Something is starting to creep me out about advertising in general, and Apple's advertising in particular.

I've been feeling more and more unnerved by how advertisers abstract away from so many of the fascinating details that make people who they are, and hand us dull, cartoonish, predictable stereotypes that we're supposed to aspire to.

Apple just announced its new operating system, Lion, and I can't focus on the new features because I'm distracted by how insidiously Apple-like the advertising images are.

Apple ads promise a world with perfect racial and gender diversity — but almost no other kind of diversity.

No one is significantly overweight or underweight; everyone's moderately slim.

There are no same-sex couples.

Only a few different ages seem to be allowed: everyone's either 7, 17, or 27.

And of course, everyone has the same expression all the time.

I assume they did a focus group and found that seeing an abundant amount of diversity in the race and gender categories somehow makes us feel better about a world where people are homogeneous in every other way.