Movie Review: The Social Network

If there's any question that 'The Social Network' is written by Aaron Sorkin, it's decidedly answered in the first scene: Witty, biting, quick, and multi-layered, the conversation that supposedly set off the events that led to Facebook is the perfect introduction to the tone of 'The Social Network.'

There are few people who know how accurate this movie is, and I'm not sure it matters. It's a classic story: Man climbs ladder, forgets how he got there. It's left blessedly open-ended, and, years in the past. So, really, Mark Zuckerberg - Facebook founder/possible backstabber extraordinaire)'s life and public perception is still in his control (As he - or his PR folks at least - clearly know, judging by the $100 million donation he made to the Newark Public School System the day of the film's release.).

As Zuckerberg, Jesse Eisenberg exudes cocky apathy, with both the innocence and scowl perfected in 'Adventureland' and 'The Squid and the Whale,' (put to far better use here). As the scorned CFO/Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, Andrew Garfield - who's about to blow up, you heard it here, not at all first - makes the most of favorable treatment (and a throwaway side storyline about a crazy girlfriend), and does a mindblowingly perfect Brazilian accent. I found myself falling a little bit in love with him, despite the vague similarity to Roger Federer (It's in the eyebrows.) (Speaking of: While all the featured characters could probably find something to complain about in their depictions, they should at least be grateful they got significant attractiveness upgrades.)

I, for one, find it intriguing that 'The Social Network' even got made. Dangerously current, it's written by a politics-focused TV scribe and stars unproven actors. In the 90s, it could have been a TV movie starring someone from 'Saved by the Bell: The New Class.' But it did get made, and it's damn good.

Nearly everything about this movie is done well, but the thing that I enjoyed the most was its - for lack of a way better term - modernity. I felt relevant while watching the movie, like I understood what was going on, in a more real way than I get with anything else I consume. And, since this is what Facebook gave us as a culture, it makes sense.

8 1/2 Twix bars!

My life is a lie

In this world of Facebook status updates and Twitter-led microblogging (and, hey!, full length blogging too), it's easy to feel like everyone's always all up in your business. But, lately, real life has gotten in the way of this for me.

In March, Trevor and I decided to apply for staff positions at the camp in San Diego County where we met and got married. This set off a chain of events – this wasn't just a decision to think about changing jobs; if accepted, we would be moving across country. It's beyond ironic that with this going on in our lives, not once could I gather opinions, vent or share excitement on Facebook and Twitter. These are communities that know what I'm eating, drinking and reading on a minute to minute basis, but actual life decisions are off limits for discussion?

This begs the question: Was this really off limits? Should I have been perfectly comfortable sharing every step of the process with friends, strangers and co-workers alike? Is this where the world of social media is leading us - this is my life, accept it?Already, most of us have a filter through which we share information online, but is that filter getting thinner? How long before all of us (not just the attention starved) are posting:

• Off to meet my mistress
• I can't wait to quit this job
  
• Hooking up with a co-worker
• I'm thinking about breaking up with my girlfriend
• Proposing tonight!

How involved you want the anonymous interweb to be in your life is a personal decision. Maybe it’s just the marketer in me, but I think that those of us who choose to participate in social networking have essentially created our own brands. And just like major organizations have to carefully cultivate their brands – allowing for evolution, while also keeping them under tight control – so do we. Unlike any generation before us, we are creating records of ourselves that will be incredibly easy to access for years to come (even when we un-tag photos of ourselves, and eventually delete our profiles, highlights can be preserved on any number of websites) – so it’s essential that we be conscious of what we’re putting out there now. While it was hard for me at first to deal with my Dad being on Facebook, I now think about it this way: If I’m not okay with my Dad seeing it now, I probably won’t be okay with my kids seeing it in 15 years. That’s my own personal Brand Test.

Another, more current, Personal Brand Test is: Do I want my boss to see this? And that’s the question I was answering by leaving the job/move decisions off my social networks. Yes, I would have preferred to give notice at my current job 3 months ago, but that’s just not practical – why pay to keep someone around when they have no future at this company? I also could have maintained my social media brand as a personal space only, without connecting to anyone I’m involved with professionally. It’s a feasible alternative that many people use, but for me, someone who works in marketing, is interested in communities, and would like to use social media in her career, it doesn’t make sense to leave professional connections out of my social network.

So the solution was to just keep it all a secret (and be near-paranoid about what was getting posted on my Facebook wall). Without using social media, we dealt in traditional ways – you know, finding condo tenants through Craigslist and spreading the news via email. But now it’s all out there (hey! We got the jobs! Moving in August!), and not only can I start sharing this new part of my life with all of y’all, I can also start getting input from the smart people who surround me virtually each day on a whole bunch of decisions. Let’s make up for lost time:

• What are the three things I need to make SURE I’ve done in Boston before I move?
• How should we prepare our poor cat for a cross-country road trip?
• Do you know anyone who needs their car moved from New England to the West Coast in August?
• And while we’re at it: Have you had a circumstance where you struggled with the line between your internet life and your real life? How have you dealt?

I am? Thanks!

Thanks largely to the recommendation of Rainn Wilson (@rainnwilson), I have been using Blip.FM lately - it's an online music service where you get to be your own DJ, create playlists, listen to others', etc. I am extremely pleased with the DJ name that I chose for myself, because everytime I go to play a new song (or "Blip" it, as it were), I get a nice little confidence boost. Please click the below image to enlarge.


Thank heavens I didn't just choose "agrahamwilcox" as my username!

