The Social Network

*This post is an assignment for my Public Relations class.  More musical goodness to come, I promise*

Last night I saw the movie The Social Network, which, for those who are out of the loop, is the story of how Facebook was created.  It tells the tale of how one drunken night when Mark Zuckerberg’s girlfriend dumped him lead to the creation of the second most popular website on the internet (Google Earth takes the number one spot, according to http://mostpopularwebsites.net/). 

I originally had pretty low expectations for this movie, though many of my friends had told me it was actually pretty good, so I went in with a clean slate.  After seeing it, I don’t really understand what the hype was about.  Cinematically it was nothing special, the story was only mildly engaging, and I was left wondering “wow, is Zuckerberg really that much of an asshole?”  A few good one liners made me smile, and the part with the chicken was pretty funny, but all around, a stinker in my books.  The only part of the story line that kept me interested was the outcome of the lawsuits, which I could have easily found out without watching a two hour movie.

As for Zuckerberg being an asshole, I don’t think the writers created a very realistic image of him.  In the movie he treated people like dirt, walked all over anyone in his path, was sarcastic (not a problem with me) and just generally unlikable.  Everything I have seen or heard of the real life Zuckerberg leads me to believe this is mostly exaggeration.   He seems like a friendly guy, who may have a bit of a “holier than thou” problem, but being the world’s youngest billionaire may be cause of that (still not excusable).  The character in the movie really didn’t care about anything; not his friends, not his money, not his image, nothing.  He was portrayed as this dark outcast sort of figure, but the movie made it seems as though it was by his choice.  Throughout the whole movie, Jesse Eisenberg (playing Zuckerberg) has a look of sheer boredom on his face, which makes his character seem like even more of a recluse.

I don’t feel like the release of this movie will have any impact on the popularity of Facebook, for a few reasons:

-almost everyone in the target audience is already on Facebook

-those who are not using the social networking site probably have a reason for holding out

-in the modern online world, no one cares about the people behind the service, they just care about the service itself

Zuckerberg handled the negative portrayal of himself in a calm, reasonable, and light-hearted way.  He made it clear that this is a movie, and that just like any other movie, it’s made up (at least partially) and should be more for fun than anything else.  It is too bad that a movie like this can come along and paint someone in such a negative way that they have to come out and make it clear that it is not true.  I believe he did a good job of making it clear that the character in the movie is made up, which will definitely brighten a few people’s perceptions him.

Best part of the movie?  The fact that opened with Ball and Biscuit by The White Stripes, which played in the background all throughout the first scene.

Lastly, if I ever join a frat, please shoot me.