Unwind readers, I have a confession to make. You may be wondering why I’m making a confession, coming clean so early in this relationship, but here goes: I’m a Facebook-fanatic. Okay, glad we got that out of the way. I feel better now.
I’ll admit to using my “study time” to creep all of my ex boyfriends, their new girlfriends, my friends’ ex boyfriends’ girlfriends, etc. Yes, if you know me personally and are reading this now, I have probably “researched” your page.
I love Facebook. That social networking site is the most impressive time waster I’ve ever seen. It’s even better than online shopping, if you can believe it.
So naturally, when I saw a preview for “The Social Network” movie when I went to go see “Inception”–brilliant film by the way–I was very excited. Not only is my teenage heartthrob one of the main characters (love you, Justin Timberlake), but I was really curious to find out how Facebook was created and why it was so controversial.
No need to worry, dear readers, I’m not going to spoil anything for you with this little blog post, but I will say this: the whole movie experience was awesome. I’m talking Oscar-nominated, Golden Globe winning awesome.
Facebook was started by an Ivy-leaguer (shocker, I know). Mark Zuckerberg, the genius behind the popular social network, invented his impressive creation while attending Harvard University. The movie depicts Zuckerberg as heartless, cold, and unfriendly, much like the computers he worshipped. The story begins with Zuckerberg being dumped by his college girlfriend.
He gets so upset that he writes a blog about the breakup and creates a web site called “Face mash.” He posts two pictures of girls that attend Harvard next to each other and participants vote on which one is hotter. You know, because that’s what we all do after a breakup. “Face mash” got so popular that traffic crashes the Harvard servers and Zuckerberg gets put on academic probation for going into university web sites and stealing the photos that he used for “Face mash.”
My only complaint sitting in the theater was that usually girls that attend Harvard, let alone any college, are not as hot as the ones in the pictures, but I digress.
The movie goes on and Zuckerberg gets asked to make a web site for two pompous twin brothers who look like they won the genetic lottery (again, aren’t Harvard students supposed to be gawky and not have any social skills?). The whole movie film is based on whether or not Zuckerberg actually stole the idea of these brothers to go on his own and make Facebook.
The story is told in a series of flashbacks that take the viewer to Harvard days and flash forwards to the lawsuit between the brothers and Zuckerberg. Aaron Sorkin, the screenwriter, does a brilliant job of making sure that the plot isn’t too confusing without dumbing down any of the material. I was just relieved the whole thing wasn’t written in binary code.
There is a lot of controversy (what good thing in life doesn’t have it) over Sorkin’s portrayal of women in the film. As a young female college student, I tend to agree with that controversy. It seems that every woman the director shows is either smoking pot or snorting coke, or they’re really stupid or just plain scary.
There’s even more controversy over whether or not a lot of the film story is true. My thoughts? Who cares. It’s freaking brilliant. Go see it. Right now.

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