm in my 50s and I still hate the taste of beer but I drink alot of Budweiser. I just got use to it. If i go to a bar and they bring me Bud Lite, I can tell right away. I smoke Marlboro Reds because I have since I was 8. I took the Pepsi Challenge (remember that?) when I was about 13. I chose Coke. I've been drinking Coke ever since. My first car was a Ford/Mercury. It was a piece of crap. I've owned almost exclusively GM ever since. I can go on and on. Sticking with what I know. With what makes me comfortable. Plus it proves that I can be loyal.

BTW
My girlfriend has an Apple desktop, Laptop, iPad and iPhone because Apple is all she's ever had and she doesn't want to learn another system.

 

it is a portmanteau of "sheep" and "people"; shee-ple, and describes groups of humans who to tend to follow ideas, persons, products, conspiracy theories, etc,etc.(the possibilities are limited only by one's own bias and perspective)
I most often think of the videos where the sheep are endlessly following each other in a circle.

 

The English language is constantly adopting new terms.

Threepeat

Frenemy

Bromance

Language evolves in the street & market, the dictionary is a trailing indicator.

Sheeple has been around.

Apple is the music publisher owned by The Beatles.

 

The mindless mob and the wealthy decide who shapes the language and who gets thrown into the black hole of Calcutta as they have since the dawn of civilization. The money and the guns have always done all the driving and anyone who believes somebody is actually steering has not been paying attention to the mess the world is in. Wikipedia has become infamous as being taken over by militant atheists who, of course, have been struggling for the last century without success to redefine every word in the dictionary. Twitter is more likely to have a greater impact these days.

 

I have a new, very progressive and innovative word for sheeple that is going to catch on.

FOLLOWER

 

Some brand names are popular because they actually produce unique and higher quality goods--no shame in springing for a brand name if that is the case.

But, I suppose, to buy something exclusively for the label, with little attention to quality, is a sheepish trait.

That said I have tried a few phones, but I prefer the iphone! idgaf.

 

Yeah, it's really complicated and hard.
She would have to take a class and read books about it.

 

Maybe a little, but it is a logical beer for someone that doesn't like beer, because it's not very beery.

 

You have no idea. Back in '04 she got her first computers a bday gift from her dad. An eMac. She had never used one before. TBO I had very little experience on computers myself. I learned how to use it so I could show her. I still have to help her with something quite often. Yes. She's retarded.

 

*sigh*
don't you have a different drum to bang on?
if isn't singing the praises of AMD it's whining and blaming all the worlds woes on the wealthy/money and guns.
must be nice to have such a simplistic view of reality.

 

It is the chaos of a phase transition, like water bubbling before it comes to a full boil. Within three to twenty years at the outside we will have full blown Ai and Theory of Everything. Like assembling a giant puzzle without knowing what picture looks like, modern science and technology have been building up to the Big Reveal. You can also compare it to a metamorphic process, what some Rainbow hippies call "Childhood's End" with all of modern civilization representing merely puberty. It sucks, its insane, but almost everybody survives to adulthood.

 

Coined from Arthur C. Clarke, of course. I have heard you mention it before. I believe in giving credit where credit is due.

"Childhood's End is a 1953 science fiction novel by the British author Arthur C. Clarke. The story follows the peaceful alien invasion[1] of Earth by the mysterious Overlords, whose arrival begins decades of apparent utopia under indirect alien rule, at the cost of human identity and culture.

Clarke's idea for the book began with his short story "Guardian Angel" (1946), which he expanded into a novel in 1952, incorporating it as the first part of the book, "Earth and the Overlords". Completed and published in 1953, Childhood's End sold out its first printing, received good reviews, and became Clarke's first successful novel. The book is often regarded by both readers and critics as Clarke's best novel,[2] and is described as "a classic of alien literature".[3] Along with The Songs of Distant Earth (1986), Clarke considered Childhood's End to be one of his favourites of his own novels.[4] The novel was nominated for the Retro Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2004.

Several attempts to adapt the novel into a film or miniseries have been made with varying levels of success. Director Stanley Kubrick expressed interest in the 1960s, but collaborated with Clarke on 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) instead. The novel's theme of transcendent evolution also appears in Clarke's Space Odyssey series. In 1997, the BBC produced a two-hour radio dramatization of Childhood's End that was adapted by Tony Mulholland. The Syfy Channel produced a three-part, four-hour television mini-series of Childhood's End, which was broadcast on December 14–16, 2015."

 

The hippie poetry I'm referring to is composed of mixing and matching every popular metaphor imaginable with Childhood's End being "never-ending in Never-never land". The metaphor of childhood's end is older than Clark's book, however, his book is a major influence on the genre.