The Social Network

The Social Network is a film about Mark Zuckerberg and his journey through Harvard to eventually creating Facebook. The movie tells its story through a retrospective lens: a legal case where Zuckerberg's best friend and colleagues are suing him, for stealing their idea. It's a bit of a sticky situation becuase the movie does show Zuckerberg meeting with those colleagues (the Winklevoss twins) and discussing a website that can connect all Harvard students and be able to share their information with one another. It's hard to tell who the movie sympathizes with; the makers of facebook or not. Zuckerberg is conveyed as a bit of jerk, condescendingly talking to his girlfriend and only interested in his won accomplishments. But really, what makes him this way is also the driving force of the greatest project of his life, thus far.


One of the things i did not like about the movie is the exaggeration of people's morals and the way that they are portrayed in the movie. For instance, Sean Parker, the creator of Napster from the start was shown as a sleazy guy sleeping with a girl, on a one night stand. his relationship with facebook and Zuckerberg also starts on a rocky foundation. Mark's best friend Eduardo, appointed CFO of the company, didn't like Parker from the start. Eventually Parker pushes Eduardo out of the company by diluting his shares in the company from one third down to less than one tenth of one percent. Towards the end of the movie he gets caught literally with cocaine on his hands. The film accomplishes showing its characters in this negative light. The only good that came from Parker was his advice to drop "The" from "Thefacebook."

Another interesting point I noted was how there seemed to be certain subplots that did not really seem to lead the viewer anywhere. For instance in one scene, Zuckerberg was attending a lecture Bill Gates was speaking at, and afterward outside he had an awkward encounter with several students asking him if he was the creator of facebook. At the moment of the scene, I thought new characters were about to enter the script, but then slowly that tangent faded out. I realized after the movie ended that it actually made sense to have seemingly useless subplots in the movie, because it is based off a true story. A story that's still changing everyday, so it's hard to tell what became of certain events, and the movie did a good job of incorporating that.

Facebook has had a tremendous effect on college life and beyond. What started off as a platform for a few Harvard students to connect with one another became a regular part of life of every college student out there.