Sin #84: The Facebook

It all started with a bad breakup. Erica dumped Mark and then he got a little drunk and wrote nasty things about her in his blog. To top things off, he also created a web page where guys could rank the student girls of Harvard based on their looks. The site was so popular that it blocked the server and got him in detention; it also got the attention of the Winklevoss twins, students who have had the idea of a web page similar to Myspace but way more exclusive. They want Mark’s help but Mark doesn’t need them. Instead he enlists his best friend Eduardo to create his own social network and thus “The Facebook” is born.

The creation of Facebook is one of the great corporate stories in recent years, not only because it depicts the rise of the world’s youngest billionaire but also because it defines a generation that has become completely dependent on computers for social interaction. In 2010 we got two very different movies involving Facebook, one was about its makers and one was about its users.

David Fincher’s “The Social Network” is a chronicle on the foundation of Facebook, anchored on two different lawsuits and a flashback narrative. The movie features one of the strongest casts of the year with several highlights, including Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckenberg, Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker and, in a neat special effect, Arnie Hammer as the Winklevoss Twins. Fincher’s direction is superb but the real star is the multilayered script by Aaron Sorkin that never patronizes its characters. The story may not be exactly true but Sorkin’s script is so good that it sure feels like it happened like this.

The other Facebook movie is the intriguing documentary “Catfish”, where a photographer develops a friendship with a young girl and her family only to discover that they are not being entirely honest with him. The marketing strategy for the movie was based on a surprise ending that meant to turn it into a dark thriller. The truth is that this is a bit misleading since the film doesn’t offer so much a thrilling payoff but more of a sad and tragic one.

“Catfish” is meant to warn us about the pitfalls of Facebook and how lonely individuals are able to literally transform themselves and live their own fantasy through a computer (whether they’re psychopaths or merely pathetic is another matter). The issues of privacy have been the strongest remarks against the site but it all really depends on how much the user is willing to share so the blame belongs to them, I guess. Still, Zuckenberg’s project is all about “opening up” and turning the whole social experience into a frivolous and callous experiment.

There’s some part of me that admires Mark Zuckenberg. He was able to turn a good idea into a brilliant moneymaking venture by never losing focus on his objectives. Yes, he was deceptive (it’s pretty cruel what he did to Eduardo at the end) but he remains a fascinating individual, both in real life and in the movie, as portrayed by Eisenberg.

There are over 500 million users worldwide on Facebook including myself. Does this make me a hypocrite after confessing my distaste for the site? I don’t think so, since Facebook (or twitter or Myspace for that matter) depend really on how you use it and who you add. Its most of the people on Facebook I hate; the idea, on principle, is not bad at all.