The Social Network

The Social Network tells the story of the origins of Facebook and how it has became such a phenomenon. The movie focuses on the two law suits that Mark Zuckerberg is involved in and with the flashbacks, we find out how Facebook was created. The first lawsuit is with the Winklevoss twins and Divya Narendra as they are suing because Mark created Facebook based on their ideas. It all started when the creator of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, was dumped by his girlfriend, Erica, and went on a revenge rampage and created Facemash.com, which compares all Harvard girls on campus based on their hotness. Zuckerberg was then recruited by the Winklevoss twins and Divya Narendra to help with their idea of opening a site called Harvard Connection which is similar to Facebook as the user can have a profile page and also add friends. Zuckerberg is also facing another lawsuit from his former best friend and CFO of Facebook, Eduardo Saverin, who is suing him for dropping his shares from 34% to 0.03%. From the flashbacks of the movie, Saverin was the one who was financing Facebook when it was starting from ground up but as it went on, there was a series of misunderstandings that eventually led up to the lawsuit and the broken friendship between two best friends.

Personally, I don’t think the movie was worth the nine dollars I paid for but there were certainly good points. Zuckerberg is the protagonist of the movie but I’m glad that he is not full on goody-two shoes like a typical hero should be. But it does have the similar plot of how the hero learns or gains something after having setbacks. At first, he is dumped by his girlfriend because she realizes that he is an asshole by how he puts people down when their intelligence is not on par with his. With two lawsuits and one of them from his ex-best friend, he slowly realizes he was also selfish in his decisions when he was starting Facebook. The change in him is shown at the end of the movie, when he settles his two lawsuits and sends a friend request to his ex-girlfriend on Facebook. But he is not the only character in this story that is selfish as there is also the Winklevoss twins and Narendra. With the explosion of “thefacebook.com”, Cameron Winklevoss decides that they won’t sue or hold legal action against Zuckerberg as they are “gentlemens of Harvard”. But the trio overturned their decision shortly after they were defeated at the rowing competition. It seems that humans are more prone to their greedy side when they are facing conflicts in their lives. The same thing goes for Saverin as he freezes the bank account because he feels betrayed as he warned Zuckerberg earlier but he still ends up trusting in Shawn Parker. Because of Facebook, the Winklevoss twins and Narendra, Saverin, and including himself, Mark Zuckerberg, have shown their greedy side throughout the movie.

During the flashbacks, it seems that there were a lot of misunderstandings that has led to the two lawsuits today. First off, the Winklevoss twins and Narendra never had face-to-face contact with Zuckerberg except for their first meeting. When they emailed or texted him, Zuckerberg would respond back that he had no time or he came up with an excuse. In the beginning, the trio would believe his excuse but while they were believing his lies, Zuckerberg was already programming Facebook. It seems that emails and texts are easier for lying as you are not facing the person directly because the trio only found out about the lies when they saw Facebook on the web. Even though emails, text messages, and Facebook are supposed to bring people closer, the movie depicts that it has created a certain barrier in communication.