4 ms·
It's amazing how quickly things change. Paul mentioned the 70s as a heyday for big organizations, but I remember this going well into the 80s. You can see it
by geebee 18y ago
It's amazing how quickly things change. Paul mentioned the 70s as a heyday for big organizations, but I remember this going well into the 80s. You can see it in the culture. Remember how many movies were made that glorified climbing the corporate ladder? "Working Girl" with Meg Ryan, "The Secret of My Success" with Michael J Fox, "Big" with Tom Hanks. Those are just a few. There was an entire hollywood genre of climbing the ladder - movies that made it seem that making presentations with little arrows going up and down on a chart was the apex of human achievement.
I was in my teens during the latter half of this decade - I'd guess that at least half of the people who read hacker news are too young to have seen them when they came out. If you do watch them now, they'll probably seem as quaint as "Hair".
Don't ask.
- herdrick 18y agoEver notice any 80s movie characters who were computer programmers? I can remember one - it's the weirdest thing to watch. He's socially awkward, which is reasonable, but he also has no money! All the cool kids in the movie make more than him. You could not have such a character today - completely implausible.
- geebee 18y agoRevenge of the nerds had programmers. God, I loved that movie. My younger brother liked it even more. Remarkably, my parents let him watch it over and over on VHS. Violent movies were more likely to get scrutiny: for an explanation, see "Hair" ;)
- jgrahamc 18y agoDavid Lightman. He was smart, nerdy, witty and got the girl.
- zandorg 18y agoHollywood nerd rule #1 - First the nerd saves the day with a hack, then gets killed so the leads can kiss.
- jedberg 18y agoMelanie Griffith starred in Working Girl. The rest of your post was spot on though. :) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096463/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096463/
- geebee 18y agooops, you're right. how could I have possibly mixed those two up?
- umjames 18y agoYou're right. I remember when those movies came out. Even 1991's "Don't tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead" follows that pattern. Ironically, Tron was this way also. Flynn sought to run the big tech corporation instead of that arcade. Now, I'd rather be running that arcade than working for the big corporation.