October is an incredibly difficult month at Harvard. Reality sets in that it's no longer the beginning of the year, midterm season begins, and people start wearing suits all the time. Why? It might have something to do with the invasion of corporate recruiters and the onset of punch season (what students at every other college in America call "rushing"). This will not be a rant about how elitist and repulsive final clubs are: plenty of people on campus discuss this issue all the time. It would be hypocritical of me to complain about them, in fact, because I have enjoyed myself at some of the places precisely because they are supposed to be important spaces on campus. What interests me about this time is that you get to see, in a practical manner, how important belonging to a perceived space of power is for some students' identity here at my favorite Ivy and about what all this means for me, as well.
Having grown up in the New York private school scene and spending the past 2.5 years on this campus, I'm no longer shocked as I watch young men (and women) struggle to enter "powerful" social circles. I'm no longer washed anew each day by how many people plan their careers and futures at the age of 19, 20 and 21. Nor do I begrudge the people offered these opportunities to take full advantage them. Instead, this month reminds me of something: one day, I won't be in school anymore and I will have to make my own way financially. Much as I try to pretend that my life will always be about school, watching other people suit up to get into the right clubs in order to make the right connections which will eventually lead to the right careers and lifestyles grounds me a bit.
I realized this, that is, the power money and my future have over me, most especially last week when I lost my wallet in a cab. Seems mostly harmless, no? You lose your stuff and you try to find it. Maybe you will, maybe you won't. It wasn't harmless, though. My debit card was subsequently stolen and used to make purchases at Footlocker (I've never shopped at Footlocker and have maybe visited 2 of their stores in my 20 year existence) and in various grocery stores in Dorchester (again, places I've never visited). In addition to being robbed and deprived of access to money, I began to depend on other people to help me do what I wanted to. Chinese food at 2:30 in the morning? I had to ask my friends for it. A slice of pizza and a Vitamin water? I needed my friends to agree to pay for it before I could safely know that I could have it.
It wasn't only the lack of agency to make my own purchases and the fact that I had to depend on the kindness of others that got to me: it was the fact that I realized, like many of my male peers, that money and power are connected in such a way that not only is the physical paper important but that these entities define our sense of importance. I spent those days feeling empty and useless for no other reason than that I was missing access to my savior (aka my debit card). I shouldn't have felt breathless as many times as I did considering food, shelter and my lovely classes were all available to me in addition to all the supportive people in my life who surround me. But what continued to get me down was this belief that without the ability to navigate my surroundings with money and, in my mind, free choice, I had no "value."
I also discovered this fear that not only money but the idea of money controlled me as I've sat through various career fairs and events this past month. Much like final club boys, I've been dressing up to give the appearance that I am someone "worthy" of belonging to wealthy institutions. I've donned heals for consulting companies, Teach for America presentations and public interest careers. And I've felt like a prostitute at each one of them: "Come here, baby, hire me. I'm the one you want. I'm wearing the right clothes and I'm smiling the way you like, right?" At the same time, I realize that this is and will be my reality in the next couple years and in my future in general. I'm getting a little too long in the tooth to deny that anymore and, quite frankly, it keeps me up some nights.
My main take away from all of these experiences is that I need to balance reality with an awareness that the capitalistic terms we use to refer to ourselves such as "valuable" and "worthy" are themselves problematic. How can I do this, though, when I wake up each day in a Harvard owned bed and the consciousness that I will have to make good on the promise of a great (and in American terms, this is usually defined financially) future? Are the desire to be financially secure and to,at the same time, reject being defined by my bank account mutually exclusive? More realistically, why can't I calm myself even with this new perspective? What's up with that?
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Humiliation in the Age of Reality TV and the Internetz
Last week, after a series of wreckless weekends, a failed date, and the crushing realization that I'm half way done with college, I came to the conclusion that I needed a change. Naturally, the first place I looked to for that change was an online dating site. OKCupid is definitely not for the faint of heart. The site incentivizes you to answer more and more questions by reminding you that the more you fill out, the more public your profile will be. Delicious.
So in my crisis mode, I decided to join partly for laughs, partly because my friends were doing it (a little peer pressure never hurt nobody) and partly because I would like to meet people outside my usual social circle. Men-type people. My first mistake, though, was thinking that at the age of 20 years old, I needed to be advertising myself as a hot commodity in the virtual world. Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we kids these days insist on embarrassing ourselves regularly?
Maybe it's because if you turn on the TV at any given point in the day, you will see young people doing a whole host of things that make no damn sense. There's Fear Factor, Jersey Shore, Judge Judy, Teem Mom, For Love or Money, I Love New York, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, etc. The amount of "reality" we consume that is based on pure self objectification and humiliation is astounding.
