The Social Network

Last night, I attended a screening of the new film "The Social Network". The movie, which details how Mark Zuckerberg came up with Facebook, was quite fascinating. Aaron Sorkin did an amazing job writing a compelling script examining the relationships between the many parties involved in the process--or plagiarizing--of the concept of social networking.

In relation to Internet Studies, I found it interesting how much coding was involved when creating Facebook. Zuckerberg and his crew become "wired" in coding where they are not to be distracted by anyone or anything. At one point, Zuckerberg is "wired" in Facebook for 36 hours straight. I've personally had to write articles in HTML coding and found it to be a real pain in the ass. The amount of dedication it took to create Facebook's basic coding seems ridiculously tedious.

Another aspect of the film which was really compelling was how much of an asshole Zuckerberg seems to be. For someone who created a site to connect people to one another, he seems extremely disconnected to his relationships in real life. Most of the time, he seems discontent with others thoughts and feelings and frequently zones out during conversation. Although he may have gained 500 million friends through Facebook, he is a character who has no interest in keeping his friends in real life.