Zadie Smith on "The Social Network"

Zadie Smith writes an awesome The Social Network review cum analysis of the web 2.0 generation. She's got a privilaged POV seeing as how she a) was at Harvard when Zuckerberg created his first try at superstardom with facesmash (""I was there" at facebook's inception and remember facemash and the fuss it cause; also, that tiny, exquisite movie star trailed by fan-boys..."), b) is a great writer and thinker, and c) is really pretty. 

One of the most interesting points she makes (referring to the book You Are Not a Gadget by Jaron Lanier) is the philosophical underpinnings of certain computer programs. Underpinnings that we take for granted when we use said programs. Reminiscent of Kant, Lanier explains to imagine computers without files (the initial, unshipped Macs didn't have files). It is a struggle to do so, almost as hard as it is to imagine existence without time. Facebook, which Zadie admits is an incredible force, is a philosophical expression of a 20-year-old Harvard sophomore. It's obsessed with a delineated relationship status. It's obsessed with movie and music likes, but not with architecture or cubist art. She argues, that it sells people short when it comes to expressions of self. Pretty compelling stuff.

One thing I sort of found issue with was how she made light of grief re: facebook. She writes of the levity of not uncommon wall posts to the just-dead: "Sorry babes! Missin' you!!! Hopin' u iz with the Angels. I remember the jokes we used to have LOL! PEACE XXXXX". Zadie's initial reaction is that the wall-poster had poor education and didn't have the language to express her feelings. That comes off as a bit snide and privilaged, to me, and Zadie seems to take for granted her linguistic gifts. Her second reaction is that facebook sort of devalues relationships to the point that grief, in these cases, is made slight. My issue with this is her assumption that true (as opposed to virtual) grief is mutually exclusive to these wall-expressions. Can't the poster have a storm in her heart and still write banalities on facebook? And I'm not sure how correct it is to deem certain expressions of grief as of substance vs. of superficiality. Zadie's guilty, more than facebook, of compartmentalizing grief (proper vs. improper). You'd think as a novelist, she'd give more value to the myriad expressions of grief instead of judging so freely.

In my experience, I've been moved by collective outpourings of grief, about cases I'd never have otherwise heard of. Really, facebook in these cases, seems like a more democratic obit section. And while newsprint memorials get blue-boxed once a week, fb memorials (groups, profiles of the deceased, etc.) last really, really long. Though, I am a little freaked by the services that continue altering profiles of the dead.