“We lived on farms, then we lived in cities, and now we will live on the Internet” (Fincher & Rudin, 2010). The Social Network is a biographical drama that follows the life of Mark Zuckerberg and the events that led a Harvard student to the creation of Facebook, one of the largest social media platforms in the world. Founded in 2004 in a Harvard dorm, Zuckerberg created Facebook, initially named The Facebook, which allowed users to create their own profiles, upload photos, and communicate with other users. Mark dropped out of Harvard after finishing his sophomore year, which allowed him to focus on Facebook full-time. With 1.86 billion daily users, you've most likely used Facebook at some point in your life. This film highlights the harsh reality of how a Harvard sophomore was able to become the youngest self-made billionaire at the age of 23. In this article I will take a look at the film and see how it relates to the story. six perspectives of visual analysis; personal, historical, technical, ethical, cultural and critical. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why violent video games should not be banned"? Get an original essay The social network gives an insight into the creation of Facebook and what the founder/creator, Mark Zuckerberg, was really like at the time. time, as well as the steps he took to get to where he is today. Zuckerberg's character presents himself as the villain for the majority of this film. It starts with him being harsh and disrespectful to his girlfriend, then bitterly blogging in his dorm room after she broke up with him. That's where he came up with the idea for a website called "Facemash" that lets users decide which of two women featured on Harvard's campus is sexier. The creation of this website is where the idea for The Facebook originated. However, around this time, Mark was also working with Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, whom he humorously calls the Winklevi, as well as Divya Narendra on a similar project. Due to the development of this project while working on the creation of Facebook, many negative reactions were created and landed them all in court. Co-creator Eduardo Saverin is also portrayed as a victim of Mark's power trip. Zuckerberg diluted his stake in Facebook down to 0.03%, then fired him from the company altogether. The instigator of Mark's bad behavior appears to be Sean Parker, creator of Napster, who is interested in Facebook and is working to get on the money bandwagon and force Eduardo out of the company. Overall, I found the film to be well made with an interesting and entertaining story and a great cast! “You can't have 500 million friends without making a few enemies” (Fincher & Rudin, 2010). Launched in February 2004, Facebook was reserved for educational institutions. Within 24 hours of the site going live, more than 1,000 Harvard students signed up and more than half the undergraduate population had an active profile within a month. In September 2006, the site was now accessible to anyone with a registered email address. The Social Network film, starring Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg, Andrew Garfield as Eduardo Saverin, and Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker, opened on October 1, 2010 in the United States and grossed 22,445,653 $ during opening weekend. While it was initially claimed that the release of the film helped young people like Facebook more, a study conductedin 2014 showed that the site had actually lost 11 million young users since 2011. Regardless of this significant loss, as of February 2017, Facebook had more active monthly users than WhatsApp, Twitter, and Instagram combined. In this film, Facebook was not the first social media site of its type as Friendster was launched in 2002 and MySpace followed shortly after in 2003. However, by April 2006, Facebook's popularity had surpassed MySpace on the database of unique monthly visitor data. Based on this data, it is not surprising that a film was made about the creation of the site. The focal point of this film is Mark Zuckerberg and therefore follows the story of his life while he was a student at Harvard and the path that led him to become CEO of the largest social media site in the world. This film is 2 hours long and manages to keep its audience engaged at all times while moving from the present to the past to show what events took place to land Zuckerberg facing multiple lawsuits. The decision to move from the past to the present acts as a foreshadowing of the story. You can see how the story begins with Eduardo and Mark being friends and business partners, but the audience is also fully aware that something is going to happen along the way that will result in a lawsuit. I think this directorial decision was the best choice to tell this story. “You're going to go through life thinking that girls don't like you because you're a nerd. And I want you to know from the bottom of my heart that it won't be true. It’ll be because you’re an asshole” (Fincher and Rudin, 2010). This is a quote found in the first scene of The Social Network in which Erica Albright, Zuckerberg's then-girlfriend, breaks up with him after the multiple offensive things he said to her throughout the night. This quote sets the tone for the rest of the film and your perception of Mark's character on a moral and ethical level. He is a very critical 19 year old and so intelligent that he is difficult for most people to understand. You can see that he is a socially awkward individual with passive and aggressive tendencies. The film may not be 100% factual, but many elements are and the producers, director and writers do not sugarcoat these areas. If you look at this from the creators' perspective, the moral and ethical lines are a bit blurred because most of the people highlighted in the film are real people whose life stories have been manipulated to create more entertaining content for viewers. It can also be said that these real people would find the way they were portrayed in the film very offensive and not at all accurate. Erica Albright, Eduardo Saverin, Divya Narendra, Tyler Winklevoss, and Cameron Winklevoss are all characters in this film whose lives were negatively affected by Mark's journey to founding Facebook. The lawsuit depicted in the film between Zuckerberg, Narendra and the Winklevosses was a very real case in which they claimed that Zuckerberg copied their ideas and the coding used to create their own social networking site, ConnectU, which he helped with at Harvard . That case was dismissed in March 2007, but Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss said they would appeal to overturn the decision. The film also highlights the impact that Napstar creator Sean Parker had on Facebook. They point out how he created a very popular website but didn't get much money given that it was free music, then showed his willingness to befriend Zuckerberg and get involved in Facebook. In the movie, it's Sean Parker who actually suggests changing Facebook's name to.