Am I reading too much into this, or would the Old Media rather die than give the internet credit for anything?

Snakes on a Plane, a movie that is being regarded as essentially an internet-driven film with a devoted online fanbase, was the top movie in America this weekend. If you look at the wire stories reporting this fact, however, what you will see again and again is that the movie (and the following emphasis is mine, based on what I know was in the writer’s heart, even though he totally would have emphasized it himself if he was allowed to) “technically debuted as the No. 1 movie, but with a modest opening weekend.” In other words, the web movie didn’t really make that much money. It only technically counts as the #1 movie, in the sense that it made more money than any other movie in the country. So, sure, says the AP, if you want to get all “dictionary definition” on the actual meaning of the words “#1 movie,” then yeah, I guess it counts. But its total take wasn’t that impressive, other than in the sense that it was larger than everything else. Don’t you start thinking you run things, you web nerds. With your “blogs” and your “memes.”

These same articles also pause and clear their throats before making a point of mentioning that the movie’s box office totals as reported by the studio included the money made on the Thursday sneak preview screenings, subliminally suggesting that this was a sneaky, deceptive way to puff up the numbers. If memory serves, the studio got this sneaky idea from every other summer box office total ever reported by every studio in the history of film.

Again, I may be reading too much into it… but no, I’m not, I’m exactly right about this. The Old Media reporting on Snakes on a Plane’s box office take is just another cousin to such insightful analysis and objective reporting as “MySpace Rapes Your Children,” “videogames caused Columbine,” and “These news bloggers aren’t legitimate; they just sit at home writing ‘news’ in their underwear without doing any of the hard things we do, like writing the exact stories our government sources tell us, suckling the teat of our corporate overlords, and making many, many, many mistakes.” The idea that online communities might have any relevance or value, the notion that the media gatekeepers might not run the entire world at the moment, is still making puddles ‘neath many a pant leg.

Speaking of scary: the movie itself is not a surprise. On the right day, it could be your favorite movie of all time, that day being October 10, 1987.