By now, your mother is friending you on facebook and silently stalking your every move, waiting to see if you do something or say something that will embarrass the family. Your coworkers already know what you ate for dinner tonight, because you uploaded an image of it while you were out with your wife and sometime tomorrow, in a meeting, someone you barely know will ask you, “How was the Porchetta at Salt of the Earth?”
As your head spins with paranoid delusions of people spying on you during your jaunts around the city, and you have a sudden twinge of alterna-celebrity, realize that you’re living in an age where we have access to almost instant information more redundant, asinine and silly because of two websites (facebook and twitter) that are less than 10 years old.
Also realize that the website that you uploaded the picture of your dinner on, where you play that game with the farm animals, or the exaltation you get when you talk to a friend who you lost contact with in junior high, to realize that you both are doing great and loving life… remember this.
Your life is impacted and forever changed: by Nerds.
No other social group in America has changed the landscape of how we do business (mint.com), live our lives (Iphone), play with our children (Ipad games, Wii), relax (White noise apps on our iphones), eat (http://www.seriouseats.com/), pay our taxes (Turbo Tax) than nerds.
These misfits haven’t always gotten their kudos, or their slaps-on-the-backs, or their atta-boys until recently. It was never “cool” to wax philosophically about Battlestar Galactica, explain to your friends the history of the 6 toed cats that Ernest Hemingway loved, and explain how open source software, ultimately will change the way mobile smart phones take over an industry (Google and Android, I’m calling it now, get cracking.)
Which is why the movie “The Social Network” about the history of Facebook (All 7 years of it.) is so interesting to me.
We’re in a new age, where technology, intelligence and making stuff is the new “IT”. and I don’t mean IT in the Information Technology sense. I mean it in the IT, as in IT’s the new thing.
I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. As someone who’s been a self-declared Nerd since I realized in junior high that my mom still dressed me in rugby shirts, played with my cats, read the encyclodia and did hand drawn calligraphy for fun and read and watched all things sci-fi… I knew at a very early age how geeky I was.
It wasn’t until probably 5 years ago, I realized that not only could I revel in my Nerdery, but I could profit from it, but learning everything I could about subjects and becoming the go-to person for things.
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This movie was very good. I have to address not only the acting but the writing and score of this movie too. All of which were very good. Trent Reznor (Another Nerd) did the sound design and music, which played very nicely into the scenes. Jesse Eisenberg (Hollywood nerd) plays Mark Zuckerberg, who if you don’t know who he is your either Amish, or you live in the center of the earth. Justin Timberlake (A music nerd, who I have to say, IS REALLY A NERD, all you girls out there who think he’s dreamy, he runs like 5 businesses and plays golf like a mad man… anyone who’s into things that require a lot of skill like those things IS STILL A NERD.) plays the inventor of Napster, which was a music app that revolutionized the industry.
The writing in this movie, by Aaron Sorkin (another writer/politico nerd) was top notch. The wit and the banter between the characters was very entertaining to watch. It was nice to see the different sides of the storyline and see how people relate to Mr. Zuckerberg, or moreso can’t relate to him.
I don’t want to say very much about the movie, because it’s new and I don’t want to ruin it for people. I will say though, that if you like to see people who are smart, make smart decisions and then profit from them, than you’ll love this movie. If you’re a Libertarian nerd, than this should be required viewing.
The story follows the beginnings of Facebook, how Mark Zuckerberg came up/ or didn’t come up with the idea and how he created the initial launch of it in a fairly short timeframe. It then follows the meteoric rise/fall/legal hiccups that it entails and ultimately ends with all of us updating our facebook statuses that we went and saw the movie. After which the Sun falls into the Earth, and the proverbial snake eats it’s own tale.
It’s hard to believe that this movie’s even made. It’s almost like watching the creation of the minivan in film format. For something that’s become an almost constant ubiquitous staple in a lot of people’s lives to have a movie made out of it almost seems pointless.
But you then get into the backstory, the actual personality and grit and drive of the main character and his tenacity for business and competition and you understand that this movie isn’t really about a website, it’s about a person who created a website, and the people around him and how he can’t truly relate to the people around him and how he wants to. It’s not as sappy as it sounds, it’s actually a very intellectual approach to the character.
So, this movie was good. If you’re into nerdy stuff, if you’re a web designer, if you blog, if you constantly check your facebook statuses, if you play Farmville, you’ll probably like this movie.
And afterwards, you’ll probably have a newfound appreciation for the passionate, somewhat odd people who make decisions and have rippling effects on the world around you.
P.S.
Hyper New News about Super Nerd Mark Zucker-Nerd Nerding it up with new features on The Facebook.
