"I cashed my check. I'm ready to go." - Janet Jackson, Escapade
First, the applause. At the end of the film during the updates about the people featured, the crowd clapped in appreciation. I was surprised because, to me, this isn't portrayed as a story of triumph but Steve Woolf tumbled something that makes sense to me:
Many older people will watch the movie, which was No. 1 at the box office last weekend, and see a cautionary tale about a callous young man who betrays friends, partners and principles as he hacks his way to lucre and fame. But many in the generation who grew up in a world that Mr. Zuckerberg helped invent will applaud someone who saw his chance and seized it with both hands, mostly by placing them on the keyboard and coding something that no one else had.
I'm not sure if it's generational but I do think that the crowd gets something about Zuckerberg and Parker in spite of the movie not because of it—they simply refuse to work and play by your rules.
This leads me to my second note, how geeks work. The movie crackles with energy but, for me, the most exciting scenes were the moments that showcased how work came together. That scene early on when Eisenberg's Zuck puts together facesmash by hacking house websites; how he hires his Summer interns (clue: it involves a drinking game and an audience); our first glimpses of Facebook's open space offices.
If there's anything that's real in this dramatization about privilege and access and friendship and business, it's this—we work differently today. We're not really interested in doing things the way previous generations have done it.
I was reminded of how infectious and exciting the idea of working differently is when I got home from the movie and saw a tweet about facebook's analog lab*
Digital Natives aren't just different in the digital realm. They're breaking your analog conventions, too.
*I love #newtwitter, don't you?
