Sorkin as an Adjective: A View of The Social Network

I watched The Social Network for the third time recently.

Firstly and most pertinently, that movie is beautiful. I feel as though I understand its purpose more with each subsequent viewing. The first time I saw the movie, I enjoyed it, thought it was funny and poignant and scathing and engaging, but I was ultimately unsure why it was written. To paint Mark Zuckerberg as a douche? To expose the kind of seedy aspects of Facebook's creation?

The latter seems more likely. Aaron Sorkin's writing history has been one of exposure. A Few Good Men exposed dark military secrets. Sportsnight and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip were startling views behind the scenes of struggling television programs. The West Wing was the closed doors inner workings of politics. Considered in that vein, The Social Network becomes a movie about the man-behind-the-curtain of Facebook.

Still, despite that, I don't know if that's the purpose of The Social Network.

Hit the break for more.

Monologues and Dialogs in Shakespeare and Facebook

There are times I think I like reading Shakespeare more than I like seeing it performed. Part of that is language, of course. Fired at you by modern performers, all quick-witted like they actually know what they're saying, it's easy to get lost in the archaic language. The man's references and double entendres were intelligent, but without the benefit of having his version of English being as clear to me as my own, I won't notice them unless I have the time to read the words on my own. Some of Shakespeare's best double entendres actually need research, such as the title of one play, "Much Ado About Nothing," that seems innocuous until you realize that "Nothing" was a Elizabethan slang term for sex.

The Reality of the Digital Experience

All the work I do is on computers.

That's not that strange, in this year, in this decade, in this millennium. A lot of jobs require people to spend nearly all of their time on computers in one way or another. And it's not that strange on a personal level, either. With all of the handy, technologically advanced communication methods that computers offer us, more and more people interact socially over their computers.

The Long-Term Effects of Social Networking's Ubiquity

I like talking to people I disagree with.

Really, I do.

If you pay attention to my Shameless Self-Promotion series, you know that I do some writing as a critic, and I think part of my attraction to dissenting opinion is rooted in that critical mindset. If I can find another person who can give me a reasoned argument to a side of an argument I happen to disagree with, I find that not only impressive but respectable. Even though I have an opposing mindset to this person, the spirit behind our mindsets is the same. We've both come to our ideas from a place of intense thought, one that's carefully weighed the arguments for both sides.