One of the first reality shows was The Real World, which aired in 1992 and which was filmed in New York City. It basically centered around a group of diverse young people doing hood rat things with their friends/ roommates in a giant, unaffordable New York loft. I'm willing to say that this show can be viewed as a predecessor to some of the tomfoolery seen (sometimes by me at my weakest of moments) on TV at any hour of the day.
This sense that the institution of being young involves self-ridicule and humiliation seeps from the TV screen onto the computer screen, too. You don't have to search Facebook long before you find pictures of people you awkwardly-don't-know-but-are-"friends"-with-anyway doing things they shouldn't if they happen to ever want a job in the future. In fact, a recent study by HGSE Prof. Howard Gardner and Research Director Carrie James suggests that teens and young people's social responsibility and ethics are sometimes compromised while surfing the web. No surprise there, given the recent string of teen suicides as a result of cyber bullying. As fun as it is to access any and everything at whenever one wants to on the internet, it's also a terribly dangerous tool.
And no one knows that better than I do after spending half a week on an online dating site. Though I gave answers before about why I decided to join the site, I really can't think of any logical reason why I did it. It could have been because of those damned eHarmony commercials that lie and say "1 in 5 couples meet online now." The point is, when gregarious and personable friends tell you how easy it was to find people on the internet, don't lie to yourself by saying that you're just as outgoing as they are if you really aren't. I guess even over the internet, people can still tell that I'm shy.
It really is an unnecessary humiliation, though, to watch as 55,000 people are online and none of them of them contact you for days at a time. When you're able to track the number of people who could be interested in you but who aren't contacting you, it reinforces whatever insecurities you might have, whether they're reasonable or not.
My question about all this belief that youth= intentional, self-sacrificing embarrassment is this: have young people always been inclined to be this masochistic and finally just now found the tools to act on those desires OR has technology ushered in a new age where youth culture has been taught that this is the only way to exist? If my half week stint with OKCupid has taught me anything, it's that putting yourself out there might be really cute in real life but not as hot on the internetz. What's up with that?
So in my crisis mode, I decided to join partly for laughs, partly because my friends were doing it (a little peer pressure never hurt nobody) and partly because I would like to meet people outside my usual social circle. Men-type people. My first mistake, though, was thinking that at the age of 20 years old, I needed to be advertising myself as a hot commodity in the virtual world. Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we kids these days insist on embarrassing ourselves regularly?
Maybe it's because if you turn on the TV at any given point in the day, you will see young people doing a whole host of things that make no damn sense. There's Fear Factor, Jersey Shore, Judge Judy, Teem Mom, For Love or Money, I Love New York, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, etc. The amount of "reality" we consume that is based on pure self objectification and humiliation is astounding.
One of the first reality shows was The Real World, which aired in 1992 and which was filmed in New York City. It basically centered around a group of diverse young people doing hood rat things with their friends/ roommates in a giant, unaffordable New York loft. I'm willing to say that this show can be viewed as a predecessor to some of the tomfoolery seen (sometimes by me at my weakest of moments) on TV at any hour of the day.
This sense that the institution of being young involves self-ridicule and humiliation seeps from the TV screen onto the computer screen, too. You don't have to search Facebook long before you find pictures of people you awkwardly-don't-know-but-are-"friends"-with-anyway doing things they shouldn't if they happen to ever want a job in the future. In fact, a recent study by HGSE Prof. Howard Gardner and Research Director Carrie James suggests that teens and young people's social responsibility and ethics are sometimes compromised while surfing the web. No surprise there, given the recent string of teen suicides as a result of cyber bullying. As fun as it is to access any and everything at whenever one wants to on the internet, it's also a terribly dangerous tool.
And no one knows that better than I do after spending half a week on an online dating site. Though I gave answers before about why I decided to join the site, I really can't think of any logical reason why I did it. It could have been because of those damned eHarmony commercials that lie and say "1 in 5 couples meet online now." The point is, when gregarious and personable friends tell you how easy it was to find people on the internet, don't lie to yourself by saying that you're just as outgoing as they are if you really aren't. I guess even over the internet, people can still tell that I'm shy.
It really is an unnecessary humiliation, though, to watch as 55,000 people are online and none of them of them contact you for days at a time. When you're able to track the number of people who could be interested in you but who aren't contacting you, it reinforces whatever insecurities you might have, whether they're reasonable or not.
My question about all this belief that youth= intentional, self-sacrificing embarrassment is this: have young people always been inclined to be this masochistic and finally just now found the tools to act on those desires OR has technology ushered in a new age where youth culture has been taught that this is the only way to exist? If my half week stint with OKCupid has taught me anything, it's that putting yourself out there might be really cute in real life but not as hot on the internetz. What's up with that?
