This is not about brand, this is more like "you can't participate as an equal in this virtual communal space".

Having a single android user in a group chat means the whole group chat is essentially crippled.

The kids are not being shallow here, Apple is being anticompetitive.

Actually, it just means that the app you are using sucks

I think most kids understand that. It's just that adults reality is way easier - if you don't like some people you just don't spend time with them.

For kids, if you are not friends with people you spend 80% of your time with, you can't get the same kind of friendship elsewhere. The social games they play are way more complex than anything they teach them in school.

The shoes thing is definitely still true in some circles. It's a valuable lesson to teach, but a very hard one. And most people don't internalize it until adulthood. Most parents will shrug and just spring for the iphone rather than listen to the incessant complaints.

And kids still get shit for not wearing "cool" shoes!

When I was younger I got teased for not having a Started brand fitted hat, and I wasn't even into team sports.

This is it, if it wasn’t the phone it would be something else.

So therefore we let tactics like this slide? It is an intentional mechanism to create FOMO and groupthink by a corporation.

Just because kids are prone to being led in this way, doesn't mean those leading that behaviour get a pass.

What tactics are that? Would Nike have allowed the swoosh to be licensed to every other shoe manufacturer in the 90s?