The iPhone Consumerism Cult Phenomenon And Its Hidden Cost in Africa

The recent launch of Apple's iPhone 18 predictably became another installment in the now-familiar annual consumerist spectacle that characterises Apple device launches, complete with live in-store events and smug influencers unboxing their new gadgets in front of their drooling audience.

To many, this familiar yearly routine is just a routine consumer event that hurts nobody and has no wider significance. To those in the know however, there are multiple sinister undertones of African child exploitation, brutal colonial economics, and severe African cultural degradation that are hiding under the cover of the seemingly harmless festival of consumerism surrounding Apple, its business model and its device launches.

Senior reporter @big__mck goes under the hood to examine what exactly makes this annual consumer extravaganza possible, and why from an African perspective, there is absolutely nothing to celebrate here.