Did you know Bill Gates uses a Macintosh? So does Bill Clinton, Boris Yeltsin, Sylvester Stallone, and Martha Stewart. The late Princess Diana and King Hussein of Jordan were Mac users, too.
And did you notice the distinctive Macintosh system beep in True Lies? Or that Jean Claude van Damme used a PowerBook 1400 as an offensive weapon in Knock Off?
Well, legions of Mac spotters remark such things. They're compiling long lists of all the celebrities, world leaders, captains of industry, athletes, and musicians who use Macs.
Mac fans note every appearance of a Mac in a movie or TV show, as well as every glimpse of a Mac in magazines, newspapers, on the radio, and pop albums -- even in cartoon strips.
The phenomenon feeds a regular column on MacCentral, a Macintosh news site. Based on a steady stream of reader tips, Famous People features celebrity Mac users and Mac appearances in movies, TV shows, and myriad other media.
It's taking on shades of an obsession; from a recent column:
"During an episode of The X-Files," the column noted, "if you look close ... you can briefly see the left corner of a laptop ... the curve of the display case looked like a G3 Series PowerBook to me."
The column, which began on an irregular basis, recently became a daily fixture and is one of the site's biggest draws, said MacCentral publisher Stan Flack.
"It's become one of the most popular things we do," Flack said, "which is quite strange."
Flack attributed the column's popularity to a combination of fanaticism, an underdog mentality, and the fact that people like to read about celebrities, no matter what the topic.
"Underdogs like it when a superstar or a celebrity uses the same system they do. Nine out of 10 people don't use a Mac. They need some comfort," he said. "If we did a column about stars that ate peanuts, people would read that, too." Dennis Sellers, the column's author, said he gets at least 100 emails a week on the topic. He gets the most when Macs show up on TV, especially during The X-Files or Felicity.
"I get inundated with emails saying a PowerBook popped up for two seconds on Sunday night," he said.
Sellers' column pointed to Bill Gates as a Mac user: A reader "happily noted" an aging Mac in the background of a photograph of Microsoft's Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates while studying Stephen Segaller's recent book, Nerds 2.0.1: A Brief History of the Internet.
"No wonder Bill is so rich," the reader wrote. "He uses a Mac."
Lists of celebrity Mac users can also be found at the Apple Museum and The Celebrity Macintosh Page, where the number of stars, authors, producers, musicians, theater types, athletes, politicians, and corporate bigwigs who use, or have used, a Mac runs into the hundreds.
Probably the most obscure is Sir Roger Banister, the first man to run a 4-minute mile, but the lists also include actors Sly Stallone, Gary Oldman, Dolly Parton, and Goldie Hawn; President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore; cyberpunk writers William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, and Neal Stephanson; and G. Gordon Liddy, jailbird-cum-columnist.
Gates is mentioned, as is Bill Lowe, the former head of IBM's PC Development Team. So, too, is Seymour Cray, supercomputer designer; Martha Stewart; Malcolm Forbes, Jr.; and Disney's CEO, Michael Eisner.
The Apple Museum also houses a long list of Apple sightings in movies dating back to 1983. Even the briefest glimpse warrants a mention. Macs seem to be getting more and more popular. Only two 1983 movies featured an Apple machine: WarGames and Trading Places. But last year Macs were spotted in 17 movies, including The Faculty, Godzilla, and You've Got Mail.
Sometimes a Mac is not seen, just heard. The list notes the distinctive booting blips and beeps of Macs on movie soundtracks, for instance True Lies.
The Mac also seems to be a TV staple, appearing regularly on Spin City, Melrose Place, Veronica's Closet, and many other shows, according to the lists.
Who, for example, failed to notice on Seinfeld the 20th-anniversary Mac, the PowerMac 6100, the Mac SE, the DuoDock, the Apple keyboard, and the MultiScan monitor? And surely you spotted the MacWarehouse mail order catalog. Someone did.
