Is The Social Network a more factual or fictional account of the development of Facebook? The more lascivious and rowdy elements of the film may be exaggerated, and certainly have a disproportionate presence in the film, relative to the major events being portrayed. However, the more integral plot depicting the duplicity of Mark Zuckerberg and the subsequent resentfulness of the All-American twins Tyler Winklevoss and Cameron Winklevoss, and their partner Divya Narendra, who together started ConnectU, as well as Zuckerberg's financial disputes with his close partner Eduardo Saverin, seem to have more substantial grounds.
Still, the narrative discourse of the film may not be as calumnious as its detractors have alleged. If anything, the film cements Zuckerberg’s status as not merely as a young entrepreneur who had a cool idea and programming skills, but as a tremendously resourceful and cunning character, spotting opportunities not only for responding to trends, but for predicting and manipulating those trends, using precocious insight and savant-like programming abilities.
Facebook might want its typical users (the people who post silly photos of themselves drinking from the ubiquitous red plastic cups at parties) to believe that Zuckerberg is just like them, but what The Social Network conveys best is that he is not. No, this somewhat cantankerous and highly ambitious nerd is much attuned to the zeitgeist, but is hardly a representation of it.
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