Shayden Akason The Social Network provides a unique perspective into the birth of the social media giant,

Facebook. Director David Fincher, adapted the real life start-up of Facebook into a digital masterpiece. The Social Network was produced by Kevin Spacey and released in 2010, only six years after Facebooks inception. What started out as a social media site connecting college students, morphed into a social media site that revolutionized communication around the world. In 2004, a Harvard undergrad, Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), launched a website that currently has a valuation of over fifty billion dollars. Despite Zuckerbergs early success with Facebook, his personal life was struggling. Zuckerbergs closest friend, Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), was screwed out of ownership in the company even though he was the driving force behind financial contributions that got Facebook off the ground. A key contributor to Facebooks success was Napster founder Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), whos dynamic personality and business mind helped attract venture capitalists and steer the company in the right direction. Zuckerbergs legal disputes werent only confined to friend and cofounder, Eduardo Saverin; the Winklevoss twins are also engaged in a legal battle with Zuckerberg, claiming that he stole their idea of Facebook. The Social Network starts in a popular Harvard student bar where Zuckerberg and then girlfriend (Rooney Mara) are sitting and discussing the importance of gaining acceptance into one of the all-male social societies. The scene ends with his girlfriend breaking up with him due to a series of comments he makes because of his mild form of Aspergers. Zuckerberg then proceeds to go back to his dorm room and hack multiple sites and create Facemash, while simultaneously blogging hatefully about his exgirlfriend. According to the movie Facemash allows people to click between two pictures of girls deciphering which one is better looking. The site attracts an extraordinary amount of traffic in the first few hours, resulting in network problems for Harvard. After making Facemash, Zuckerberg has somewhat of a celebrity status on campus. Soon after, Zuckerberg is asked by the Winklevoss twins to build a website called Harvard Connection. Zuckerberg agrees in part because of the fact that the

Shayden Akason Winklevoss twins are part of an all-male society, they are popular athletes, and are due to inherit a large amount of money. Following his agreement to build Harvard Connection, Zuckerberg comes up with his own idea for a social networking site which is bigger and better than the Winklevoss. Zuckerberg decides to go ahead with his own site and lies to the Winklevoss twins via email that he has been too busy with school to do the coding for their site. Zuckerberg decides to launch Facebook, and it immediately catches the attention of thousands. The Winklevoss twins get wind of Facebook and are outraged. The twins do not take immediate action but end up bringing it to their lawyer once they see the ground that Facebook is covering. Meanwhile, the founder of Napster, Sean Parker wakes up in a Stanford dorm room with a girl he barely remembers the name of. Sean Parkers attention is stolen by a laptop screen that has an open Facebook page. Sean Parker immediately finds the founder, Mark Zuckerberg, and sets up a meeting. Mark Zuckerberg is sold on everything that Sean Parker says, while his partner Eduardo Saverin is hesitant to involve him in operations. Sean parker convinces Mark that he needs to move to Silicon Valley in the summer and caps there meeting by saying, drop the The, just Facebook. Zuckerberg goes to Palo Alto in the summer to work on Facebook, and Eduardo Saverin takes an internship on the East Coast. Once good news breaks about the $500,000 that a venture capitalist is investing in Facebook Saverin immediately flies to California. Shortly after, Saverin is asked to sign some paperwork regarding stock ownership in the company, and he doesnt have his lawyers look over the documents. Later on Saverin finds out the 30 some percent of the company he once owned was diluted down to less than a percent. He realizes that Mark Zuckerberg screwed him over and he decides to take legal action. Although The Social Network did a great job creating an interesting movie that captivated audiences, and gave viewers a general idea of how Facebook was created. However, the portrayal of character and events was different than reality. The portrayal of main characters in The Social Network is different from real life. In the movie, Sean Parker is portrayed as pushy, greedy, and larger than life. In real life Sean parker understands

Shayden Akason computers and Web networks, and he is a visionary. David Kirkpatrick explains how Parker is portrayed different from reality in the article, With a Little Help From His Friend, when he says, The real parker is both more complex and more interesting, despite the considerable skills of Sorkin and director David Fincher. Mark Zuckerberg is also portrayed differently in the movie. The Social Network portrays Zuckerberg as a sexist pig that created Facemash to compare the looks of two girls side by side. What The Social Network doesnt show is that Facemash wasnt just for comparing girls; they also had pictures of guys that were voted on side by side based on looks. Not only were characters personalities altered, key events were changed as well. The portrayal of key events in The Social Network is altered from reality. At one point in the movie two beautiful women approach Zuckerberg and Saverin in a Harvard meeting and proceed to have sex with them in the bathroom. In another scene, the Winklevoss twins find out about Facebooks expansion to Europe at a Rowing event in England. We know this isnt an accurate depiction of reality when Luke OBrien states, Facebook hadnt crossed the Atlantic at that point, in the article Facebook Fakery. At one point Sean Parker just happens to be at a girlfriends house across the street from the house that Zuckerberg rented in Palo Alto and he comes to the door because Zuckerbergs chimney broke off. Another seen in which the director decides to alter from reality is how Sean Parker finds out about Facebook. In the movie, Sean Parker wakes up next to a girl he barely remembers the name of and sees a Facebook page open on her laptop screen. In real life, Parker discovered Facebook on his roommates girlfriends computer screen. So why does the director make the key events in the movie different from reality? The producer and director changed the events to make the movie more marketable. Events in this movie were changed ultimately to make it a bigger success at the box office. Many of the scenes in the movie were changed to give it a sexy appeal, and to create more of a connection between the main

Shayden Akason characters and the audience. Overall, I believe the movie was better because of the changes that the director made. The director made the movie more compelling by adding certain elements that otherwise wouldnt have been there if the movie was one hundred percent truth. The Social Network is a movie that defines our generation and does a great job displaying how Facebook came to be a social media giant.