Review of The Social Network (2010) by Hanneguacamole — 09 Jun 2015

The Social Network opens with an extremely strong scene that establishes Mark Zuckerburg as a genius and somewhat of an **** while also introducing one of the major components of the movie–crew, or rather the twins that rowed it. We are also introduced to Mark's other lawsuit with his best friend Eduardo when he obsesses over final clubs, one of which Eduardo actually became a member of.

Mark's potential as a computer geek and as a successful person in general is really shown from the beginning with facesmash and the capability to really shut down Harvard's whole network. He does get hated but also gets found through this website. Women (understandably) are angry with him, yet he comes up with this amazing idea with the help of these twins. I was also particularly struck by his lack of interest with money. He had his own startups in high school, yet he "didn't sell it, uploaded it for free." Seems like someone who's just so enamored by these ideas that nothing on the business side even comes to mind for him. That's Eduardo's place.

It also doesn't even seem to occur to Mark that he might get in trouble for his actions. Does he even have consequences? Mark Zuckerburg is a very flawed protagonist. The truth is that he's just a real human being and we see the many sides of him and the many sides of the story. I couldn't fully sympathize with Mark because of the way he did act to certain people, yet I would find myself not sure if I was cheering for him or not because I truly understood each argument that the others were making. "If you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you'd have invented Facebook." Very true – Harvard Connection really was not the same thing and there was much gray area involved.

One thing that bothered me though was the way those two girls were introduced that Mark and Eduaro hooked up with, and Eduardo began dating Christy. But they treated them as if they were intellectually incapable yet they both attended Harvard. I sensed a thread of misogyny throughout that is unfortunately a part of the technology industry. (Again, this is something I would love to try to change in my life.) The movie had really unique ways to introduce new topics in a seamless fashion. One that I noticed the most was how we saw Sean Parker–the founder of Napster–and realized who he was just how that girl did. We really saw Facebook evolve as a company as the movie went on.

Something that really struck me was how this was a "once in a generation idea" which is actually probably true. Facebook has been so revolutionary in my life. I grew up before Facebook and it wasn't until my later years in school that this was really a thing so it's been amazing to see the exponential growth in social media, honestly instigated a lot by the success of this one website. Love it or hate it, it's revolutionary.

We ultimately see three people screwed out of this company and its fortune, all thanks to Mark Zuckerburg. They receive their settlements and life goes on, but I guess this level of success can't happen without such events as the damages that Mark did to his only real friendship here. "You're not an **** Mark. You're just trying so hard to be." -Marilyn Delpy (Rashida Jones) Now Mark Zuckerburg is the youngest billionaire in the world and no one can say that the things he did in this movie were not worth it for where he's at today, with over 1.4 billion users.