Had The Social Network been about the “anomie” of the cyber-socialized, it
might have warranted its brow-raising critical acclaim (see metacritic). But
instead the film tells the rather less interesting but more sensational story of
elitist, entitled children squabbling over power and money.

That this unredeeming tale of supersized greed is compelling is a testament to
Sorkin’s barrage of clever dialogue, so fast-paced that one scarcely has time to
reflect on the fact that one is watching a paean to latter-day robber barons.

The film’s self-conscious the-geek-shall-inherit-the-earth message is as
close as it ever gets to a penetrating social observation, but there’s plenty of
soap opera serving as a stand-in. Gorgeous groupies and rock-star
recklessness are thrown in to distract the viewer, and unfortunately the
filmmakers as well, from the fact that there is no there there.

The cultural landscape has been forever changed by the economic meltdown of
2008. The very idea that one could make a movie about the most successful
entrepreneurs of our time, and not even acknowledge this change is curious,
and raises the suspicion that both Sorkin and Fincher are personally invested in
the “classless society” myth. That disconnect is the fatal crack in the shiny
veneer of this work, and suggests to me for the first time, that Sorkin may have
passed his sell-by date.

My first thought was,“why on earth does a movie review appear on a political forum”. But, after reflection I think that this is not a movie about Facebook per se but about the generation that spends eternal hours in front of a computer screen trying to find personal relationships in an impersonal and anonymous medium. Perhaps this democracy is in such a sorry state precisely because this generation spurns reality and its duty to themsleves and the nation.

No doubt no mention is made in this fake, slice of faux history that this Zuckerberg character was recruited by the CIA while at Harvard since it’s well-known that the Ivy League is prime recruiting ground for amoral types.

jeff - “I thought the 80’s were the “Me Decade”... “

this is the “BRAND-new Me” or “Alt ME” decade

felicity - “culheath - your comment makes me ask the question:
Does the Facebook user get the full impact of body
language, which most agree conveys even more than the spoken word?  (I’m loathe to talk on the phone
because I can’t ‘see’ the other person.)

If not, would that support your ‘data pointalism’
argument?”

Obviously, it lacks the vital info of body language and that’s part of it to be sure…

Arron Sorkin stated: “Social networks are to socializing what Reality TV is to reality.”

Parallel: Consider what happens to the concept of the value of money as a means of commodity exchange once the money itself is considered a commodity. What happens to the value? Facebook, et al, is social inflation.

RayLan- “I de-activated my facebook account - now to figure out how to delete it.”

http://www.wikihow.com/Permanently-Delete-a-Facebook-Account

culheath - your comment makes me ask the question: 
Does the Facebook user get the full impact of body
language, which most agree conveys even more than the
spoken word?  (I’m loathe to talk on the phone
because I can’t ‘see’ the other person.)

If not, would that support your ‘data pointalism’
argument?

(It seems that we’re going on a lot on the Facebook
subject, but I think since its usage is so prevalent
it might be a good idea to speculate on its impact on
us - how we think, or don’t think, how we relate to
others, or don’t relate, what we think we know, but
don’t really know…)

forgot to mention - I de-activated my facebook account - now to figure out how to delete it.

The music which pulsed wildly throughout like a crack addict’s nerves, almost drowning out the rapid-fire dialogue in every scene which Zuckerberg curtly played and hacked every person and opportunity, defined the energy of this movie.
It was demonic and frightening. We have long ago dismissed the sci-fi prophecies of Frankenstien machines taking over the world. They have taken us over. They have unleashed the flood of our basest passions, this time not with primitive orgies, but with sophistication and genius - we have progressed to the such a time when anybody can destroy anybody with a keystroke.

David is absolutely correct. But I sure felt the presence of the poor young man from Rutgers who was murdered via the internet. And I am sure that many in the audience felt the same thing.
Although the film had first class snap and crackle I felt, well, soiled afterward. I didn’t want to know any of those people. Funny, the only people I liked were the lawyers around the table. Is that how bad it is when I like the lawyers?

felicity - True, if by ‘read’ you mean ‘scanned’.
I see a parallel expressed by the brevity and conciseness of poetry compared to prose. The same goes for math; F=ma or E=mc2 contain huge and powerful amounts of information.

I feel we are in an era of ‘data pointalism’ where social media like Facebook while claiming to centralize individual data are actually making social organization less coherent via the original proposition I made in the first post. Users are branding themselves without control over the gestalt or larger overall picture of what their individual data points paint.

culheath - it has also been suggested that we’re
getting a plethora of date at the same time as we’re
getting/gaining no knowledge -  sort of like reading an
entire book written in a language foreign to us and at
the end the content of the book is equally foreign to
us.  But we have ‘read’ the book, haven’t we?

@ehrenstein: http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/college_freshman_commits_suicide_over_sex_video_20100929/

Anyway, truthdig is not perfect, but it still has good stuff

“Are we experiencing them completely or are we having
some sort of a half-ass, incomplete, dilettantish
dabbling experience of them, not to mention what else
we’re doing at the same time?”

The more pieces of information there are, the less information each piece will carry.

Speaking of the internet—

http://fablog.ehrensteinland.com/2010/09/30/fait-diver-murder-by-twitter/

http://fablog.ehrensteinland.com/2010/10/02/fait-diver-they-sure-are-blue/

Why am I not surprised that Truthdig has made no mention of this crime?

Speaking as a gay man of 63 years of age nothing is more insulting than straight liberal indifference.

Haven’t seen the film.  Don’t have the gadget? to
pick up on Facebook.  What I do have is the
experience of watching my kids, their kids, young and
old strangers, staring at a little gadget with
seemingly intense concentration - while carrying on
conversations, studying, watching the tube, walking
down the street - in other words in just about any
situation.

I call this multi-tasking on steroids.  Got to wonder
if the truism, one-size-fits-all-and-doesn’t-fit-
anyone-very-well, would also apply to what we’re
getting out of our conversations, studying, tube
watching… while our noses are buried in the gadget
at hand.

Are we experiencing them completely or are we having
some sort of a half-ass, incomplete, dilettantish
dabbling experience of them, not to mention what else
we’re doing at the same time.