Mashups are awesome.

Last night, Trevor said to me, “Remember when Michael ran over Meredith with her car and Creed listed all the pain killers she might be on?”. Because we had just finished watching ‘Lost’, the first thing that flashed to mind was “What? Who’s Meredith? I don’t remember that episode! Why am I so incapable of keeping track of everything that happens on that damn show??”. He was actually speaking, of course, of ‘The Office’ episode where Steve Carell’s Michael Scott hits one of his employees with his car in the parking lot.

Though initially confusing, this gave me an awesome idea for someone with time on their hands and Final Cut Pro on their computer. Please create a mashup where plot lines jump from 1 television series to another according to character name.

Let’s say we start with Michael from ‘Lost’ – the perfect scene would be when he gets in his car and starts speeding towards a wall. Before he hits the wall, we cut to Michael from ‘The Office’ announcing that he hit Meredith with his car. Now we’re in ‘Office’ land and the possibilities are almost endless:

Michael from The Office - Kevin from The Office - Kevin from Wonder Years - Jack from The Wonder Years - Jack from 30 Rock - Jack from Lost - Rose from Lost - Rose from Privileged - Lily from Privileged - Lily from How I Met Your Mother - Lily from Gossip Girl - Lily from Pushing Daisies - Chuck from Pushing Daisies - Chuck from Chuck - Chuck from Gossip Girl - Nate from Gossip Girl - Nate from Six Feet Under - Keith from Six Feet Under - Keith from Veronica Mars - Logan from Veronica Mars - Logan from Gilmore Girls - Luke – From Gilmore Girls - Luke from The OC - Ryan from The OC - Ryan from The Office…

From there, you could keep going (I didn’t even get to the Barney from How I Met Your Mother / Barney the Dinosaur connection!), or you are back at the beginning. It’s like a bizarre version of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon – and it might become my new obsession.


Please note that today I have been having massive computer issues here at work – it appears I contracted some kind of virus. So, while I’ve been working on this entry – which clearly required a significant amount of time searching for and then playing around with images – I have been in a constant state of panic that the IT guy would actually respond to my plea for help and then walk in: “Yeah, it's the weirdest thing - it must be one of the side effects of the virus. Pictures of the cast of Gossip Girl just keep popping up!”

Social Media Experiment, Parts 1 & 2

Let’s start small. First, I’ll be seeing what application options Google has, so membership to one site is all that's required of you (If you are a Gmail or Blogspot user, or a Google account holder, you're all set. If you're none of the above, it's easy and completely painless to link your existing email account to a Google account, so you can use Google apps like Google Docs. You're not getting a new email address or anything, just a whole new world of Google-invented opportunities.)

In order to install any number of Google Social Media apps, the first thing I needed was the Google FriendConnect app you see at the right. It appears that everything else runs through it. You can become a “member” of my friend network, and then experiment with any of the apps I add going forward.

App #1 I am especially excited about – it's an interactive playlist creator, through iLike. I’ve started a playlist of some of my favorite songs of the moment, which you can listen to on your own, or to which you can add your own favorites. Why is this a cool social networking option? I could also embed an individual playlist in one particular entry, and people could submit their own choices for, say, Song of the Year 2008 or Best Songs to Workout to. Cool, right?

Try it out, let me know what you think.

(Also, I think Google should pay me for the number of times I namedropped them in this post.)

Up and coming

Hello loyal blog readers & thank you for your patronage,

This blog was my first real step into the Web 2.0 waters, after years as an event marketer telling people to pay a lot of money to attend conferences and become fully trained to navigate said waters. Choose your own adventure time: If you find yourself asking, “What does she mean, Web 2.0?” read on. To skip to the good stuff, please go to Paragraph 3.

Web 2.0 used to really mean something, but now it’s something that people like me throw around to try and prove that they know what they’re talking about when it comes to the internet and cutting-edge technology. These days it's essentially a euphemism for social networking. Think about it this way: When the internet first started, it was an email platform and a destination for information. Now, the internet is completely different (as pioneered by things like Wikipedia and constantly being shaped by things like Twitter) – and is all about the two-way exchange of information. It no longer just tells you things; you use it to say things as well – and not just to people you know via email and IM – to the world at large with status updates and blogs and Wikipedia entries. So that's what social networking & Web 2.0 boil down to: How we interact with the world at large via the internet (and social media just means the platforms on which we socially network). Got it?

For me, this blog has been a great intro to what social networking can really be about beyond Facebook (Yes, you can now find me on Twitter, BrazenCareerist.com, LinkedIn and much more). I've realized it's something I’m interested in learning and doing a lot more around (maybe even – yikes – as a career!), so I’m making a full-blown effort to be on the bleeding-edge of this stuff.

With that in mind, you’ll notice some changes round about these parts as I try some things out. On the right toolbar I’ve added three new boxes – they start with the heading Social Media Experiments of the Week, and that’s just what they are (though, week might be a bit generous): Forays into new ways to interact, engage and participate on the internet. Some of the new features will be an attempt to drive more traffic to this blog, some I’m hoping will make it a more interactive, fun experience for you existing readers, and some are just kind of neat. I will make every attempt to streamline where these applications are coming from, so you’re not constantly being asked to join new sites or add new functionality. And when I find things that work or really don’t – you can bet I’ll be talking about it. So, please tell me what you think – What you use, what you’ve tried, what you love and what you hate. That is what social networking is all about after all.

Hoping not to drown in Web 2.0 waters,
Ashley