I'm forever running across news about trends that I wasn't aware of, and that I'm usually the last to know about. The latest comes from Wired News. Since I work in such a Mac-centric environment, I thought it would be fun to post here.

I'm probaby gonna hear about this one, but here goes.

What's interesting about it is that the Mac users I know are usually "out, loud, and proud." So why are iPod users going into the closet?

Author and speaker Seth Godin is on his fifth iPod, but he's never once worn the telltale white earbuds.

Why not? Because Godin doesn't want to be recognized as an iPod owner.

Godin is a closet iPod user, one of a small cadre of iPod lovers loath to be identified as an iPod lover.

For closet users like Godin, it's the way the earbuds scream, "Woo hoo, look at me, I've got an iPod!"

"I'm not looking forward to being identified on the street," Godin said. "I don't know why. I don't like it." (Curiously, Godin said he's "proud" of his laptop's Apple logo when he gives presentations to thousands of people, but dislikes the idea of getting the iPod nod on the subway).

To others, using non-white headphones is a reaction to the growing hordes of iPod fans clogging the sidewalks and subways. Others don't like wearing corporate logos, even earbuds.

…Closet iPod use is particularly acute among early adopters, said consumer behaviorist Tom O'Guinn, because they don't want to be identified with the Johnny-come-latelies.

"The phenomenon in question is 'desired marginality,'" he said. O'Guinn said for some Mac users, for example, Apple's marginal status and low market share is a "source of pride." And as the iPod goes mainstream, some early adopters are affronted by its lack of exclusivity.

Michael Bull, a lecturer in media and culture at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom, concurred.

"As iPods become more popular, so their cultural cachet is reduced," Bull said. "Quite a few U.S. users note with alarm the increase in numbers of iPods they see in the streets. Before there was a kind of specialness in recognizing another early adopter, a recognition of cultural superiority." [emphasis mine]

As a non-iPod user, I watch somewhat amused from the sidelines. I mean, I've heard Mac-heads deride and proselytize others to choose Mac. I find it funny that when the unwashed masses actually do adopt a Mac product that the Mac-heads suddenly want nothing to do with them.

The message seems to be "You should be more like us, so long as it doesn't make us more like you.

Just an observation.