Movie Review: The Social Network


Although The Social Network has been out for a few years now, I decided to write a review (or perhaps my interpretation) of the movie. I had been meaning to write a piece on The Social Network for sometime now, but either was hampered by time, lack of inspiration or just plain forgot. Also, the fact that the movie has been out for quite a while made me feel that writing a review years after would be somewhat irrelevant. Certainly, there are numbers of movie reviews on this subject, but I wanted to offer my own interpretation of the movie, especially in light of the little post I wrote about Facebook the other day.

Originally, when The Social Network came out in theaters, like many other movies, I really had zero desire to see it. I had been working on my own social media project for sometime and someone who was working with me on the project encouraged me to check it out. He described it as “The Pirates of Silicon Valley of our generation.” Being a huge fan of the picture of Pirate of Silicon Valley and having worked on my own social media project, I decided to give The Social Network a chance and actually bothered buying movie tickets over at the Irvine Spectrum to see it with a friend.

Outside of the fact that the movie was supposedly about Facebook, I had little knowledge surrounding the movie. Thus, I was surprised to see David Fincher’s name attached to the film, but I figured that it might have some interesting elements as a result. Naturally, the film was very similar to other Fincher movies that had a music video type of feel. Despite the movie being about some college nerds making a nerd platform, the movie never really engendered a feeling about the negative connotations of being a stereotypical geek but rather converted those elements into something more of a rock star like persona, especially for the controversial figure of Mark Zuckerberg (whom a LOT of people hated and still hate to this day for various reasons).

Another critical factor in the movie for the “coolness” element is Trent Reznor acting as one of the primary composer for the theme track (along with Atticus Ross). Although Reznor is mostly regarded with being part of Nine Inch Nails, Ross and Reznor both really manage to capture a mood in the film, both dark, uplifting and tragic simultaneously. The opening song of Hand Covers Bruise I once heard described as the notes of a generation. Perhaps that identification really made me look more deeply into this movie as certainly Facebook and the aspects of social networking, computing, etc. have and are still defining a whole generation of people.

The beginning with Mark Zuckerberg being rejected by his supposed girlfriend as a result of his social ineptness then running away silently amidst the simple three notes that define Hand Covers Bruise provide an enormous backdrop and a possible thesis in the movie: why do we go to extreme lengths? Here, we might read the introduction in a shallow manner, pointing to how the rejection of a girl resulted in the creation of Facebook (which further is almost validated when Sean Parker’s character himself admitted how Napster was created). Yet I think (as do others) the circumstances are on a far grander scale when you connect the compositional elements, environmental background and circumstances together with the statement that Hand Covers Bruise is a generational theme.

To me, the very basic character of Mark Zuckerberg is what many of us nerds (or even closet nerds) see ourselves as: the social inept, too smart for his own good, too unpopular and lacking confidence yet perpetually having a hidden desire to excel because we ultimately want to have that rock star sense of fame. I feel many people, both young and older people, quickly can identify with Mark Zuckerberg’s character in the movie in that sense. However, the way the world has been structured is that we’re constantly being bombarded by images of sexuality, brute force dominating the smarter person, partying and hedonism that subliminally force us to be attracted towards that lifestyle. Hence, when Mark Zuckerberg returns and begins his hacking project, there’s a scene of fraternity and sorority parties demonstrating this lifestyle that has been glorified by Hollywood, the music industry and commercialism.

However, it isn’t ironic that those scenes are interwoven between Mark Zuckerberg’s near espionage-like tactics in creating his first iteration of Facebook and the way he manages to slip it into the conscious of college students. This triumphant act demonstrates something that has been going on in the tech industry for years with the garage company start up. Yet in a way it’s both a slap in the face and wake up call to the world about how the nerds are and have been slowly overtaking the world. It’s not even a subtle slap as we see how the Winklevoss Twins and Divya Nivendra all admitted to be too busy when this act of cultural subterfuge took place. In The Social Network, the Winklevoss Twins symbolize two common icons in society: both the ideal/perfect student/person and the athletic muscle head. The fact that these elements completely missed the boat so to speak while Mark Zuckerberg in a single night managed to create a monstrously popular service are nothing more than what has been going on for the past 10-15 years. Because of this triumphant act, Mark Zuckerberg in some ways looks more like a hero rather than the villain that the Harvard board in the movie pin him; in short, it’s poking fun of the slowness of the old guard and praising the new, which is a common theme that will continue in this movie.

Something else to consider as we examine the circumstances/environment surrounding this movie. As this movie was made in 2010, it’s important to examine the world and society in terms of how that has played a part in influencing this movie as a generational landmark. In 2008, we saw the arrival of a new president promising change, after the much lauded unpopular departure of George W Bush. America had been in a funk since the Dot Com explosion of the early 2000s and the country has been going through a major paradigmatic shift in identity. The more patriotic, pro-US, family oriented America has been moving towards both disillusionment with itself (especially in the recent ‘Murica term), the economic hardships characterized by the blow up of banks and other companies, the lack of stability with the job market, the move towards a far more integrated society, the growing distance and distrust of the government, major corporations and American citizens as well as the massive growth of technology as being a huge part of everyone’s life. The result of these components have created what I feel are the people in this movie.

