10 years on, The Social Network is sharper than… | Little White Lies

In Praise Of

10 years on, The Social Net­work is sharp­er than ever

24 Sep 2020

Words by Luke Walpole

Two people, a man and a woman, sitting at a table in a bar, drinking beverages.
Two people, a man and a woman, sitting at a table in a bar, drinking beverages.
David Finch­er and Aaron Sorkin’s inside look at the cre­ation of Face­book has got bet­ter – and more pre­scient – with age.

With a sub­lime bal­ance of David Fincher’s inci­sive, eco­nom­i­cal direct­ing and Aaron Sorkin’s razor-sharp writ­ing, The Social Net­work is a Greek tragedy dressed in a hood­ie and flip flops.

While most tragedies end with the protagonist’s demise, how­ev­er, Mark Zucker­berg (Jesse Eisen­berg) is a strange case. He’s both the tech genius with Sil­i­con Val­ley at his feet and the iso­lat­ed pro­gram­mer who lacks the human con­nec­tion which Face­book pur­ports to cul­ti­vate. Viewed 10 years on, The Social Net­work per­cep­tive­ly pre­dicts a world in which Face­book (and social media in gen­er­al) is rid­dled with the same jeal­ousies and affec­ta­tion that plagued its inception.

Sorkin’s script tells us every­thing we need to know about Zucker­berg in the very first scene. He’s unde­ni­ably bril­liant, fir­ing on every cylin­der and con­stant­ly pro­cess­ing. But he’s also capri­cious and eas­i­ly affront­ed. His des­per­a­tion for sta­tus and oppor­tu­ni­ty to be part of a Final Club’, reflects a pro­found insecurity.

Cre­at­ed more through spite than altru­ism, Zucker­berg doesn’t care about con­nect­ing peo­ple. As he says blunt­ly to girl­friend Eri­ca Albright (Rooney Mara), I don’t want friends.” If an exam­ple were need­ed, his treat­ment of Eduar­do Saverin (Andrew Garfield) illus­trates this. Instead, he’s so des­per­ate to be part of an exclu­sive, gat­ed com­mu­ni­ty that he cre­ates one him­self. Telling­ly, when invit­ed into the Por­cel­lian Final Club by the Win­klevoss twins, Zucker­berg is trans­fixed by pho­tos of old members.

Nat­u­ral­ly, when the twins offer him the chance to cre­ate a gild­ed group for Har­vard stu­dents, Har­vard Con­nec­tion, he’s hooked. He even­tu­al­ly steals their idea, and The Face­book’ begins as a haven for the Ivy League elite. Yet Zucker­berg finds him­self run­ning an exclu­sive club in which he has no say over who joins – he’s a super­vi­sor as opposed to a gatekeeper.

A group of men seated around a table in a formal setting, with one man in the foreground looking pensive.

The last few years have seen Zucker­berg fall behind the curve. Fol­low­ing the Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca scan­dal and the insid­i­ous rise of fake news, he’s repeat­ed­ly admit­ted that mis­takes were made dur­ing the 2016 US Pres­i­den­tial Elec­tion and Brex­it vote, but his calls for reg­u­la­tion feel hol­low. Zuckerberg’s fall from grace reflects a broad­er soci­etal move away from the cult of the tech founder, some­thing which has sim­i­lar­ly tar­nished Twit­ter CEO Jack Dorsey. Even with­in The Social Net­work the gloss is begin­ning to wear off.

If we’re being char­i­ta­ble, for Zucker­berg, The Face­book became a means of under­stand­ing –a way of forc­ing peo­ple to be explic­it in their thoughts as opposed to being guard­ed and eas­i­ly mis­in­ter­pret­ed. Eisenberg’s kinet­ic char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion hinges on an inabil­i­ty to main­tain eye con­tact and dif­fi­cul­ty under­stand­ing oth­er peo­ples’ emo­tions. With­in the first scene, he asks Eri­ca whether she’s speak­ing in code.”

Since 2010, social media has more read­i­ly become a space for selec­tive cura­tion and latent com­pe­ti­tion. One of Facebook’s most suc­cess­ful acqui­si­tions, Insta­gram, exem­pli­fies this. Zucker­berg want­ed clar­i­ty; a space in which he (and the wider world) could know who stud­ied where and whether they were sin­gle. Instead, it’s allowed peo­ple to cre­ate an even more cod­ed veneer.

Behind Sorkin’s fizzing dia­logue, the film’s intro­duc­tion to Zucker­berg antic­i­pates the type of per­son who would ben­e­fit most from Facebook’s lack of wide-reach­ing account­abil­i­ty. As the script notes, Zucker­berg is a sweet-look­ing 19-year-old kid whose lack of any phys­i­cal­ly intim­i­dat­ing attrib­ut­es masks a very com­pli­cat­ed and dan­ger­ous anger.” In the morass of social media, peo­ple like this are able to vent open­ly and acrid­ly with­out a fear of consequence.

Zucker­berg isn’t a pro­to-incel. Rather, he’s the frus­trat­ed sin­gle white male who rede­fined social inter­ac­tion. Yet The Social Net­work sees him become intox­i­cat­ed by his own pow­er and pur­sue expan­sion and influ­ence beyond any­thing else. In Finch­er and Sorkin’s vision, this ten­den­cy is per­son­i­fied by Nap­ster founder Sean Park­er (Justin Tim­ber­lake). A mil­lion dol­lars isn’t cool. You know what’s cool?,” he asks. A bil­lion dol­lars,” answers Eduar­do in a suf­fo­cat­ing legal office.

Lat­er, Parker’s para­ble’ of Ray Ray­mond – the man who sold Victoria’s Secret long before it had reached its peak – con­tin­ues to push Zucker­berg down this path, even if he’s ini­tial­ly scep­ti­cal. Park­er may under­stand Facebook’s poten­tial, but he’s also the ani­mus behind its worst tendencies.

The Social Net­work has grown sharp­er and more pre­scient with age, pri­mar­i­ly through its fore­cast of what social media would become and the foibles of its tech genius founder. In the final scene, Zucker­berg is shown con­tin­u­al­ly refresh­ing his own Face­book page after adding Eri­ca as a friend. As always, he’s search­ing for accep­tance, whether that be from a Final Club or an ex-girlfriend.

One thing to con­sid­er, though. As she’s leav­ing the office, Zuckerberg’s lawyer Marylin (Rashi­da Jones) com­ments that cre­ation myths need a dev­il.” In The Social Net­work, Zucker­berg becomes the vil­lain of his own sto­ry, though per­haps we should be cau­tious when tak­ing this selec­tive cura­tion at face val­ue. It’s a les­son which applies to Face­book itself.

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