Facebook is a social medium that has altered our culture in many ways. Facebookers have spent countless hours chatting with friends, updating statuses, searching for that old high school buddy, and reconnecting with family. Facebook has even changed our vernacular, for example, by turning the word friend into a verb (“Friend me”, one person may say to another). According to Wikipedia, Facebook has more than 500 million active users as of July 2010. That equals about one person for every 14 in the world. Statistics have shown that if Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest, ahead of America, and behind only China and India. The movie The Social Network is based off a book by Ben Mezrich called The Accidental Billionaires. It tells the (likely embellished) story of Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg, and how Facebook came to be. It should be noted that Eduardo Saverin, once a friend of Zuckerberg and co-founder of Facebook, was a consultant for the book on which the movie was based.
The story told is a very interesting one. The opening scene shows the future founder of Facebook and his then girlfriend Erica Albright, and how their relationship was the catalyst for Facebook as we know it.
The movie The Social Network is as much about human beings as it is about a website. It’s a story of greed, jealousy, and friendship. Keeping in mind that large parts of it are works of fiction, the film provides interesting insights into one version of how Facebook might have come about. It is well-acted and has a very fitting conclusion that is consistent with the movie as a whole. Jesse Eisenberg, the actor who played Zuckerberg, will undoubtedly get some Oscar buzz for his portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg.
Facebook has certainly evolved from when it started. There is less exclusivity and more advertisements. It’s becoming a one stop shop for playing games, catching up with “friends”, and promoting your business or organization.
On an unrelated note, please visit our Summar Library Facebook page and friend us. We’d greatly appreciate it.
Official movie trailer of The Social Network:
1 comment:
The music in this trailer is a Radiohead cover and the lyrics are so appropriate, "I want a perfect body and I want a perfect soul". It seems that we try to create perfect "profiles" for ourselves on these social networks.
It is interesting, however, that Facebook is so rooted in the Academic Community and continues to be a powerful online tool in college environments.
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