I just saw the movie about the CEO of Facebook and it makes me sick knowing that these humorless, colorless, sexless Internet Entrepreneurs became the Rock Stars of my generation after Axl Rose went AWOL and let Nirvana ruin Rock and Roll by adding legitimacy to the nerdy casual look which gave birth to Indie Rock, Michael Cera and delusional dweebs that think their presence on the Internet matters when the Internet is the one club that everyone can get into which makes it a pretty lame club and a far cry from backstage at the Roxy after a Doors show when a line to run manicured hands through Jim Morrison’s curls went around the Hollywood Hills.
The major theme in the movie, Social Network, is that all men are driven to success just so they can get back at a girl from High School that never recognized their untamed genesis or tremendous money making upside which infuriates me knowing that these Internet Entrepreneurs have done nothing to exploit their Rock and Roll status. Besides the founder of Napster you won’t hear about any black book noted orgies with Internet Moguls or trashed hotel rooms in San Francisco for not offering free wireless access or DEA, Michael Irvin size busts that supplied enough nose candy to keep Santa’s Elves working way into next Christmas season with about five thousand smoke breaks in between. The creator of Facebook is the youngest billionaire ever yet his wardrobe is about as diverse as Palo Alto. Can’t this guy afford a stylist that’s paid to tell him that a hooded sweatshirt only makes him look sweatier and more uncomfortable to gaze at? I’d push him to wear a burka because I wouldn’t want to be seen in public since the release of Social Network which chronicles his backstabbing past and squandered Rock Star status. Then again, that hoodie might have Harry Potter powers because it tricked the world into believing that were losers for not obsessing over the need to share pictures of our current cool, less picked on, more defined adults selves with older fringe friends and fabricated new ones who will show up in your listings of Friends on Facebook but who won’t show up at your own funeral or even think of getting you a Wedding Card.
The creator of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg was asked by his girlfriend to do his best Axl Rose impersonation for Halloween this year. So he painted his bedroom black, and blew half his fortune on Psychotherapy. Afterwards, the girlfriend said: Nice Axl impersonation Mark, but the fact that you already kicked your best friend out of the group and tried to screw him out of his money while giving yourself all the credit was enough.
Only a Computer Programmer would make it uncool to be a Rock Star. But that is exactly what Computer CEO’s like the creator of Facebook have done in such dreary, dull fashion. It makes me sick knowing that the Internet Entrepreneurs behind Facebook, Google, Youtube, Twitter, Napster, Paypal, EBay, Craig’s List are the Rock Star representatives of this generation while Mark Zuckerberg is considered the leading front man of them all. These Internet Stars have all the power, money, and influence to party like kings, protest our wars, attack BP and buy off any government official if they ever did anything naughty or freaky enough yet that seems to go against some lame geek code of conduct that these guys never violate. Which sucks because what’s the point in racking up all this F-You money if you can’t acquire a taste for fine woman or buy off lobbyists that can push for legalization of marijuana, meaningful environmental reform and extended visa granting privileges with incentives that encourage the greatest minds in science and mathematics to come here and design new killer apps that will spawn new jobs and industries that have nothing to do with making Wall Street bankers more money. If this work is good enough for Bono it should be good enough for them. .
Internet Stars make awful Rock Stars. They don’t perform at any major festivals. If they did, they’d surf the web instead of the crowd. Their idea of performance art is a power point presentation at some boring tech convention in Vegas while Zakk Wylde plays power chords in front of another sold out mosh pit at Ozzfest. These guys make awful rock partnerships as well. The co-founders of Google are about as electrifying as a Coma Ward.
Internet Stars are known as rouge hackers yet they can’t hack it as real rebel rousers or else it would ruin their discrete, casual corporate image. What a shame that would be. Where is the rebel yell? You never hear the new tech elite make a stand or criticize the government. Maybe, they feel under siege now that all their programmers are from China. There is nothing hard core about these new tech titans. They kiss up to the media and go out of their way to compliment their younger workers that need to be stroked more than Al Gore.
