Film: Are you 2.0?
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By Henry P. Raleigh
ART TIMES online
June 2011
I was puzzled, you see, first encountering it in a review of the film “The Social Network”, references to 1.0 people and 2.0 people and later again in a confusing comparison of “Shutter Island” to “Inception”. No explanations were given; still there was the inference that it’s better to be a 2.0 — at least numerically speaking.
Eager to know to which of these two groupings I might be associated, hoping, of course, it was a 2.0, I sought help from what I took to be a 2.0 person — a young, mid-twenties or so, assured, wearing a flannel shirt, and with a small device pressed closely to his right ear. Politely I asked if he was a 2.0 person. Never removing the device from his ear he said, “Yes, everyone wearing a flannel shirt and with a device clamped permanently to one ear is a 2.0”. Excitedly and because I too was wearing a flannel shirt, I next asked if it was possible he recognized me as a fellow 2.0? “Old man,” he began,” Do you communicate by telephone?; do you still buy postage stamps?; write letters and pay bills by mail?; is your lap-top more than two years old?; do you own a television with 120 H2 technology that can stream movies and has WiFi capability?”
Only to this last query did I answer in the negative. Perhaps I had a chance. With an unpleasant smirk he shook his head without dislodging the ear device and told me I was definitely a 1.0, through and through. Crestfallen I pleaded to know how I might improve my status. “Old man,” he said, “For starters fill your dreary 1.0 life with a Motorola, Droid X, an Apple Ipod 3GMC49LL/A, an Apple Macbook Pro 15-inch MC 372LL/A, and a plasma Panasonic Viera TC-P65VT25 1080P resolution and just maybe you can be a 2.0 probationer. And by the way, if you have anything to say about film called them ‘movies’, do it on-line and don’t try to be a smarty.”
Disappointed but wiser I left the 2.0 and headed for the nearest Costco.