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Networking, Theft and Creativity: A Review of "The Social Network"
I've had an addiction for roughly 4 years now. Unlike an addiction to drugs, shopping, alcohol, or even sex, there is no rehab for Facebook. I'm on the site regularly and it might be considered my number one extracurricular activity. It's a time to be weird and creepy (which I excel at) and to "reconnect" with those people who you see every day of your sad, sappy life. One of the funnier things about the site, though, is that I was invited by my friend to join as a sophomore in high school and can't really remember life before Zuckerberg's creation. Or rather the Winklevoss' creation that Zuckerberg manipulated and stole. See, on Thursday night or , more precisely, Friday morning I went to the midnight showing of The Social Network, the new movie out about the creation and development of Facebook which challenges all of our notions about where the site actually came from.
First of all, before that night, I'd never been to the Harvard Square movie theater, which is both a travesty and mystery given that I've been visiting this campus since I was wee. Somehow it was just one of those obvious things that I've never done (similarly, I'm a life long New York who's never been to the Empire State Building). But I finally got around to it in the most Harvardian way possible: I went with other Harvard students to a Harvard Square movie theater to watch a movie about Harvard students' shenanigans. How many times can I say "Harvard" in a couple sentences? The answer: many, many times. Anyhow, I thought the movie was absolutely fabulous.
There were clutch lines like "Mark, I have to study" to which Mark (played by Jesse Eisenberg) replied "No you don't. You go to BU" and the one where one of the giant, WASPy crew twins exclaimed, "I'm 6'5, 220 and there are two of me!!" I had a great time watching the movie's portrayal of the final club and social scenes on campus. I've seen many unfortunate things at parties here at school but I've yet to see girls in nothing but their underwear and heels at parties. Maybe I'm just not hitting up the prime spots on my Saturday nights. Part of the fun of watching the movie was dissecting which things felt realistic(like the social pressure placed on males to insinuate themselves into particular power circles) and which ones didn't (the buildings looked nothing like they do in real life).
I felt this way about the movie overall but there was one element of the film that got to me: Eisenberg's portrayal of Zuckerberg. It's like when you go to H&M and you look from across the room at a really cute gray sweater. It's everything you've been dreaming of and you know it'll complete that outfit you planned to wear to dinner next Saturday. Then you walk up closer to it and all the detailing is fabulous EXCEPT for the random patch of rhinestones along the collar. The collar is obviously a central part of the top and it will be seen by all but it's just not quite right. That's exactly how I felt about Eisenberg's portrayal of Zuckerberg.
If you wanna play a slightly autistic person, inhabit the person's slight autism. If you wanna be relentlessly obnoxious, be relentlessly obnoxious. If you wanna play a pathetic person, act as a pathetic person would. But how could it be, Eisenberg, that Zuckerberg was all three of these things but still social enough to ever have any friends? Don't get me wrong: Harvard has more than its fair share of weird and unfortunate humans. However,Eisenberg's portrayal makes the Facebook creator seem less like a socially challenged person and more like a maniacally brilliant man-child. Without seeing the movie, it's hard to communicate the difference between being a tool and being other worldly (in a bad way) but to me, the story didn't make sense because if in real life Zuckerberg was as unpleasant as he appeared in the film, he would have no social contact to speak of.
The oddity of his demeanor was especially distinct and bizarre when compared to the other characters in the film. Andrew Garfield's portrayal of Saverin as an innocent but likeable bystander made sense in the context of someone who'd been ripped off and JT's depiction of Sean Parker (a man who made and lost millions by stealing music and offering it to people for free) as a sleazy individual seemed believable. Armie Hammer captured what the Winklevoss' must have been like. But there was just something about Eisenberg that felt too forced and too robotic to me.
Zuckerberg is clearly a smart or at least clever man who figured out how to create a social networking site that would, in a few short years, revolutionize the way young people interact across the planet. It's interesting that the movie tried to at once demonstrate his creativity and passion for this website and at the same time focused on possibility that he ripped off the Winklevoss' original website. Was he inventive and brilliant or was he merely a thief? The movie doesn't really answer the question.
At the end they do tell us that the twins won a $65 million settlement, which you'll know, even if you struggled with arithmetic in grade school, means that each twin got $32.5 million. And I've heard they're still trying to go back for more. I mean, it's true, $32.5 million is chump change at the age of 25. However, I do think it's enough to get by on. Like you can maybe get some ramen with that and take your girlfriend out to Denny's with that twice a year.
This movie to me was funny because it showed the intersection between money, creativity and white male identity. It reflected the motivations behind these people's actions and the complexity of power structures: the Winklevoss's had money and social power while Zuckerberg had the creativity and skills not only to make his own website but to capitalize on their idea. In America, it doesn't matter whose idea comes first. As "The Social Network" reveals, the ability to enact an idea and to figure out a way to monetize it is the only thing that counts. Whether Zuckerberg's character was as putrid and weasely as the movie insinuated, one thing's certain: he's made his mark (haha, get it, that's his name...Mark...ok I'll stop) on social affairs. Does this mean that I have to be as relentlessly unbearable as Zuckerberg to get ahead in life/start a social revolution? Is that my only option? What's up with that?
