The Social Network Reflection

David Fincher's The Social Network (2010) tells the story of Mark Zuckerberg's revolutionary social media network, Facebook. Though the film is about Facebook’s invention, Fincher decides to portray the inventor as an “asshole,” turning the audience against him. Within the first thirty minutes of the film, we get the sense of what kind of person Zuckerberg is—an obnoxious genius with a superiority complex and a lack of social skills. After a break-up with his girlfriend leaves Zuckerberg’s masculinity crippled, he angrily creates a sexist website in which people can rate the “hotness” of Harvard undergrad women. The website spreads across campus like wildfire, and leaves Zuckerberg ostracized and hated by the women of Harvard, and with nobody but his loyal friend Eduardo Saverin by his side. However, he gets the attention of the Winklevoss twins, who solicit his help in developing a site called The Harvard Connection. Instead, Zuckerberg, like the “asshole” Fincher makes him out to be, steals the idea and creates “The Facebook” with Saverin behind their backs. When faced with a threat by the Winklevoss twins to take legal action, Saverin stays loyal to Zuckerberg and keeps asking “What can we do?”

Later, when Zuckerberg invites Sean Parker, founder of Napster, to give business advice, he ends up putting strain on his one valuable friendship with Saverin, the CFO of Facebook. Entranced by the validation Parker gives him, Zuckerberg makes major business decisions without consulting Saverin. On multiple occasions, he shows no appreciation for the work Saverin does for the company. In retaliation, Saverin freezes Facebook’s bank account. In this feud between Zuckerberg and Saverin, Fincher makes the audience sympathize with Saverin, the loyal friend who works tirelessly for his friend only to be thrown under the bus when a cool newcomer comes along. The most heartwrenching part of the film was when Saverin’s shares were diluted down to 0.03%. When Saverin sues Zuckerberg, the question of what it means to be a good friend comes into question often.

One of the points The Social Network raises is what it means to be a friend. In the film’s last scene, Mark Zuckerberg sends his ex-girlfriend Erica a friend request and obsessively refreshes the page, waiting for a notification that she accepted. Facebook, as the largest social media site ever made, has lowered the standards for being called a friend. Now, a friend is just someone who you feel an arbitrary connection just because you can see their pictures and status updates. Much like Zuckerberg, we take our “real life” friends for granted, seeking the validation that comes from looking at how many Facebook friends we have.