Too Old to Read About Movies, Too Young to Die

I love the Internet Movie Database but have been somewhat irritated by the need to register to read comments. I didn’t do it for a while but finally did today. Turns out they don’t just want your email address; they need a gender and a year of birth. I know it’s churlish of me, but I don’t like giving out any information unless I really have to. Or else I, like millions of others, give them fake information.

IMDB aren’t dumb; they know this. But they are a bit age-ist. Try entering 1900 as your year of birth and you’ll get this:

The cheek! My 105 year-old next door neighbour would be outraged were she still alive. How could someone be “too old” to register? According to the U.S. Census Bureau there were nearly 65,000 people who were 100 years or older last year. How do they feel about it? We should ask them.

(I’m not the only person to experience this. J-Walk hit the same problem a few months back, as did a Russian speaker called Syarzhuk.)