First of all, before that night, I'd never been to the Harvard Square movie theater, which is both a travesty and mystery given that I've been visiting this campus since I was wee. Somehow it was just one of those obvious things that I've never done (similarly, I'm a life long New York who's never been to the Empire State Building). But I finally got around to it in the most Harvardian way possible: I went with other Harvard students to a Harvard Square movie theater to watch a movie about Harvard students' shenanigans. How many times can I say "Harvard" in a couple sentences? The answer: many, many times. Anyhow, I thought the movie was absolutely fabulous.
There were clutch lines like "Mark, I have to study" to which Mark (played by Jesse Eisenberg) replied "No you don't. You go to BU" and the one where one of the giant, WASPy crew twins exclaimed, "I'm 6'5, 220 and there are two of me!!" I had a great time watching the movie's portrayal of the final club and social scenes on campus. I've seen many unfortunate things at parties here at school but I've yet to see girls in nothing but their underwear and heels at parties. Maybe I'm just not hitting up the prime spots on my Saturday nights. Part of the fun of watching the movie was dissecting which things felt realistic(like the social pressure placed on males to insinuate themselves into particular power circles) and which ones didn't (the buildings looked nothing like they do in real life).
I felt this way about the movie overall but there was one element of the film that got to me: Eisenberg's portrayal of Zuckerberg. It's like when you go to H&M and you look from across the room at a really cute gray sweater. It's everything you've been dreaming of and you know it'll complete that outfit you planned to wear to dinner next Saturday. Then you walk up closer to it and all the detailing is fabulous EXCEPT for the random patch of rhinestones along the collar. The collar is obviously a central part of the top and it will be seen by all but it's just not quite right. That's exactly how I felt about Eisenberg's portrayal of Zuckerberg.
If you wanna play a slightly autistic person, inhabit the person's slight autism. If you wanna be relentlessly obnoxious, be relentlessly obnoxious. If you wanna play a pathetic person, act as a pathetic person would. But how could it be, Eisenberg, that Zuckerberg was all three of these things but still social enough to ever have any friends? Don't get me wrong: Harvard has more than its fair share of weird and unfortunate humans. However,Eisenberg's portrayal makes the Facebook creator seem less like a socially challenged person and more like a maniacally brilliant man-child. Without seeing the movie, it's hard to communicate the difference between being a tool and being other worldly (in a bad way) but to me, the story didn't make sense because if in real life Zuckerberg was as unpleasant as he appeared in the film, he would have no social contact to speak of.
The oddity of his demeanor was especially distinct and bizarre when compared to the other characters in the film. Andrew Garfield's portrayal of Saverin as an innocent but likeable bystander made sense in the context of someone who'd been ripped off and JT's depiction of Sean Parker (a man who made and lost millions by stealing music and offering it to people for free) as a sleazy individual seemed believable. Armie Hammer captured what the Winklevoss' must have been like. But there was just something about Eisenberg that felt too forced and too robotic to me.
Zuckerberg is clearly a smart or at least clever man who figured out how to create a social networking site that would, in a few short years, revolutionize the way young people interact across the planet. It's interesting that the movie tried to at once demonstrate his creativity and passion for this website and at the same time focused on possibility that he ripped off the Winklevoss' original website. Was he inventive and brilliant or was he merely a thief? The movie doesn't really answer the question.
At the end they do tell us that the twins won a $65 million settlement, which you'll know, even if you struggled with arithmetic in grade school, means that each twin got $32.5 million. And I've heard they're still trying to go back for more. I mean, it's true, $32.5 million is chump change at the age of 25. However, I do think it's enough to get by on. Like you can maybe get some ramen with that and take your girlfriend out to Denny's with that twice a year.
This movie to me was funny because it showed the intersection between money, creativity and white male identity. It reflected the motivations behind these people's actions and the complexity of power structures: the Winklevoss's had money and social power while Zuckerberg had the creativity and skills not only to make his own website but to capitalize on their idea. In America, it doesn't matter whose idea comes first. As "The Social Network" reveals, the ability to enact an idea and to figure out a way to monetize it is the only thing that counts. Whether Zuckerberg's character was as putrid and weasely as the movie insinuated, one thing's certain: he's made his mark (haha, get it, that's his name...Mark...ok I'll stop) on social affairs. Does this mean that I have to be as relentlessly unbearable as Zuckerberg to get ahead in life/start a social revolution? Is that my only option? What's up with that?
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