In the nineties, Poison sang, I want action tonight yet the only action these Internet Entrepreneurs are concerned with is Unique Visitor’s that come to their website. At least, Mark Cuban tries to get into swanky clubs in Manhattan before he gets turned down at the door for never shaking free of his nerdy past. You would think that the CEO of Craig’s List would be a real freak yet you never hear a peep out of this guy.
Internet Stars don’t use their celebrity to buy expensive play toys like Wave Runners, Private Planes or Naomi Campbell. Gene Simmons once said that the attitude of a Rock Star is that I’m going to f your girlfriend which is a total dick concept but that aurora of arrogance around woman is dismissed and disregarded by these computer centric CEO’s as much as a Computer Science Degree from the University of Phoenix. At the same time, how do these Internet Moguls expect to rack up groupies when nobody knows what they look like. They make no effort to stick out from the Dungeons and Dragons crowd. Its as if once they make it big, they cling on to their war game uniforms like dork badges of honor. If you want to make the girl that hurt you in High School jealous, than hire a Lifestyle Consultant like Charlie Sheen.
All of these Internet stars are proud of their cozy loft offices or corporate headquarters that they refer to as campuses so they can attempt to perpetuate that fraternal inclusive feel that none of the programmers were able to enjoy in college unless they attended Adams College and pledged Lamda, Lamda, Lamda. Google takes this Ivy League campus feel to an extreme by having a gourmet chef on campus which is a cut above eating outside your cubicle for lunch yet it’s not dining at an Alice Waters catered offsite event at the Coppola Winery and if I’m the CEO of Google, I’m accept nothing less. I know that the owners of Google are all about spreading good to the world by devising hippie cloaked mission statements like Evil is bad or some horse crap like that. But if I’m running that show, I’m not staying in for lunch even if Mario Batali is my in house company chef. You’d find me on a Gulf Stream with Russell Simmons eating Maine plucked, Lobster Risotto with shavings of white truffle while watching an unseen bootleg Run DMC show where the pre-Reverend Run takes a break between rapping Dumb Girl and goes off stage to tell his older brother Russell to cash in their Addias stock so they can reinvest it in Nike. Unless my office is overlooking the Hollywood hills, the Pacific Ocean, Central Park or standing on top of Big Sur, I’m not living up to my rock star potential. Driving an electronic scooter around the Google Campus doesn’t scream top of the world ma, look at me, I made it. Now, driving in a stretched limo with a Jacuzzi and two busty blond bombshells in it like Vince Neil does in the rock documentary, Uncensored does.
Showboating is as foreign to Internet Stars as high thread counts and direct eye contact.The only visible signs of Internet stars rocking out is Mark Cuban’s tucked out shirts at Maverick games or Bill Gates bidding for Moon Boots on EBay for Halloween because his wife insisted that he mix it up and dress like Napoleon Dynamite.
During the Christmas of 91, Guns and Roses came out with an action packed, Double CD, titled, Use your Illusion, I and II. The design art was the same yet one CD came in yellow and the other came in blue, the blue one being the accepted superior one. Thinking back on seeing an entire GNR display at the old Wiz so many Christmas seasons ago angers me knowing that this kick ass, monster piece of rock theatre no longer has a place in this I-Tunes dominated universe where the latest I-Tune single or I-Phone release gets drooled over instead. For all the hoopla, what’s the legacy that these Internet Stars are going to leave behind, online shopping, free entertainment distribution, user generated pet videos, paperless job listings, digital book marking, public diary entries or the death of shame, modesty and privacy where everyone has to be online all the time to show off their newly empowered, connected selves?
Playing a role in causing the end of the Vietnam, fighting for civil rights, raising money for those less fortunate, providing a kick ass soundtrack for youth and beyond that makes you want to dance and bob your head off, that’s Rock and Roll, that’s their legacy and I like it, like it. Would it kill these Internet Stars to go wild in the streets, commit some dirty deeds, shout at the devil or give Jessica Hahn the slip of the lip and rock her like a hurricane while making love to her in an elevator? I love it loud yet you don’t even know what half these Internet Stars sound or look like. Internet Stars make awful Rock Stars and give them a bad name as Jon Bon Jovi would say.
Written By,
Josh Kornbluth
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