The Social Network: Vapor Status

So that's it? According to The Social Network a vindictive wannabe started it all. Facebook is the revenge of a nerd - a cyber-Attila - and we have his ex to thank for it cuz behind every billionaire you know there's some biotch who dumped him. I think I liked the fashion best - call it "pajama-chic" or "slacker-prep"...

I did enjoy the film, but was disappointed there weren't fewer high-school hi-jinx and more juice about the wider Internet context that spawned Facebook. I mean, we were there too, if not at Harvard at least hanging out at BBSes, in chatrooms or clustering around "likes" whether they were your favourite band's website or a particular type of software. It seems that all along we were just hungering for the type of juvenilia that Facebook delivers - the "status", the "friending" and the endless digital flâneurism of surfing other people's profiles that can be so addicting. Don't we know better or is there something about being alone behind a screen that inflames those desires?
I thought Jesse Eisenberg was great in Adventureland, but he was even better this time - something about the "berg" must have given him some voodoo insight. His Mark Zuckerberg was as anti-social as he was awkwardly brilliant. The thing about "the smartest guy in the room," is he knows it and it drives him crazy because with that impatient arrogance comes the gnawing feeling of what he lacks - humility. And without that you have a jerk-off, a smart one, but one who's a mess of insecurities in desperate need of self-awareness, the kind that's able to reject egoism and the vapors that inflate it. Or to put it another way - those little red bubbles at the top of the page.