I have to say, watching this trailer for the first time made me laugh. A lot. It's trying a little too hard to be dramatic if you ask me. "If you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you would've invented Facebook!" Lines like that and "I can't wait to stand over your shoulder and what you write is a check," had me snickering and rolling around on the couch. Who wrote this script?!? Furthermore, I wonder what Zuckerberg is thinking about this onscreen depiction. Watch it here.
Anyway, in all seriousness, the fact that a social media application could have such an impact on our daily lives and culture is pretty amazing, and it probably does warrant being documented on film. Facebook has fundamentally changed how people, and especially young people, connect and develop relationships. Most of us are on Facebook and routinely check it for updates from friends, for event invites, and interesting news posted by those in our networks. Facebook has completely redefined how we look at terms like "poke," "like," and "friends." In fact, when reading the paper this morning I noticed a "Dear Abby" column where a woman was asking for advice on how to deal with an ex-boyfriend from high school that wanted to reconnect with her. The only problem is that he was married with kids and was clearly trying to hide his outreach efforts from his wife. Meanwhile the woman saw on his wife's profile how it said, "happily married to my best friend." Complicated to be sure.
Though Facebook has allowed us to say in touch with acquaintances, it has also caused more problems in our lives. There are now social networking etiquette rules to be aware of, which are constantly evolving with the technology. And Facebook founder Zuckerberg has frequently been in the news regarding the questionable practices of Facebook's ever-changing privacy policies. (Although I'm not going to go into the whole privacy issue debate, Zuckerberg has been learning the hard way that Facebook belongs to its users more than it does to him. If the users don't approve of the changes boycotts ensue.)
While I do find the idea of a Facebook movie comical in some regards, I suppose they had better make a movie about it before another social media application steps in and destroys Facebook's popularity and significance. As the article mentions, movies are a social experience and what is on film does usually prevail in our poplar culture.
So let me pose this question: will you be lining up to see this movie? And more importantly, does this mean a Twitter movie can't be far behind?
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4 comments:
I'll probably see this movie, although I agree that the trailer was laughable. It would seem this movie is taking itself VERY seriously -- which is fitting because I think Facebook sometimes takes itself too seriously. And, as you point out, its users will call it out for doing so.
As concerning as some of the privacy issues are (it took me more than an hour to tweak the site's myriad privacy settings to get the kind of visibility, or lack thereof, that I wanted), it would take a LOT to get me to leave. That's how much Facebook has become part of my life. I joined "The Facebook" in 2004. I was a sophomore in college, and back then, you could see every single profile on the site within an hour.
It soon went from being a time waster to a useful tool. I think of it as a giant address book that my friends update themselves. When I moved to D.C. I used it to reconnect with friends I hadn't spoken to in years. And I once used it to track down sources for a story I was working on.
Facebook has got me. I admit it, I'll never leave. And I'll pay $9 to see the movie, probably.
Well, to answer your question I will definitely not be standing in line to see this movie. Now, maybe if it were showing on HBO or something I would sit down and watch it. There is also another movie trailer that I recall seeing sometime ago and also revolves around facebook. In this film the girl was going around trying to see how she knew all of the people on her facebook friends list. It will be interesting see how popular that film will be, considering most people have over 1,000 facebook friends.
Also, I definitely think that movies like and revolving around social media will start to appear very soon. Maybe a movie about a social media stalker or a twitter romance, the possibilities will be endless, unless until social media dies down.....if it ever will.
Brandee you could be right. Twitter and Facebook movies may take the place of classics like "You've Got Mail," which is actually one of my favorite movies. But whenever that movie is on I laugh to myself as Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan dial up on AOL and anxiously wait to check their email. We've come so far since then that it's hard to imagine a time when we actually got excited about email! Now most of us have to sort out about 1,000 junk emails from our inboxes on a daily basis.
It definitely will be interesting to see how the Facebook movie does both in theaters and later down the road. I would guess, due to the current popularity of Facebook, it will do well in theaters. Unlike "You've Got Mail" though (which, despite the out-dated dial-up AOL service, still remains extremely relevant), will the Facebook movie become outdated as soon as Facebook itself fades and a new social media platform replaces it?
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