There is a wide backlash from new media professionals about The Social Network. Jose Antonio Vargas says that the movie shows how much Hollywood doesn't understand Silicon Valley. Jeff Jarvis thinks it vilifies nerds and is the new "anti-geek movie." People who want absolute allegiance to the "truth" of Facebook's founding are offended by the dramatization of it all, although nobody actually knows the truth.
After seeing the movie last night, I take those criticisms to heart. But I didn't enjoy the movie for any of those points. IMHO, the movie speaks to this generation's definition of the new media industry more than anything else.
The Social Network is about social upheaval in the digital age. It's about the ability of a new media class to deconstruct centuries worth of privilege and access that would've won in every other generation but now.
The Winkelvoss twins had an idea. But they didn't have the intellectual capacity to execute that idea. They fell back on the assumption they can just buy off a "code monkey" with the trappings of the social structure that has defined paths to power since social structures existed.
In the new media age, the communications industry will be defined by people who not only have an idea, but the ability to execute them. In the world of code, democratized media production through video equipment and photoshop, the ones who have both ideas and skill sets will always trump the ones who have just one or the other.
Mark Zuckerberg is a visionary and a coder. The Winklevoss twins? They're just wannabe middle men. That's what makes Zuckerberg so dangerous to the established media industry - an industry full of old middle men who don't have a clue on how to execute the ideas they talk about. The ability of a guy with ideas who can translate them through code is why he can make Facemash in a night while drunk - while the Winklevoss twins wait cluelessly for over a month for any word from him. It's the ability to have an idea, say it, execute it immediately, and change the way we think - big or small.
It's why the Columbia School of Journalism is teaching the next journalists how to use flipcams, photoshop, flash and coding. It's why the ambitious ones in this new generation don't just have an idea and say "OK I got an idea, but I'm too lazy to learn how to execute it." They know they have to do both, or else they're completely left behind.
As for the whole "social media was created by socially awkward people who couldn't make friends in real life" theme, who cares? Even if that's true, how does it affect the way we use social media now? Almost 10 years later, do the first generation of political bloggers still define politics online today? No. Because everyone's online now. The 500 million people who use Facebook everyday define the way it works - not the ones who created it. It's a great story, but it's a story.
At the end of the day, the movie captures the vernacular of the digital native generation. It's how we talk. It's how we think. It captures of the zeitgeist of our lives today. If this decade is the Facebook decade, then this is the movie of the decade.
Follow Frank Chi on Twitter: www.twitter.com/FrankChi
http://www.prlog.org/10953090-san-diego-man-anointed-first-poet-laureate-of-facebook.html
Wait, so a rich white guy gets richer and you think it's slashing privilege? Consider the child that does not have access to regular technology - they will be completely isolated when they enter the working world/college. New media is great if you have regular access to it. The problem is there are tons of kids (mostly non-white and in poverty) who barley have access to computers. We are creating a new underclass. Privilege is getting worse. Imagine when they go out into the workforce and don't know how work a basic word processor. Imagine when the boss talks about exchanging Facebooks or emails. Imagine how left behind they already are.
Zuckerberg was never middle class. He went to a 40,000 a year high school, his parents were working in psychiatry and dentistry, he lived in an area where the median wage was 100,000. 61% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.
This is just another film about the rich getting richer, nothing groundbreaking about it.
men."
What a strange point of view from the author of this piece. So, Zuckerberg is a visionary, while the Winklevoss twins are middlemen even though they came up with the idea. Though Zuckerberg is a great coder, at the time he met the twins, his best idea was Facemash. There's no guarantee that Zuckerberg will have come up with Facebook if he didn't meet the Winklevoss twins.
"The Winkelvoss twins had an idea. But they didn't have the intellectual capacity to execute that idea. They fell back on the assumption they can just buy off a "code monkey"......."
They weren't buying a "code monkey", they were trying to pay a coder for his services. But the coder saw a great idea, and had no qualms claiming it for himself. Few people with an idea actually have the technical capacity to implement that idea. And most coders will have nothing to do if others didn't come up with the ideas they work on.
Finally, Mark Zuckerberg should thank his luck that the guys he cheated or stole ideas from are from the same upper-class he despised - they naively believe the justice system is the only place they can find justice. Things will definitely have gone a different way if he had messed with guys who were street-smart, and who see a thief for what he is.
http://slumwords.wordpress.com/2010/10/02/for-the-toofaced-crowd/
I think there's also the novelty factor. It's cool, it's new, it's hip, it's now, it's the New Thing. Until the next New Thing. What goes up, must come down, and same goes for popularity. Who still has a Rubik's Cube? Hardly anyone. But, at the time, people HAD to have one. A fad, a trend, the New Thing.
Facebook is neat, lets you play games, lets you send messages, lets you chat. But, is it 'all that'? Can any website be all things, to all people? Still, 500 million users IS impressive. The idea that there's 500 million computer users(probably more) is staggering. Facebook wouldn't be anything without an operating system, really it's a web page. The true 'magic' is that computer use and ownership have proliferated beyond anyone's wildest dreams. And Bill Gates didn't think it would catch on...(seriously)
The undeserved winnings and theft attempts by the “money men” who try and buy intellectual property as if they “create” when they “take”.
And the crude Crew Oarsmen who believe they can employ genius and then own the soul of the genius Himself, Boo….
Kudos to Justin Timberlake who effortlessly portrays Sean Parker, the Gadfly creator and leeach who created Napster, I do not mean to deny the pivotal role Sean played in the “sparking” of Mark Zuckerberg, getting him out of the dull and boorish Harvard, and out to the silicon valley Heaven, I just mean Justin Timberlake made “Seedy opportunist” look easy.
Brett Bringardner
Founder
LibriLoop.com (beta)
http://kaffegeek.wordpress.com/2010/10/03/the-social-network/