-The Social Network is a film that will always be regarded as a testament of our time, Some might even call it a cultural artifact. Being that the main focus is about mass media and how relationships rise and fall around them, this can truly speak to our society today. Another way of looking at the movie and its cultural value is to see the way people now are using social media to escape reality and live somewhere else. Facebook and other social networks create an alternative space to exist. During the movie Mark does this in a way but it is through the creation of Facebook that he does it. The movie creates a metaphor for Facebook which is the action of Mark creating Facebook. In a way Mark is using Facebook before it is even invented. A mind blower... I know-
The
movie The Social Network, directed by
David Fincher, is one of the most telling cultural artifacts of the time we
live in today. Throughout the film we see the supposed protagonist Mark
Zuckerberg doing anything possible to gain friends and social status and he
feels that he found a way to do exactly that through the creation of “Facebook”
or “The Facebook” as it was originally called. By creating this facebook, Mark begins to gain notoriety and
popularity, something that he never had, as he is an extremely socially inept
individual. The point that is being made here is that the man with the least
amount of social skills possibly on the planet, is responsible for creating the
largest social network known to man. Facebook or any social network for that
matter can create an environment that allows people to deny their true
realities in favor of a cyber reality; in a sense the social network creates
and alternative space to exist. Throughout the movie, we see mark absorbed by
facebook without it even being fully created yet, which speaks volumes to the
alternative space idea because while making facebook, he was living through it
just like many of us do today. Creating Facebook was Mark’s “Facebook”, which
in other words means that Mark became super-obsessed with creating it just like
many of us are obsessed with the website today. This movie shows us a lot about
our society through the character of Mark Zuckerberg because people no longer
have to be sociable or likeable in order to gain social clout or in Mark’s
case, social immortality. Furthermore, Facebook created a place that not only
lets you gain friends without actually knowing or interacting with them, but it
creates an alternative space for people to exist.
When
one examines the first scene of this film, off the bat, Mark Zuckerberg’s
social ineptness is on display.
“MARK: Did you know there are more people with genius IQ’s living in
China than there are people of any kind living in the United States? ERICA:
That can’t possibly be true. MARK: It is. ERICA: What would account for that?
MARK: Well, first, an awful lot of people live in China. But here’s my
question… How do you distinguish yourself in a population of people who all got
1600 on their SAT’s? ERICA: I didn’t know they take SAT’s in China. MARK: They
don’t. I wasn’t talking about China anymore, I was talking about me… ERICA: …sometimes you say two things
at once and I’m not sure which one I’m supposed to be aiming at…”
(Sorkin “The Social Network”)
The first scene creates a very odd feeling about the
character Mark Zuckerberg because not only does he seem all over the place like
this quote describes, but further in the scene he seems sort of desperate for
some sort of social recognition. This can be understood by listening to him go
on about these “Final Clubs” Mark, in this situation, seems to be lost in the
shuffle. Mark is a genius who is unrecognized in a university full of geniuses.
At this point he realizes that something else needs to be accomplished other
than just doing well academically at Harvard. He realizes that maybe it is a
final club that can propel him into the social stratosphere or maybe it is something
else.
Facebook
for Mark was created in order for him to gain power and most importantly social
prowess. We see that money was not the main goal even in the first scene when
he says that “The ability to make money doesn’t impress anybody around here.”
(Sorkin “The Social Network”). If this is true then there is a whole irony to
the situation in the movie and in reality. In Mark’s quest to climb the social
ladder, we see that he loses his girlfriend and his best friend Eduardo or as
Eduardo likes to say “I was your only friend. You had one friend.” (Sorkin “The
Social Network”) Isn’t that ironic that in order to gain friends, he loses the
only people that really care about him. What Facebook does today is similar
what happened to Mark in reality.
It doesn’t happen in the same sense that it happened to Mark, but when
we have this alternative space to exist, it begins to become our reality. When
people begin to count on as facebook as your real measure of reality just as
mark used fame and popularity as his real measure of worth, you begin to lose
touch with the things that matter in reality. Just like how Mark lost the
people who really cared about him, when all we do is choose to live on the Internet,
we lose touch with some of the people we love too.
If
there is one thing that we have learned from Mark Zuckerberg it is that
although he amassed fame and fortune, it was all at the cost of the people he
cared about. Like we do often with Facebook, Mark chose to live in his
alternative space where creating his fame and fortune became his reality.
Creating Facebook was his Facebook in the sense that he could go to it and see
that there appears that there is a lot more people who care about you than the
ones that really do. This is the society that we live in today and it is all
because of Facebook. People can look at the number of friends they have on it
and feel good about them selves but how many of those people do they really
talk to or care about, in Mark’s case none, and that is the irony of it all. He
created His own “Finals Club” but I wonder if it was all worth it in the end.
This piece doesn't connect the sporting world as well as the rest of my work, but the idea of the social network its self does. I wouldn't go as far to say that athletes are necessarily living through the social networks today but I might compare it to a fantasy world where they can interact with fans without becoming overwhelmed. take a look at these articles that might speak to the topic.
way to go dommy!!! I'm so proud of you!!
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