Just watched The Social Network, which left me half thrilled and half appalled. But then, that’s social media isn’t it? That thing that pervades most of our lives, that thing that we don’t 100% understand how it works or how to get it to work for us, that thing that we can’t live without but wish we could, that thing that we sometimes love…sometimes hate…
Throughout The Social Network, that’s how I felt. I hated Mark Zuckerberg (played by Jesse Eisenberg) for being a jerk, but I admired him for being a genius. I reviled him for what I initially saw as stealing the idea for Facebook from his classmates, but I applauded him for taking that idea and making it bigger than those other guys probably ever could, I wanted to smack him for screwing his best friend and Facebook CFO Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) in the deal, but I had to hand it to him for having an unwavering vision and not allowing that best friend to get him off track. Saverin wanted to monetize Facebook early on. Zuckerberg didn’t. No matter what you come away thinking about Zuckerberg, his is an incredible story. He changed the face of society as we know it, forever.
Zuckerberg is portrayed as a computer geek with a creative streak. He seems to have little or no social skills, so the fact that he pioneered the Facebook revolution may seem kind of bizarre at first. But really he just created a source where you could find out information about people in your circle, without actually having to ask or speak to them face-to-face. Facebook is a computer geek’s dream. In fact, it has probably made geeks out of lots of us, or at least gave us permission to let our geek flag fly.
The film makes one point perfectly clear: Facebook was not Zuckerberg’s idea. Internal social networks of a Facebook ilk already existed at most top schools around the world. The idea of expanding really belonged to the Winklevoss twins (adeptly played by one actor, Armie Hammer). But their vision was limited, so we needed Zuckerberg to adopt his f-you attitude, take the ball and run away with it, or we may still be emailing each other, or worse – paying a membership fee for some weaker version of Facebook…two unthinkable options in today’s environment.
But if you really want to hate someone, hate Sean Parker (played by Justin Timberlake). The Social Network portrays Parker as a guy who had it all – creative genius, technical prowess (he developed Napster to get a girl in high school) – but like so many “potentials” blew it due to insecurity, alcohol and drugs. Let’s be honest however, if you’re going to blow it, you may as well blow it Sean Parker-style. He was also portrayed as the wedge between Zuckerberg and Saverin. His biggest contribution to the cause was the advice to Zuckerbert to drop the “The” as in “The Facebook” and just call it “Facebook”. Thanks Sean. But enough about Parker, the movie’s not about him.
The Social Network is a bio-pic about that thing that has invaded the lives of so many people around the world. It’s fascinating to see this take on how it started – from spark to towering inferno. The film could have been called, “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” – that’s what they want you to believe about Zuckerberg in the end, that he didn’t care about making money, that he just wanted to build something “cool”. Quite the message, considering Zuckerberg is now a billionaire (yes, that’s a “b”).
No one will argue with the fact that Facebook is cool. The fact that they keep changing how it works and adding more and more back-office processes to track our every click is just a reminder – Facebook doesn’t’ belong to us, it belongs to them. We users are merely pawns in the game to further Facebook and whatever direction it wants to take next. Oh, Facebook needs us – obviously, but I doubt they have anything to worry about. We’re not going anywhere.
