32 | New Scientist | 7 December 2019
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THESE days, when I think about
the social media platforms I spend
a lot of time on – and the people
who run them with little concern
for the privacy of my personal
data – I get a bit sad and a lot angry.
So, on the advice of a colleague,
I decided to watch the final season
of Silicon Valley, an HBO sitcom
that parodies the culture that
brought us everything from an
extremely silly $400 “juicer” that
squeezed bags of pre-cut fruit
and veg slower than you could
by hand to widespread election
interference and the beginnings
of the breakdown of democracy.
I hadn’t watched the previous
five seasons, but it was clear
enough which tech companies
and leaders were being skewered
in each scene. As with Veep, an
HBO comedy about a bumbling
vice-president and her idiot staff,
it is cathartic to laugh at how
moronic decisions might be being
made within organisations that
touch all our lives.
While the details in Silicon Valley
can seem outlandish, it turns out
that some are based on reality.
For example, one of the mostgratingly awful characters in this
season is a coder who rollerblades
around a meeting room. He thinks
it makes him look cool – of course,
it doesn’t. The show’s writers lifted
this from a real meeting they had
at Google, which they described in
an interview they gave The New
Yorker several years ago. At the
time, they deemed it “too hackyto use on the show”. Now, though,
it fits really well with the broad
comedy that the sixth season of
the show turns on.
The standout performance is
by Zach Woods, who plays chief
operating officer Jared Dunn at
Pied Piper, the fictional start-up
the show follows. He is both
reliably funny and capable of
bringing a measure of realism
to the absurdity.
Overall, there were some
genuine laugh-out-loud moments,The inside story Silicon Valley, HBO’s hit series about the US IT industry, has laugh-
out-loud moments and gratingly awful characters, but it lets the tech giants off
their moral responsibilities too easily, writes Chelsea Whyte“ While the details in
Silicon Valley can seem
outlandish, it turns out
that some are based
on reality”TV
Silicon Valley
HBOChelsea also
recommends...TV
Veep
HBO
Vice-president Selina Meyer
and her motley crew of
truly ridiculous aides try
to get through the day
without ruining her
political image too badly.
They rarely succeed.Film
The Social Network
Directed by David Fincher
Adapted from Ben Mezrich’s
book The Accidental
Billionaires, this film takes
a more realistic look at
the scheming that goes
on behind the scenes of
a tech company.although I found the comedy
a little overdone at times.
Those laughs came with a
twinge of painful reality. In the
opening scenes of the first episode
of the new series, the CEO of
Pied Piper, Richard Hendricks,
is walking into a hearing at
Congress – an obvious parody
of Mark Zuckerberg’s recent turn
in front of a committee. An aide
tells him she likes his tie and he
responds, “Thanks, I tied it
myself.” I snorted and then
rolled my eyes at the all-too-real
depiction of someone completely
out of their depth, being called to
account for the societal problems
digital media have exacerbated.
Later in the season, Dunn and
Hendricks stumble into creating
a truly upsetting and wildly
unethical data-mining system
based on recordings gathered
from microphones on gaming
headsets. This is shown as a moral
person trying to do “the right
thing” and accidentally putting
the data his company collects in
danger of being misused. But by
portraying it as a misstep, instead
of a decision made with clear
minds and an obvious prioritising
of money over privacy, it felt as if
in the course of trying to skewer
the heads of giant tech companies,
the writers let them off the hook.
What Silicon Valley gets right,
though, isn’t the stuff about tech
or the digital economy, but the
human interactions. I am sure I
am missing quite a bit without the
full back story on these characters,
but the emotional moments of old
friends reconciling after a fight or
coming through in a pinch are the
best parts of the show. They had
me cheering the dolts on, even if
I don’t know them very well. ❚HBOPied Piper staff watch
their CEO fumble a speech
to Congress on privacyThe TV column
Chelsea Whyte is a reporter
for New Scientist, based in
Portland, Oregon. Follow her
on Twitter @ chelswhyte