Aaron Sorkin hates the Internet. Why does he keep writing about tech geniuses?

Image Credit: John Russo

Aaron Sorkin needs to clear a space on his cluttered mantle. The king of the walk-and-talk recently signed on to adapt Walter Isaacsons Steve Jobs biography and considering how many awards The Social Network won, its safe to guess that Sorkins next peek behind the computer screen will be similarly celebrated.

But even though Sorkin snagged an Oscar for writing about the technorati, its still deeply weird that he somehow became Hollywoods go-to tech biopic scribe. Sorkin has long had a love-hate relationship with computers accent on the hate.

After getting into a string of online arguments with Television Without Pity posters in the early 00s, Sorkin wrote an episode of The West Wing that featured a subplot about how horrible Internet users are. (Josh to C.J., on a certain site: Its a crazy place. Its got this dictatorial leader who Im sure wears a muumuu and chain smokes Parliaments. C.J. to Josh: The people on these sites, theyre the cast of One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest!) An episode of Studio 60 also revolved partially around the characters reactions to a critical blogger; as one opined, Its like weve all spent the last five years living in a Roger Corman film called Revenge of the Hack. Another dismissed the blogger as someone with a freezer full of Jenny Craig who sits surrounded by her five cats. Even the new trailer for Sorkins upcoming HBO drama, The Newsroom, includes a moment in which Jeff Daniels character reacts with disdain when Dev Patels character mentions his blog.

And then there are the various Internet bashing comments Sorkin himself has made over the years. Heres a sampling of his greatest hits:

One of the things I find troubling about the Internet, as great a resource tool as it is, and as nice as it is that we can all communicate with each other, and that everybody has a voice the thing is, everybodys voice oughtnt be equal. Chicago Tribune, January 19, 2007

And the Internet [doesnt help]its a bronchial infection on the First Amendment. Nothing has done more to make us dumber or meaner than the anonymity of the Internet. GQ, August 12, 2008

Theres just too much bad information getting out there, and I have to believe thats mostly the fault of the Internet, which isnt held to any standards of accuracyI have to tell you, I dont feel like I had any trouble getting information before. Every morning two newspapers were literally thrown at my house. All I had to do was open the door and get them. Anyway, Im not quite getting the Internet. New York, September 17, 2010

You are witnessing mad men and mad womenIt only takes five [comments] before you find somebody with a severe mental disorder. Vulture, September 30, 2010

I do think that socializing on the Internet is to socializing what reality TV is to reality. The Colbert Report, September 30 2010

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Aaron Sorkin hates the Internet. Why does he keep writing about tech geniuses?

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