One of the most important aspects of the movie to me is the behavior of people. The characters in this movie are from mostly middle to upper middle class backgrounds. Ethnicity wise though, there is no real divisions in this movie; it really contrasts older movie which might just feature white people (to put it bluntly). I think this is a very important element since (especially with Mark and his friend Eduardo Saverin who sexualize Asian women) demonstrate numerous changes with the younger generations. Yet all the characters in the movie share one thing in common: everyone is a fucking asshole.

I could not find one character that I really felt close to nor likeable at all in the movie. All of the characters in the movie, even the minor ones, were all reprehensible. They treated each other with disdain, had snooty attitudes, manipulated each other, were unapologetically hedonistic, possessed arrogant and abrasive diction and essentially made you want to bomb the world if this was what the future offered. And when I say minor characters, I mean every little one to the judges, the board members at Harvard, the policemen even the interns at Harvard. There wasn’t one element in any character which made me think, “Yes, I really think this person is a good person at heart.”

Ironically, the one character that the movie reportedly attempted to villainze was the only character I barely could sympathize with in Mark Zuckerberg’s character. Perhaps at the time I saw a little of myself in him and his plight. Despite this fact (which is an issue I will cover a little later), even his character pretty much established him to be a prick. But when I look at the way his persona was classified as the way Marylin Delpy describes him at the end of the movie:

You’re not an asshole, Mark. You’re just trying so hard to be.

I think this statement attempts to cast Mark Zuckerberg in a more sympathizing light and possibly might reflect on not just him but perhaps everyone in this movie. It’s an important statement that I want to reflect upon in a moment.

Before talking about Marylin’s quote in the movie, I want to return to another common character about all the cast: they are also Americans. Certainly, some characters might be of other ethnic descent or even born outside of this country (or as in Eduardo Saverin’s IRL case, simply drop your citizenship just to avoid taxes). However, the movie is inside of America and I think reflects the attitudes of people in America, even to a huge degree at the moment. It’s important to note how the major characters in the movie are college students or roughly around that age mark. This is critical as I feel that a great deal of appeal is slanted towards the college student or those in their early to mid 20s.

When I meet others in the tech world as well as through outlets like gaming, I tend to feel the way the movie describes in broad strokes the mentality and attitudes of these people to be quite accurate. Many of the younger people I’ve worked with are similar to those portrayed in the movie; young talented minds, many who are liberals/progressive thinkers, no longer seeing color (except in a retrospective half joking manner), free thinkers, ambitious, self serving, cocky borderline obnoxious (or worse than obnoxious at times), incredibly blunt and unconscientiously hurtful of others at times as a result of their shoot-from-the-hip social faux pas (and I’m not sure if the result is something called the Hipster).

Part of me thinks about the circumstances that have led towards the evolution of this persona. That’s part of the reason why I discussed the circumstances leading towards this. But you have to think beyond those aspects, how were these people “created?” Meaning, how did society condition them into becoming into this manner? Beyond the MTV-style marketing of the 80s and 90s, I think the dissatisfaction with the results of the war in the Middle East, the success and downfall of the dot coms and the regrowth of technology played a huge part in shaping the way the nation’s people have developed. Also, contributing factors started in the late 80s and early 90s with regards to music in addition to pro-wrestling’s popularity, especially in the Attitude Era. Add all these elements to how the internet and sites like reddit have provided a common medium so that people from around the world can communicate and express themselves in a near free forum, you have this boiling pot of far freer expression that in the end conveys a general dissatisfaction with older, more established structures and a desire to become part of something greater, which is creating something I believe will eventually grow into a more universal identity.

With regards to Facebook and the movie, these elements are inherent, which make it a fascinating case to me. Yet at the same time, I want to go back to the quote from Marylin Delpy that describes Mark Zuckerberg in the movie. Perhaps, the character of Mark Zuckerberg implicitly embodies many of these people that are in the tech work force. The person these days that behave in a similar manner might not have poor intentions. At the end of the movie, we see Mark Zuckerberg talking about Bosnia, a signal that may signify how he has more interests about the world than just making money. The part about “you’re just trying so hard to be (an asshole)” to me is both a jab at Mark Zuckerberg and perhaps people in general that seem contradict how most people really aren’t fuckheads to begin with. However, the circumstances in recent years have essentially changed the attitudes from the Happy Days whitewashed holy paladin persona into the disgruntled, blunt youths we’re seeing and even influencing others. If Mark Zuckerberg had failed in his endeavors, the only difference would be the money and fame aspects.

One of the interesting aspects of the movie that I personally have found appealing is the actual glorification of the geek. The standard geek image unfortunately has been misplaced in the old comedy Revenge of the Nerds. Unfortunately, like many movies of that time, the 80s over-exaggerated stylization probably had damaged and stifled the geek for a good 10 years, even though it also attempted to praise the geek. The geek in The Social Network no longer is this annoying guy with thick glasses, horrible laugh, wearing unappealing clothes. Instead, the geek has become the ultimate celebrity and icon.

