A recent study from the University of California has confirmed a long-held belief by many followers of Apple: the Macintosh universe is almost completely devoid of dudes with mustaches.
Based on results of a 2003 census of Mac users, a series of interviews with long-time Mac users and examination of photographic evidence from Macworld expos, Apple Store video surveillance and .Mac photo collections, researchers were unable to find any individuals sporting only a mustache.
University of California graduate student Sam Almonte said they found “Lots of goatees, Van Dykes, troll patches, beards and a startlingly large number of attempts at those, but no one with just a mustache.
“Think about it. Have you ever seen someone with just a mustache using a Mac? I’ll bet you haven’t. They are the snow leopard of the Macintosh community. Rare. Elusive.
“And… uh… well, furry.”
Some speculated that dudes with mustaches tend to deliberately opt out of owning a Macintosh and are more drawn to the PC.
Sociologist Ron Garrity of the University of Oregon noted “Dudes with mustaches are usually cops, porn stars or nominees for ambassador to the UN – all of which are professions with statistically very few Mac users. The Mac user/mustache-wearing population is extremely small. I don’t have the statistics in front of me… but it’s, like, one in a billion. Or a trillion.
“And, see, I don’t even know if there are a trillion Mac users.”
A number of long-time Mac users felt sure they had seen a dude with a mustache using a Mac at some point in the last twenty years.
“I’m sure there was a guy who had a mustache at a Mac user group I went to once,” said Macintouch editor Ric Ford. “Admittedly, it was 1992.”
Later Ford blurted out suddenly “Wait, I had a mustache once!
“No, wait, that was a dream. I remember because I was twenty feet tall and my hands were these great big honey-baked hams…”
Apple declined to speculate on whether or not it would actively pursue the dudes with mustaches demographic based on this research.