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It's the needless destruction that really gets to me. I have a fairly visceral reaction to seeing things that someone put time, effort and scarce resources into making get destroyed for no reason, and Apple's ad hit so many nerves in that respect. It's just a complete waste, and that's before we get into the whole subtext of "tech is going to destroy 'IRL' art forms" that many people got.

How do you know they weren't broken items anyway?

I don’t, but it’s still unpleasant to see.

Not everything has to be perfectly rational.

Irrational outrage and anger isn't a trait to strive for I wouldn't think.

Especially emotional responses.

What baffles me the most is the choice to include human figurines (the bust, the statue, the smiley right at the end). The imagery of human figures getting crushed is going to look disturbing even to the least environmentally conscious viewers.

Most people didn’t find the ad disturbing, so the offensiveness is a relation between you and the content, not the content itself.