Fb
I've been spending quite some time on facebook these days, and have discovered/learnt numerous things. The very first thing - which is the most obvious as well - is that it's so much better than orkut, which I used as my primary social networking site till now. The interface is so much better, easy to understand and use, and easy on the eyes as well. All the people who matter to me - well, almost all - have moved on to fb (or twitter, but more on that later).
But, for all its awesomeness, fb does have its own share of issues. The most important of them is the issue of privacy. As anyone who's been on this site for a while will testify, the privacy settings are pretty cryptic. And in saying that I'm actually being generous! Setting proper safety settings on fb is as tough as its important (take your sweet pick!); and I could find my cuppa, with help from this post, after devoting a considerable amount of time to the stuff.
The most important safety feature on fb is that of lists. Basically, what it means is that you can 'tag' your friends as per your wish, and allow only specific people - a list of them - to be able to view any particular content. Say, for example, you want to post a pic of you flipping the bird to your boss, but you don't want your office people to see it. What you'll do is that you'll put all your office people in a list - effectively tagging them - and then prevent those people from seeing that pic on your wall, by hiding the pic from them, as you upload it. Yes, it is that simple!
You can also enable only a group of people to post on your wall, only for them to see other people's posts, or even hide the whole wall from some people, the combinations are endless! Ideally, one should limit those friends who can access one's info on fb; but that's strictly my own opinion.
One way orkut is better than fb - in my opinion, of course - is that on orkut you can access someone's private album even if you have the direct URL address to it. This isn't so in fb, and that's a dangerous thing. Still, the pros far outweigh the cons, and so, for now, fb it is!
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
The Social Network
I have a thing for Faustian stories; the idea of giving up something precious to obtain some other thing, all the more valuable to me, fascinates me. The relationship goes back at least to the day I watched Company, one of Ramu’s better works – of course, I wasn’t aware of Coppola’s masterpiece then – and only grew further as I came in contact with more of such stuff.
Life is defined by choices. At every point, you have alternate courses available; and it’s the quintessential manifestation of who you really are, nakedly reflected in the paths you chose. Thy way, highway; easy, and difficult way; ‘the road not taken’; foresight, and hindsight; all of what you are, and ever will be, can be captured in your choices. They are the true reflectors of your grit and character.
Fincher’s Zuckerberg is one such character whose life is brimming with such choices; his film, ‘The Social Network’, an inquiry into the decision-zeitgeist. The mood is set in the very first scene where a curtly arrogant Mark is dumped by his girlfriend Erica, who interprets his insecurity and social ineptness mixed arrogance and affinity for elitism as ‘assholery’ (for lack of a better word). Out of courtesy, she offers to be friends, to which he replies that he didn’t need any friend. Ironically, this act sets off a chain of events which leads to Mark establishing the grandest friending tool of our time: Facebook.
One good thing about the movies of this age is that they offer you to interpret the characters, proceedings, situations, etc. on your own. In this increasingly tangled and complex world, there are no absolute truths, only interpretations of facts. These interpretations enable a person to appreciate his own version of the world, which may be the polar opposite to his neighbor’s. The elasticity facilitated by all this enables the society to stick together; this is the reason why fundamentalists and liberals are able to coexist.
And the movie offers a plethora of interpretation-strings. On the one hand, you may feel for Mark, the compulsive nerd, who’s only fighting for what’s his rightfully; after all, “A guy who makes a nice chair doesn't owe money to everyone who has ever built a chair”. And, on the other hand, he may come across as the cunning and vengeful opportunistic hack, who devoured more than his share of luck, making a few enemies in the process of making 500 million friends; whose best friend sued him for 600 million dollars. One can’t naturally like him though; but that doesn’t stop him from craving for the same. And this explains why he is in so much awe of Sean Parker, he yearns to own his suave brilliance. Nevertheless, he’s not a natural here; his efforts are best summed up by Marylin Delphy when she offers him, “You're not an asshole, Mark. You're just trying so hard to be.”
This is what happens when you are too aloof from your surroundings to be able to look at them objectively, so detached that you can’t even mind them sometimes. One may think that it’s carelessness on their part, but that’s, after all, just an excuse. The reel Mark wanted to be forthright, but he was deemed an ‘asshole’; the real Mark may have wanted to make the web a more social and open place, but skeptics always cry foul at what they see as a breach in their privacy. Ultimately, he is not a bad guy, but a lonely guy he sure is. As we see him friending Erica and patiently waiting for a response in the last scene, we can’t help but wonder at this appropriate metaphor – the coming of age. An asshole Mark would never have the subtle squirm insinuated throughout the movie.
After all, everything comes at a price; and Faustian price is too dear, always.
Life is defined by choices. At every point, you have alternate courses available; and it’s the quintessential manifestation of who you really are, nakedly reflected in the paths you chose. Thy way, highway; easy, and difficult way; ‘the road not taken’; foresight, and hindsight; all of what you are, and ever will be, can be captured in your choices. They are the true reflectors of your grit and character.
Fincher’s Zuckerberg is one such character whose life is brimming with such choices; his film, ‘The Social Network’, an inquiry into the decision-zeitgeist. The mood is set in the very first scene where a curtly arrogant Mark is dumped by his girlfriend Erica, who interprets his insecurity and social ineptness mixed arrogance and affinity for elitism as ‘assholery’ (for lack of a better word). Out of courtesy, she offers to be friends, to which he replies that he didn’t need any friend. Ironically, this act sets off a chain of events which leads to Mark establishing the grandest friending tool of our time: Facebook.
One good thing about the movies of this age is that they offer you to interpret the characters, proceedings, situations, etc. on your own. In this increasingly tangled and complex world, there are no absolute truths, only interpretations of facts. These interpretations enable a person to appreciate his own version of the world, which may be the polar opposite to his neighbor’s. The elasticity facilitated by all this enables the society to stick together; this is the reason why fundamentalists and liberals are able to coexist.
And the movie offers a plethora of interpretation-strings. On the one hand, you may feel for Mark, the compulsive nerd, who’s only fighting for what’s his rightfully; after all, “A guy who makes a nice chair doesn't owe money to everyone who has ever built a chair”. And, on the other hand, he may come across as the cunning and vengeful opportunistic hack, who devoured more than his share of luck, making a few enemies in the process of making 500 million friends; whose best friend sued him for 600 million dollars. One can’t naturally like him though; but that doesn’t stop him from craving for the same. And this explains why he is in so much awe of Sean Parker, he yearns to own his suave brilliance. Nevertheless, he’s not a natural here; his efforts are best summed up by Marylin Delphy when she offers him, “You're not an asshole, Mark. You're just trying so hard to be.”
This is what happens when you are too aloof from your surroundings to be able to look at them objectively, so detached that you can’t even mind them sometimes. One may think that it’s carelessness on their part, but that’s, after all, just an excuse. The reel Mark wanted to be forthright, but he was deemed an ‘asshole’; the real Mark may have wanted to make the web a more social and open place, but skeptics always cry foul at what they see as a breach in their privacy. Ultimately, he is not a bad guy, but a lonely guy he sure is. As we see him friending Erica and patiently waiting for a response in the last scene, we can’t help but wonder at this appropriate metaphor – the coming of age. An asshole Mark would never have the subtle squirm insinuated throughout the movie.
After all, everything comes at a price; and Faustian price is too dear, always.
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