Apple Polishing is making something look better than it really is. Photojojo.com uses apple polishing when advertising the products that they sell on their site. Even though I absolutely love what they sell, I can’t help but agree that they use this type of fallacious argument to sell their products.
There was this one time where I bought “The Strap Buddy” off their website. The advertisement appeared to make it look like this shiny device that you attach to your camera and it would make it easier to carry around your neck, and it would comfortably sit at your hip. When I got it in the mail, it was just this dinky little piece of metal that wasn’t shiny at all. Also, when I put it on my camera that I use for shooting concerts, it just made my strap twice as tangled than it used to. On top of that, it was very uncomfortable when I put my camera by my hip.
I do not believe that this is a good argument. Its description on the website glorifies this little device and has no sort of negativity towards purchasing it. Although it does have an unstated premise that the buyer may want to have a comfier way to carry their cameras, rather than having it around their neck all the time. From my experience, I believed in this premise. I just felt that after buying it, that is wasn’t all that was meant to be.
Hey Chynna we always seem to write about the same things LOL. Anyways, your post about apple polishing was really good. I feel like most online shopping sites use apple polishing to sell their products. I think that besides the pictures of the products online you really don’t have anything to base the product off of and you really don’t know if they’re just going to send you something completely different when you actually purchase the item. The only thing you can do to see if the product is nice is by finding ratings of it online, most of the times customers rate the products and give their feedback and you can usually get the general idea of what you are buying.
ReplyDeleteHi there Chynna!
ReplyDeleteI really like your blog! When I was reading about Apple Polishing in the Epstein book I was a little confused! I felt like they gave you a run around like “a” is “b” and “b” is this. (a very simple non descriptive definition in other words!) Your definition of it really made it easy to understand. And now that I think about it, apple polishing is a really easy concept! Anyways, I like your example because websites always seem to use this type of fallacy. The thing I hate is that you practically base your purchasing of the item off the picture and it doesn’t always turn out like the company describes it! Anyways apple polishing is one of the most annoying fallacies there is!
Hey there! I like how you use the photojojo example. I am into photography and I have been on this site many times and I must say that their products are very appealing to me. But I haven’t brought anything off their site yet because I am too cheap right now. I agree that the site uses a lot of apple-polishing in their ads because most of their products look too good to be true. Also compare to a lot of other brands out there, their products seems to be pretty cheap. They come up with a lot of cute little things for your gadget that seems irresistible at times. I believe a lot sites do this because its easy. The buyer does not know what the product actually looks like or how they feel but they still buy it because of how the picture looks like. Thank you for pointing this website out about apple-polishing because now I know to think twice before I want to buy something off the site soon.
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