I think one of the most frustrating things about stories like this is the implicit assumption that we all are after the same thing. That deep down all the geeks really just wanted to be just like all of the cool kids and when they are rich and powerful they get to be that.

There's no acknowledgment of why most geeks are geeks; that we were different because we liked and wanted different things. No recognition that for a lot of geeks they are considered geeks because they celebrate the different (to paraphrase you).

But I guess for that to be acknowledged would show there are alternatives to the current materialistic, consumer based system and that just wouldn't be a modern (capitalist) fairytale.

Never been a facebook gangsta, maybe because I am just that bit too old, or sad in a different way. Just find these uber-social sites just a bit too tedious in their living self-contained social jungle. Now youtube I like, you may have noticed,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=he1rYR_8T4s

"This is no reflection on the personal moral compass of Sorkin, who is no misogynist, but who understands that in rarefied American circles of power and privilege, women are still stage-hands, and objectification is hard currency."
How would you know about the personal moral compass of Sorkin? As someone who knew him before he was famous, I can say that he "understands" how women are seen/treated at the highest levels of blah blah blah precisely because it is a world view he was and is part of, and fully espouses. As I watched the film, marveling as I always do over his talent as a writer, I shuddered at the similarities between Zuckerberg (as portrayed in the film) and Sorkin. Sorkin is an expert in misogyny, up close and personal. I was fortunate enough to not be the direct focus of it (my roommate was); 25 years later his attitudes toward women are still the standard by which I judge other misogynists. 25 years later I still gag at the memory. Where all that sensitivity (in his brilliant writing) comes from I cannot fathom.

Lorna, everyone who is anyone is on there now, even welsh rugby stars, and that is saying something. Even council workers that started off as sixteen year old clerks are there as well. An inclusive organisation, facebook is now, it seems. Big bleeding yawns!

And so to bed.

my tribute to ehtch teehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sc3M4iWGmYk.i have never been out of london.

And I agree with Chris - most of the geeks and nerds I know are quite nice people, if a little awkward. It's the jocks that became exploitative wankers.

May i direct you all to this little gem created by the guys from south park. I think it best illustrates the issues at hand here...
http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/267346/understanding-the-outbreak

Richard -- that, however is the myth subscribed to by a number of people both within and without 'geek culture', i.e., that their particular sets of interests will set them up for a potent and profitable future in a world that largely runs on information.

Do you sincerely believe that geeks 'celebrate the different'? I guess it's true to an extent, but only insofar as they celebrate a very particular canon of difference, and one that's as much about consumption and acquisition as the more mainstream.

Or in prison. Those who are most socially successful before the age of 16 often end up in prison. I think it's important not to peak too soon.

And @Buckskins, I really don't think you want to go there, here

look mrs double barrel named mrs blah blah posh girl hartley understand one thing,i am 32 ok i live in porr communitys.the only person i know in inner city shithole hackney where i live who commited suicide is a drug dependant middle class girl from the surburbs whos life has been ruined by these filthy dirty bastard drug dealers,for legal reasons and in case the met police are watching the new statesman these drug dealing scum kinda got there asses kicked thats as far as i will go,but how dare you hartley link suicide to poverty,how dare you woman

Nicely observed, Laurie. RK, the only break capitalism deserves is somewhere between the 3rd and 4th cervicaL vertebrae. Here's why:
http://andycox1953.webs.com/

@Josephine H_H: I think you should apologise to stuart for calling him stupid. you have made some very good points but you spoil them by making personal comments that result in disengagement of constructive dialogue. Just because stuart has made stupid comments and is unable to understand your point of view doesn't mean that he is in fact stupid... for what is exactly stupid?

I have learnt through Nick that if people are to pay attention to my views it is important not to personally attack that person. Thank you Nick for that. You're doing a great job as a blog counsellor.

The whole "felt excluded while growing up; now socially maladjusted and scarily focused on uber-success and taking REVENGE" theme is one that has been applied to the disability community for years - see the number of disabled/disfigured Bond villains for starters. It's quite interesting to see the discomfort caused when the same principle is applied to geekdom. The geeks shout "we're not all like that! How about some positive representation where we're not the object of hate or pity or ridicule!" And we think hmmm, there's a familiar plea.
Disclosure: I'm a fairly geeky female wheelchair user (onset early adulthood) so I'm seeing a lot of angles in this story.

Fine article as just about always Laurie. BTW, to most of the 'FB bad' posters. It is a tool. In terms of its utility it is like saying hammer is good or bad. It is how it is used that counts. But that wasn't the point of the piece anyway.

http://picturesforsadchildren.com/index.php?comicID=102

"level he feels that the world owes him something. Which, in the case of many geeks, an egalitarian might argue that the world *does* owe them some compensation for their earlier social exclusion."

Sorry but I certainly don't agree with that! Seeing as Zuckerberg and his fellows where all Harvard men, I have to ask 'what social exclusion'? Since when did going to Harvard put you in the bottom rung of american society? I see them as deeply privileged, and the children of the deeply privileged or they wouldn't be at harvard! They come from americas fabuously wealthy entitlement famlies, and I find it frankly warped that they are being presented as heroic underdogs or brilliant innovators.

There is NOTHING brilliant or innovative about facebook: I there isn't an original line of programme code in it - it is merely copied wholsale from myspace and other forerunners.

What alowed facebook to succeed where others falied wass its blatant classism (and undisclosed racism). Its stick was that innitally only people at ivy league universities could join. Thus, they stole an old idea and marketed it as a 'working class free zone'.

Scarily facebooks success seemes to have racist undertones as well - apparently a majority of americans word-associate the word 'myspace' with 'negro'.

Zuterberg never did anything innovative nor had original idea in his life, all he did do was set up a whites-only gated-community on the internet. Where he and the other children of the privileged could hang out. For this we are to praise him? The man makes me physically sick. It's the final chapter in the long process of the perversion of the american dream.

That anyone would make a film to praise him or his non-acomplishments enrages me. Praise?! He desrves only censure and opprobrium!!

The above soundtrack is Dylan Thomas is him himself, if some wonder and question. Thank you BBC, third programme, back then...

facebook is for sad gits who have no freinds but have imaginary freinds they will never meet or dont care about them.as for hacking facebook saddos its so easy and i know many a victim of these keystroke loggers who know more about these saddos than there mothers and fathers,get a life and read a book about the russian revolution and the grain harvest.

sorry ehtch tee,there is alot of anti english racism in wales at the moment, so i will decline your offer,but i am sure that you are a fine upstanding citixen of wales.

MAKootage, ok, so then I am forced to post this, via Sheffield anti-Clegg feeling,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcoGU5i9E9s

I haven't read the other comments and this has probably already been said. But this post very much needed to mention the fact that this film is not a true story. That's important. Sorkin's script is a free adaptation of Mezrich's book which was a free adaptation of what actually happened.

I am a non millionaire nerd, I never had any problems with ladies, and I once knew one that danced naked on a concert grand piano--very upmarket!

@Dylan: I was in Japan at the time of Clinton's 92 election so I've never heard of 'it's the economy, stupid'. It was before the internet and Japanese cable TV. Talk about being stupid, then I must hold my hand up in this case although it is more to do with ignorance than stupidity. Do the two necessarily go together?

Actually I'm glad I lived before the internet and world wide TV. It was great when you could just cut yourself from the world. Every 3 or 4 months you would write to your parents to say that you were still alive, and you could travel thru places where there was no TV, telephone or even electricity never mind facebook and the internet. You could easily say, 'sod the world'.