This past weekend, The Social Network made $23 million—good, but not great for a movie with as much fawning praise as it had.
Still, the hype machine rolls on. One of the kicks about seeing the movie is remembering how Facebook used to be, back when there was no such thing as photo tagging. Remember when you had to be part of a “network,” with an .edu e-mail address, to join?
The movie reminded me of another Facebook feature that has gone by the wayside: checking out the “network” as a whole to find out common interests (movies, music, and so on). Luckily, I saved a vestige from that period—a hard-copy printout, no less. So, just like the movie The Social Network reminds viewers what it was like to be a Facebook user in 2003, I’ll use this artifact to show you what it was like being a Westchester resident in 2006. Try to use the wayback machine, remember what your faves were four years ago, and see how similar you were to a Westchester Facebook user at the time.
In 2006, according to Facebook, these were the stats for the Westchester network:
Top Movies
1. Scarface
2. Wedding Crashers
3. Fight Club
4. Goodfellas
5. 300
6. Borat
7. The Departed
8. Old School
9. The Notebook
10. Boondock Saints
Top TV
1. Family Guy
2. South Park
3. House
4. Lost
5. Scrubs
6. Entourage
7. 24
8. Friends
9. Seinfeld
10. CSI
Top Music
1. Rap
2. R&B
3. Sublime
4. Techno
5. Rock
6. The Beatles
7. Nirvana
8. Hip-hop
9. Pink Floyd
10. Coldplay
[Ed note: Really, guys? Sublime above the Beatles?]
Top Books
1. Harry Potter
2. The DaVinci Code
3. Angels and Demons
4. The Catcher in the Rye
5. To Kill a Mockingbird
6. The Outsiders
7. Of Mice and Men
8. Lord of the Flies
9. 1984
Network Stats
Sex
35% male
30% female
35% none listed
Relationship Status
34% single
16% in a relationship
7% married
2% engaged
2% it’s complicated
1% in an open relationship
38% none listed
Political Views
7% liberal
5% moderate
3% conservative
3% very liberal
1% libertarian
1% apathetic
1% very conservative
70% none listed
8% other
How accurate a picture of the area do our aggregated Facebook profiles present? Was this you in 2006? Is this you now?
If you liked this kind of info-stat overload, you might also like this interactive graphic from the New York Times earlier this year, which parsed out Netflix rentals by zip code.
