The Apple Community. Narrative and Its Effects in Reality in Late Capitalism

Using a narrative approach, the paper focuses on the Apple Special Event, seen as a veritable video-theatrical performance enjoyed annually by a vast audience spread all over the world, as well as by an equally large number of communities of experts (journalists, bloggers, IT professionals). It is a performance whose particularity is the way it hinges on the narration of devices. Moving within this analytic framework, the article is divided into three parts. The first highlights how narrative has the power to extend the fictional world to the sphere of social action, determining real effects in the global market. In the second, the Apple Event will be analysed as a reactivation of the religious archetype of the narrative for the mass use and consumption by millions of users. In the third, the ritual phases of this techno-animistic narrative will be illustrated, and the way in which they combine to create the imaginary community of the Apple Park examined. Starting with the articulation of these three points, the general aim of the work is to consider the Apple Event as a case study through which to understand a process of mass re-education towards the religious phenomenon, reproduced by the marketing strategies of late capitalism.