Saw The Social network last night. The fact that the events that caused Mark Zuckerberg to be the world's youngest billionaire were set in motion by drunken, angry blogging aside, I really enjoyed it. As I quoted to my dear friend Fen after the movie: "Huh... that didn't suck. It actually... really didn't suck." There are a fair few lessons in that film that we can all take to heart.
1) No project is too big if you're passionate and willing to put the work in. I know this sounds like "reach for the stars" or something similarly hippie bullshit, but it's really closer to "fuck all those who tell you that you can't." If you have an idea and you want to make it big, just tell every naysayer to fuck off until you're rich.
2) Read the fine print. Eduardo Saverin got well and truly shafted, both in the film and in real life, because he didn't read the fine print of a contract he signed. How you can sue someone after the events described in a contract that you signed come to pass is a bit of a mystery to me, but it doesn't take away from the fact that it could have all been avoided if he had read the writing at the bottom.
3) Remember who your useful friends are. Sean Parker may have been charismatic person, but he was ultimately an unreliable, impulsive idealist who brought out conflict in Zuckerberg and Saverin. There's nothing wrong with idealism, but the paranoid rantings of a coke-head getting caught with underage girls probably doesn't help the company.
4) If ever you're bored, or a chick breaks up with you, or you're drunk, or whatever, start a blog. There is absolutely nothing bad that can come out of ranting impulsively on a permanent medium.
All wonderful lessons that we can apply to our own lives, but the biggest lesson, without a single drop of doubt in my mind, doesn't come from the film, but the people that watch it and then say stuff like "woooooooooow, it really changes the way you look at facebook." Uuuuhh... does it? It was invented as a platform to easily communicate with people you'd only just met, be able to recognise if someone was available, interested or taken and to trawl for booty. That's really it. If you're using it for any more than that, maybe we should have a talk, because you're clearly doing it wrong.
I feel no attachment to facebook beyond convenience. I don't hate the folks I have on there (maybe "friends" is a bit rich, but whatever) and it's a great way to share inane crap. The ease and efficiency of setting up an event and just inviting all the douches you want there without the use of a telephone is great, saves me precious seconds that I could use to get angry. However, if you are one of those people who feel that they couldn't live without facebook (probably the same people that said that about their mobile phones in high school), you've taken it a step to far. It's there to streamline life, not enrich it. It's meant to close the gaps between socialising, not replace it. If social networking was a drug, you'd all be hopeless junkies on the street because you couldn't tell the difference between use and abuse.
If you're shocked that facebook was set up as a ploy to ensnare users so the founders could create big bucks from advertising, grow a brain. EVERYTHING is exactly what I just described. I wouldn't be surprised if advertising executives were clamouring to fellate Mr. Zuckerberg for the rights to advertise on the site. It's so brilliant I wish I'd learned how to program. To everyone who feels an emotional attachment to a virtual pin-up board that only your friends can see, you're an idiot. A really lame idiot at that. Which brings me to lesson number five:
In the movie of life, you aren't the main character by sitting on facebook sending out a status along the lines of "Samantha Dipshit is a little hungry, KFC time wooo!" You're that extra who's on screen for about 3 seconds that no-one noticed. Take a lesson from the bald guy at Harvard in the movie; people are inventing shit all the time. Just think up a new big project. Maybe you're current big project is a whiny blog. But that's OK! Don't fret, but don't rest on your laurels. Keep thinking and imagining and trying new ideas and see what happens. You might die aged 52 working at a supermarket. Or you might become a billionaire. Whatever works. Wait, shit, that did become "reach for the stars." Fuck it, it doesn't matter, watch The Social Network, absorb its wisdom.
Well done dicknose, you completely missed the point of the movie AND unironically told people to be different and inventive... by blogging it.
ReplyDeleteWell, I don't know about missing the point, but like the last paragraph says, it doesn't matter what your project is as long as you have the courage to work at it and try and get better. I'd love to read some of your work, dicknose.
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