Film Cultural Artifact

     In the past, kids would always respond to popular culture but in 2011 they are setting it. The youth movement has become more powerful than ever thanks to technology. In the film “The Social Network” a kid named Mark Zuckerberg created a multibillion dollar social media website named Facebook. His idea almost came by accident but because he was so savvy with technology Facebook was possible. Mark Zuckerberg was drunk when he thought of “Facemash” which he eventually converted to Facebook. The film constructed of ay cultural ideas but the one that jumped out at me, was how knowledgeable young people are with technology. These days, most kids are much more knowledgeable than their parents when it comes to working technology. Mark Zuckerberg isn’t the only kid making millions of dollars because of technology; in the film, Sean Parker who was also very young invented Napster. Napster has changed the way people purchase music and because of that, Parker also made a lot of money. Many kids have been in the same position as these two kids in the social network. They had an idea and used technology to expand it worldwide which helped their individual ideas become more profitable much faster. Our young generation knows more about technology than any other generation and a lot of kids are making a lot of money off their knowledge.

            In the year 2011, a lot of kids are inventing ideas based off technology. The new culture movement in the twenty first century relies heavily on technology. Young people are always trying to communicate with each other and are always looking for a new, faster way to do it. That’s why Facebook has become so popular. Almost every young person has one because it allows somewhere to voice their opinion or to communicate with friends within seconds. Lots of kids have joined Mark Zuckerberg into becoming millionaires because of their ideas. About 5 years ago, 15 year old Catherine Cook was looking through her high school yearbook and came up with an idea. Catherine decided to create a free interactive version of their high school yearbook online. Catherine got her older brother to invest in her product and just like that her idea was up and running on the internet. Now the website is worth about ten million dollars just 5 years later. The company is known as “My Year Book” and is still going strong. Kids like to go on the internet and contact their friends and the My Year Book website allows them to do that.

            Another young kid also made millions on a technology based idea. When he was just 18 years old, Ben Kaufman founded “Mophie” a website that sells iPod accessories. It may not seem like a big deal but Ben founded this website when the iPod first came out and his website has made a lot of money because of it. The website sells iPod cases, batteries, cables and much more. Ben now makes about 10 million dollars a year based off what he did when he was 18 when he founded Mophie. Ben Kaufman didn’t stop there as he also started two other websites Kluster and Quirky that have also generated a lot of money for Ben despite his very young age.

            Mark Zuckerberg, Sean Parker, Catherine Cook and Ben Kaufman all are young people who understood the economic value of technology and used that to create websites that have made them all millionaires. They understood that their target audiences were all young people looking for the next “big thing”. Most kids go on the internet everyday so making a new website that is unlike any other, about a topic people like, is probably a good way to make money.  These days, the best way to get a hot new product out to the whole world quickly is through the Internet.