There are all sorts of writers. Mark Zuckerberg writing code in his dorm room for Facemash to get back at a girlfriend who dumped him as he hacks his way through Harvard's computers and makes mush of their security and nearly gets thrown out of school and then he settles down to really kick it into high gear with the creation of Facebook. There are others with similar ideas but Zuckerberg is the only one who can write the code or he is the only one who does and so he becomes Facebook and the rest try and get their piece but miss the main thrust of Zuckerberg's vision which is a world where people can broadcast themselves into cyberspace in the ultimate social club.
What moves underneath this very cool movie The Social Network is the antithesis of whats happening in our world where intellectuals are seen as enemies of the state and being smart is way down on the totem pole. Not so in Zuckerberg land and we follow him through Harvard as he creates his billion dollar empire but more we see that there is a world where the people who will rule the world are hard at work becoming smarter and smarter as they busily write their code. He that writes the code in the early years of the Internet was truly king.
Nothing new here. Real originality stands out among half baked ideas and as Mark Zuckerberg pursues his vision we see a brilliant mind at work that is intent on one thing and one thing only and that is to make the world his. There is this movement underneath the movie that sneaks up on you as you watch and sort of bites you somewhere in the middle and that is this: that there are people who don't give a damn about the random ness of our popular culture because they are moving in a power chord that does not run on our highway and they are busily becoming smarter and smarter while the rest of the world is trying to follow the crude shenanigans of the Sarah Palins.
The real movers and shakers made sure they made it into the best schools and moved with the best people and if there is one thing Zuckerberg and his friends want to be is the very best in a world of the very best. This type of intensity has fallen beneath our national consciousness and papered over with the faux populism of the everyman. Watching The Social Network you realize we have all been watching television while Zuckerberg was writing code to change the world as we know it. You just wish someone had told you.
http://www.billhazelgrove.com/
Rocket Man will be out in January
