To all appearances, Ken ReCorr is no different from countless other Triangle 30-somethings who do a little of this and a little of that, not quite in control of their destinies but not yet willing to surrender to the drudgery of an ordinary career.

But ReCorr has something most of the rest of them don't have: A gold-plated certification of 21st century status.

ReCorr is on IMDb.

If I have to explain to you what that is (which I'll do anyway because it's my job), then you're behind the culture curve. IMDb is the Internet Movie Database, which is the go-to Web site for anything and everything related to Hollywood. That's where you learn that Harrison Ford has a species of Central American spider named after him (Calponia Harrisonfordi), that Jennifer Lopez's favorite movie is "Deuce Bigelow: Male Gigolo" (which somehow doesn't surprise me), and that 1969's "Midnight Cowboy" is the only X-rated movie to ever have been shown to an American president. (Amazingly, it wasn't Bill Clinton.)

IMDb is the place you check when somebody makes a claim to a movie career. If you don't find his or her name there, you're getting smoke blown up your skirt. Simple as that.

ReCorr, who grew up in Cary and was trained as a journalist, is a proofreader for a biotech firm in Research Triangle Park. He also occasionally puts walking-around money in his pocket by covering high-school football for The N&O on a freelance basis. But when he says he's a film producer -- an assertion you might reasonably doubt, considering ReCorr's utter lack of flash and his physical distance from Hollywood -- you can confirm it with the click of a mouse. The proof is right there on IMDb.

Forget about Who's Who. If you want to check out somebody's bona fides these days, you Google him. Status has gone online, and it's never coming back.

This was a lesson I learned a few days ago, when ReCorr e-mailed a mass notice saying that an independent film he'd worked on (and briefly appeared in) would be shown at the Galaxy Cinema in Cary. I was on his mailing list, and I'll admit to skepticism. So I went to IMDb and -- bingo -- there he was. When we later met to talk, ReCorr was carrying a printout of his IMDb listing.

"Street cred," he explained.

We chatted about his fledgling film career. ReCorr was a crew member on the feature film "Mutual Appreciation" and producer for a short film called "Adam's Eve." Both efforts were a combination of lark and steppingstone. If they lead to something bigger, great, but if not -- well, he'll always have something cool to drop into a casual conversation.

But mostly we talked about how status has gone high-tech. How many hits does your name turn up on Google? How many phones belonging to other people have your number on speed-dial? Whose MySpace pages are you on? Ever posted anything on youtube.com? Got your own Web page?

"It's an interesting way to find your position in the world," ReCorr says.

Actually, it's more than that. It's the new Social Register.

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