Watching Studio60

Aaron Sorkin’s contempt for the Internet has always been sort of an Achilles heel in his writing. He tends to have characters rant about it as a vast wasteland of crazy people trying to take down the best and the brightest with their ill-informed opinions and chain-smoking mumu-wearing leaders. So he’s not exactly who you would think of as the go-to writer of a movie about Facebook.

So when somebody claiming to be Sorkin popped up on the social networking service claiming to be researching a movie, it was easy to assume it was someone playing a little joke — just the sort of thing that would happen in the Internet Wild West, don’t you know. But now, New York Magazine is offering confirmation that it is indeed the man who imagined LemonLyman.com (see video above) now trying to learn the ways of the Netizens.

Here’s the info Sorkin (or his assistant) put up on his Facebook page:

“Welcome. I’m Aaron Sorkin. I understand there are a few other people using Facebook pages under my name — which I find more flattering than creepy — but this is me. I don’t know how I can prove that but feel free to test me.

“I’ve just agreed to write a movie for Sony and producer Scott Rudin about how Facebook was invented. I figured a good first step in my preparation would be finding out what Facebook is, so I’ve started this page. (Actually it was started by my researcher, Ian Reichbach, because my grandmother has more Internet savvy than I do and she’s been dead for 33 years.)

“Some of you might be familiar with some things I’ve written. I’m the author of two Broadway plays — A Few Good Men and The Farnsworth Invention, five feature films — A Few Good Men, The American President, Malice, Charlie Wilson’s War and The Trial of the Chicago 7 which is in pre-production, and three television series — Sports Night, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and the first four seasons of The West Wing.

“I honestly don’t know how this works, which is why I’m here. If anyone has any questions I’d be happy to answer them as best I can. If anyone has any comments I’m glad to listen. And if anyone has any Facebook stories I think they might be helpful.

“That’s all. I’ll try to get better at this as I get more practice.

“Aaron

“* I feel about this introduction the way I felt about Sophie’s Choice–It could have been funnier.”

There’s a question page where he does indeed appear to be answering questions from the Internet rabble, as well as other posts and discussions on the group page. Seems like he’s either mellowed a little about the ‘Net, or his assistant is carefully going through and eliminating all the crazy talk from his posts. Either way, some fun reading.

Aaron Sorkin, Facebook, The West Wing