Mark Zuckerberg

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Mark Zuckerberg’s Ex-Girlfriend Is Also A Real Piece Of Work

February 18, 2011 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

"He NEVER friended me on Facebook." (Image by Raphaël Labbé.)

The opening scene of The Social Network, David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin’s brilliant takedown of Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, features a momentous scene in which the aspiring tech titan is dumped by his girlfriend, Erica Albright, which leads him to begin experimenting with interactivty on the Internet. In the scene, Zuckerberg is presented as a prick and Albright as wronged, but the site Albright has started (it would seem to be real) isn’t exactly short on hubris. On the site, she describes herself as “Yes the Erica Albright who was dating Mark Zuckerberg the founder of the Social Networking website Facebook.” She mentions her long-ago beau and Facebook repeatedly. Well, milk it for all you can, Erica.

One interesting aspect of her posts is that she confirms that plenty of what happens in the movie is fiction, created wholecloth by Sorkin for his remarkably airtight script. The narrative arc of a movie has its demands, and fealty to facts has to be sacrificed. But is it ethical to fictionalize aspects of real people’s lives, especially when those people are alive and young and have most of their futures ahead of them? Zuckerberg took great liberties to achieve what he wanted, but Fincher and Sorkin also took some in making what is the best American film of the year. An excerpt from Albright’s blog:

“I went and saw the movie last night. Kind of crazy that someone is actually playing me in a movie! The movie definitely brought back some great memories….it made me miss my college years that’s for sure! (I feel soooo old) lol (: — I guess you could say the movie is ‘based on a true story’ but there are many scenarios that were soooo made up by Hollywood! As far as the two scenes I’m in, the first one is fairly accurate, we did ‘break-up’ over dinner, I do remember him ripping on my school (that wasn’t the first time)…but the second scene of me at dinner with my friends blowing Mark off never happened. (also he NEVER friended me on Facebook) lol! (:”

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“Facebook Is A Simple System For The Masses That Do Not Really Care About Technology”

January 14, 2011 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

"It's really AOL with a different layout." (Image by Raphaël Labbé.)

I suppose I should be losing sleep over Facebook’s questionable practices regarding privacy, but I’m not. What really bothers me about Mark Zuckerberg’s toy is how utterly prosaic a product it is. Zuckerberg hasn’t come up with anything great or original; his chief accomplishments are recognizing a niche in the market and having the brass to not sell the company to a big media conglomerate that would have bungled the whole thing. Facebook isn’t a perfect design like the iPod but a creeping mediocrity with some utility. It’s a global high school yearbook, and its success largely stems from how uninventive it is. John C. Dvorak explains further in his new PCmag.com article, “Why I Don’t Use Facebook.” (Thanks Reddit.) An excerpt:

“Which begs the question as to why anyone would use Facebook when it is essentially AOL done right? The fastest growing group on Facebook are people in their 70’s. Oldsters are flocking to Facebook the way they once did with AOL. Facebook is a simple system for the masses that do not really care about technology and do not want to learn anything new except something easy like Facebook.

Whenever someone tells me to check out something on Facebook, I recall the heyday of AOL with its keywords. ‘Go to the Internet at www.blah.com or AOL keyword: blah. This was a common comment on the nightly news or in magazines. The AOL keyword is replaced by the Facebook page name.

There is no reason for anyone with any chops online to be remotely involved with Facebook, except to peruse it for lost relatives. So, next time you log on, remember it’s really AOL with a different layout.

Welcome to the past.”

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“How Shall The New Environment Be Programmed Now That We Have Become So Involved With Each Other?”

December 17, 2010 in Books, Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Quentin Fiore, the graphic designer who created the book's amazing look, is now 90.

Facebook wunderkind Mark Zuckerberg being named Time magazine’s Person of the Year made me recall an ominous passage from early in The Medium Is The Massage: An Inventory of Effects, from 1967. Not that I think that things are quite this dire, but Marshall McLuhan was pretty prophetic here. An excerpt:

“How much do you make? Have you ever contemplated suicide? Are you now or have you ever been…? I have here before me…Electrical information devices for universal, tyrannical womb-to-tomb surveillance are causing a very serious dilemma between our claim to privacy and the community’s need to know. The older, traditional ideas of private, isolated thoughts and actions–the patterns of mechanistic technologies–are very seriously threatened by new methods of instantaneous electric information retrieval by the electrically computerized dossier bank–that one big gossip column that is unforgiving, unforgetful and from which there is no redemption, no erasure of early ‘mistakes.’ We have already reached a point where remedial control, born out of knowledge of media and their total effects on all of us, must be exerted. How shall the new environment be programmed now that we have become so involved with each other, now that all of us have become the unwitting work force for social change? What’s that buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzing?”

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