Computers: Weird Science

Weird Science was on TV yesterday.

Safe to say that I watched it. When the Geek starts preaching, I have to take a pew.

Weird Science is a classic example of what people believed computers were capable of in the 80s. With the help of movies and television people thought that all you needed was enough geeky computer know-how and you could make a Commodore 64 do anything (this theory still exists today but it only pertains to the latest Apple product).

(Am I the only one that thinks having a giant iphone that isn’t even a phone is retarded?)

The whole magical computer thing was something that happened over and over in the 80s.

Revenge of the Nerds did it:

Electric Dreams did it:

And don’t even get me started on Automan:

It’s hilarious to see how computers have developed in television and movies over the past three decades. The 1980s computers were no better then a modern day calculator yet people believed they were capable of absolutely anything. All you had to do was mention the word hologram and people believed you could create anything out of thin fucking air.

In the 90s computers suddenly became important to everyone. That’s when it lost its wonder and became boring. We all had to sit through those dramatic 90s movies and TV shows with the suspenseful computer scenes.

I could also say something about the movie You’ve Got Mail but just thinking about it makes me throw up in my mouth a bit.

In the new millennium we went back to thinking computers were amazing again but being a bit more grounded about it. That’s because the technology finally came along that made the average computer capable of doing amazing things. Of course that technology is completely lost on all the people that thought computers were magic in the 80s. Now you have to sit around listening to parents say things like I barely know how to turn the thing on and my 5 year old son is uploading his own videos to Youtube Hahahahahahaha (x 5 other adults). 

Yep the 2000s have seen the movie computer become the tool of kids and teens, pretty much the same people that used it in the 80s. But today’s weird scientists are less science and more weird.

P.S. When I was a kid I watched that episode of Automan where he goes undercover as a stripper. After seeing that I decided that I wanted to be a stripper. I went into my room, dressed up as Zorro, came back downstairs and striped seductively to my underwear in front of my mom and my sister.