In The Social Network, we see a celebration of the geek as someone who does indeed triumph over the system, brains and even women. The movie is a huge departure on iconography. For instance, Asian women are worshiped as more plausible and even highly sexy figures for geeks. When Eduardo Saverin expounds on his proclivity towards Asian women, he replies:

I don’t think it’s that complicated. They’re hot, they’re smart, they’re not Jewish and they can dance.

In short, Asian women have become a fetish in American society and are both cool and smart (along with good looking). Contrasts that with other white women in the film who end up being bimboish (even that girl from Stanford) to bitchy (like Mark Zuckerberg’s girlfriend; you could argue that Eduardo’s girlfriend ends up along those lines too but my point is more on the explicit redefining of both gender and ethnicity in this movie). In the work place, I know many guys (especially the geekier ones) who ended up marrying and/or dating Asian women, so this reflection does have a lot of basis. Part of it is that I think many of the white women traditionally have tossed geeks aside in favor of the jock stereotype. Revenge of the Nerds attempted to reward the geek with the hot blonde but in reality that still wasn’t the case. I know a lot of guys who went over to Japan and other Asian countries to find their match, some of whom failed in America to find anyone suitable. In some ways, this movie might be hinting at how white women’s values in the past might have caused failures to foresee the upcoming rise of the geek (that might be the case in the past as all the dynamics still are changing and might just end up being a small historical/cultural footprint in the movie).

The other aspect is how the geek triumphs through the often negatively imposed image of the dark room, lonely, angry soul. Certainly, Mark Zuckerberg (and others like him) in the movie was portrayed in this light. However, this image in reality helped him as he was able to maintain clear focus in developing one of the most successful platforms and enterprises to date. In fact, these days everyone pretty much is the dark room dwelling, angry soul, sitting in their rooms behind their computer. You can see it everywhere as technology has clearly dominated our lives in becoming not just a commodity but an absolute necessity. Go watch Twitch.tv for instance to see how people from all stratospheres are the dark, angry person looking for affirmation by slaying dragons or each other in the virtual game world. Read forum comments that are perpetually everywhere where you’d believe that the world is just filled with couch (or armchair) marines in their vigilante schemes of pushing their own politics on every little article that exist on the internet.

All of these elements make The Social Network an incredible movie for me as it truly has managed to define our times. But for me it’s a personal movie that occurred around the time when I had been working on my own project. I came up with a social media project that had some potential and something I tried getting others to become involved in. The person who got me to see The Social Network was both a friend a co-founder of the project.

The thing about the project was that I had developed the idea by myself and worked countless hours getting the basics up. However, I wasn’t really skilled at the UI/design aspect, which I really needed help. So I contacted a not-so-reliable friend who had reasonable skills with design. We managed to get bits and pieces rolling. For myself, I had a lot of the functionality done but he seemed more focused on the marketing aspects. We did have a large number of disagreements though when it came to the design, something I was pretty passionate about since I have a fair amount of experience with SEO, UI design and social media as well as the technology. Not to mention that I had a pretty solid vision in terms of the way I wanted the site to evolve.

Because of my explosive, possessive and control freak personality, I think he wanted me to check the movie out. After I saw it we had a discussion about the movie where he naturally asked me what I thought. The biggest aspect was that we talked about the characters we identified and sympathized with. Most people from what I had heard ended up detesting Mark Zuckerberg’s character and not surprisingly my friend (at the time) felt similarly and even felt inclined towards Eduardo Saverin. However, I ended up aligning myself with Mark Zuckerberg and seeing the fall out of our friendship, I can see everything on the whole.

I feel that my friend looked at himself as an Eduardo Saverin (although my friend had no money to really invest in the company/project; but he did have some supposed connections that never once manifested) whereas he felt threatened by me being a Mark Zuckerberg. While none of the success came out, the fallout certainly came about. I think this movie helped me realize how I allowed myself for being used and abused by this guy over the years without really seeing any positive come out. And seeing the decisions that Mark Zuckerberg made, I can say that if I were in his shoes (for which I was close), I can’t entirely blame him for his actions. At the end of the day, a person will do anything they can to climb a mountain and stay there. Both the movie and IRL Mark Zuckerberg certainly have and are doing those things.

Despite many of the negative implications in the movie, I do find that the movie is incredibly inspiring for tech people like myself. Although I’m no longer in my 20s like many of the people portrayed, I still have a degree of their enthusiasm and spirit. It’s more than entrepreneurship for myself and I believe for them. It’s all about creating a legacy for ourselves that we want remembered and making some sort of mark while we can. The energy, focus and ambition of the characters in this movie help impel me to maintain my desire in the industry (although lately I’ve been burnt out). When I feel unmotivated, I’ll simply turn on the soundtrack or keep the movie playing in the background as a reminder why I’m in this field. Although this movie might not be for everyone, I’m certain many people in technology and who are around that age group can easily identify with it in having a cultural and historical impact in their lives.

 

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