The audience is first exposed to such psychology when introduced to Mark's first project, "Facemash" which was actually a direct result of his break-up with Erica Albright. Knowing the simple ingredients for a highly-demanded website, Mark acquired pictures of various of girls within the residence halls' websites and created a website where users can pit their fellow female students with others to determine who is more aesthetically superior. The website received 22,000 hits within several hours of going live. This raises the question of just how such a simple, yet questionably ethical website can draw such an immense amount of viewers in a short amount of time. Especially in the college scene where students are within a tight network of friends and other students, people are highly drawn to social websites that deal with others that the viewer knows, or perhaps may want to know. Because Facemash consisted of girls that were specifically from Harvard University and the site's intended audience was Harvard students, the male students were immediately drawn to participate in the voting.
With the swift success of Facemash, Mark ventured to discover how else he could abuse his fellow students' "social needs" and channel it to a website. Though the basic idea was arguably taken from the Winklevoss brothers and their business partner, Divya, Mark created the idea of "The Facebook." An "e-society" where Harvard students can socialize with other students within the network was the billion dollar light bulb that popped over Mark's head. Throughout the developmental period, Mark is shown to constantly think of ideas to add to his website and quickly rushing to implement it. When Mark is shown nearly falling asleep in a computer lab, his friend approaches him with a problem he has with a girl, and how he is unaware of whether she has a boyfriend or not. Immediately, Mark runs past his friend, hurries back to his dorm and implements the final piece to his project, the "relationship status." On first glance one may find such a feature rather ridiculous and perhaps even unnecessary. This of course all depends on the category of people using the site. In the movie's particular point in time, Mark's only intended audience was Harvard students. Thus, especially in the college scene where students wish to make new friends, socialize, and find a relationship, Mark knew such a feature like "relationship status" would contribute immensely in drawing users. Even nowadays, it is quite noticeable how "serious" the relationship status of friends on Facebook has become, with questions like "Are they 'Facebook-official'?" having become a social trend.
Indeed the film's primary focus is essentially how Mark "made 500 million friends" all in the while making a "few enemies." This however, could not have been done without focusing on just how Mark adhered to the needs of society and abused it to succeed with Facebook. Had Mark not perfectly executed Facebook and appealed to the needs of society in the manner he did when going live, Facebook's popularity would not exist; "The Social Network" would never have been casted; but because of its success, Facebook has essentially become the epitome of a successful website, the role model for aspiring webmasters and programmers as 500 million users is quite the indication of a successful website. As such, because Fincher incorporated these sociological aspects in the development of Facebook in such a thought-invoking, yet entertaining manner, "The Social Network" has without a doubt surpassed all expectations of a movie that was to be dedicated to a mere website. Such a well-rounded and impeccably executed movie is very deserving of high marks.
The Social Network. Directed by David Fincher. Columbia Pictures: 2010. Film.
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