The Social Network

With The Circle, a thriller about a potentially malevolent social media company, about to hit theaters, a lot of folks are revisiting the David Fincher/Aaron Sorkin collaboration: The Social Network. On its face this makes some sense, since both movies feature of a lot shady corporate dealings, troubled CEOs, and social media, but based on the trailers for The Circle the tone and purpose of each of these films will be very different. As such, let's revisit The Social Network to see what it's all about and how it's different than your average corporate thriller.

Told primarily in flashback, the movie details the creation of Facebook by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg in the context of a multi-million dollar civil suit. Beginning with the Zuckerberg's original creation and the moves that would eventually anger his original partners, the audience gets a firsthand look into how a quiet hacker created a new method of connecting and became a billionaire.

The reasons that The Social Network works are fairly obvious. The actors, especially Jesse Eisenberg, turn in some of their best work, David Fincher has the technical mastery (seriously look at how they created the twins) and storytelling skills to make coding sessions seem interesting, and Aaron Sorkin's screenplay is full of his signature crackling dialogue and more interested in telling a human story than a methodical explanation of facts.

That said, I'm beginning to wonder whether or not the movie is already dated. First and foremost, Mark Zuckerberg has become a public enough figure that it's becoming progressively harder to picture him as the backstabbing insecure wreck that's presented in the film. He's a married man with kids, has more money than he could ever spend, and supports progressive organizations monetarily. While it's true that The Social Network is a fictionalized account of Facebook's creation and its primary theme is the irony that a person who created a method of connecting feels so alone and isolated still works.

However, if this film was to be made today, I think it would have bigger issues to tackle than petty personal squabbles between various levels of rich white men.

The biggest unaddressed issue is online harassment and stalking. The unfortunate trade-off that comes with social media's immediate connection is abuse of that access. While there are means to counteract this on the user's end, there's almost always a way around it. People get everything ranging from angry comments to death threats from people they may or may not know on a regular basis or worse will have their location tracked.

Likewise, Facebook's access to users' personal information and how its used is moving closer and closer to public knowledge. How does someone make a decision to use this information for profit? How do you reverse any adverse affects? How do you keep the consumer happy while still making money? How much do you have to cooperate with government agencies. That's morally murky waters that becomes far more interesting and relevant in modern society.

Clearly the focus on the creator rather than the creation is Sorkin's preferred method for handling tech magnates, (see Steve Jobs in Jobs) but I think that unless the individual is dead, the shelf life for your approach could be very limited.

Though not without its merits, The Social Network's failure to look at the product it takes its name from might deeply affect its shelf-life. It's still entertaining, but it's far from "the movie of a generation" that many dubbed it upon its release.