I'm usually not a fan of award shows. However, I tuned into the Oscars tonight for one reason - to see how The Social Network does. Like it or not, Facebook has revolutionized the way that people communicate. I've been integrated in social networking since Friendster (I skipped MySpace and its horrible site design), but Facebook has taken the original idea of social networking and ran with it. I don't go a day without visiting a website that has Facebook integration so that I can see what articles my friends have liked. It's a huge help in filtering out the immense amounts of content that I sift through as a tech nerd living in 2011.
I was initially concerned with the idea of the film - wouldn't it just be about a bunch of college kids coding on a diet of pizza and Mountain Dew? My concerns were alleviated a bit after reading Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture by David Kushner. This book covered the creation of id software by John Carmack (one of the true geniuses of our time and John Romero. It kept my interest by focusing on their personality and why they were the perfect people to channel the tech and gaming industry forward. I hoped that The Social Network would take this same approach.
David Fincher did a great job with the movie by focusing the movie on something that everyone can relate to - get screwed over. This made a film about coding immediately accessible to people that don't understand what Facebook is or how it has changed our world. Even thought it didn't win Best Picture, The Social Network is a fabulous movie that should be seen by anyone who has used Facebook. Yes, even my mother, who has probably used the site for just a few minutes. You're not off the hook mom!
