The Social Network: Living in the Digital Age (Part Three)

In my last semester of college, I completed a writing portfolio entitled "Exploring Modern American Culture through Contemporary Cinema." It contained four essays dissecting four recent films. For the last essay, I studied David Fincher's The Social Network (2010) and wrote about its portrayal of the burgeoning culture of the Digital Age. The third part of that essay is below. I will post a new portfolio excerpt every day. Previous posts: The Dark Knight - Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four; (500) Days of Summer - Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four; Lincoln - Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four; The Social Network - Part One, Part Two.

The Social Network: Living in the Digital Age

Anti-Social Networking

The objectification of one’s peers can lead to another problem, which The Social Network also addresses: valuing popularity over relationships. The most obvious example of this is the disintegration of Mark’s friendship with Eduardo. As the film’s tagline states, “You don't get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies” (The Social Network). For Mark, one of those enemies is his former best friend. The pair starts out working together to make Facebook a success, and they end up sitting across a table from each other, their lawyers by their sides, now courtroom rivals. Why does this relational failure occur? Mark, fearful of potential fiascos Eduardo might cause, and perhaps jealous of his pal’s real-life social acceptance, abandons him to protect Facebook, the source of his growing statistical popularity. He loses “his only friend,” the one meaningful relationship in his life (Fincher).

It seems Mark perceives the notions of popularity and friendship in black-and-white terms. This view of the character is supported by his proxy, Eisenberg, who says Mark sees interpersonal interactions “almost in this checklist way” (Phillips). Companionship and connection to others are prized goals for him, but his beliefs about them are distorted. He sees status as equal to fulfillment. This is apparent in his view of having a girlfriend. Mark spends the whole movie trying to win Erica back, thinking if he has enough fame and fortune, if Facebook becomes big enough, she will want to date him again. This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of their relationship. He does not comprehend why she broke up with him in the first place. She did not like his abrasive, cold personality; it had nothing to do with his popularity, which could never win her heart. Mark’s misconceptions about personal relationships are also evident when examining his impression of Eduardo and his girlfriend, Christy (Brenda Song). Despite the fact that Christy is obsessive, jealous, erratic, and downright dangerous, making Eduardo miserable, Mark says to him “it’s nice you have a girlfriend” (Fincher). He thinks simply having a romantic relationship is enough to make someone happy, regardless of how unhealthy it might be. This is representative of his entire view of human interactions. For Mark, the denotation of a position has more significance than its connotation in one’s life.

In the context of The Social Network as an assessment of the Digital Generation, Mark provides a valuable lens through which to see the story. He holds popularity above friendship. This is something encouraged by social networks, which are common features in everyday American life, particularly for younger generations. The vast majority of young adults in the United States use Facebook: 83 percent of 18 to 29-year-olds, as opposed to 67 percent across all age brackets (Smith). On this site and others, like Twitter and Tumblr, numbers are everything. Though these top social networks are useful tools for keeping in contact with loved ones, they also give people the opportunity to calculate their popularity by letting them see the number of friends (Facebook) or followers (Twitter and Tumblr) they have. Facebook and Twitter also allow for comparisons by making each person’s statistics available for others to see. Tumblr does not have this feature, but it does let users see how much activity their microblog is accruing. Studies have shown such sociometrics have an effect on how users perceive others, with profiler users with few friends having less perceived social attractiveness (Langwell et. al 542). The emphasis on popularity and image on social networks is taken to extremes with the website Klout. Through analysis of one’s online presence and interactions, it quantifies Internet influence with a Klout score, which can be compared to others around the globe. This tendency to evaluate a person based on his or her Web popularity, like Mark’s to evaluate people based on their relational status, shows a lack of value for one’s more human personal worth. With Mark’s detached mindset, The Social Network suggests the Digital Age may be producing a society of superficial interactions and the devaluation of peers.

Sources

Fincher, David, dir. The Social Network. Writ. Aaron Sorkin, Perf. Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, and Justin Timberlake. Columbia Pictures, 2010. Film. 2 Nov 2013.

Klout. Klout Inc., 2008. Web. 17 Nov 2013.

Langwell, Lindsey, Brandon Van Der Heide, Stephanie Tom Tong, and Joseph B. Walther. "Too Much of a Good Thing? The Relationship Between Number of Friends and Interpersonal Impressions on Facebook." Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. 13.3 (2008): 531-49. Print.

Phillips, Michael. "David Fincher's anti-social approach to the filming of 'Social Network'." Chicago Tribune 24 Sep 2010, n. pag. Web. 2 Nov. 2013. .

Smith, Cooper. "A Primer on Facebook Demographics." Business Insider. Business Insider Inc., 29 Oct 2013. Web. 2 Nov 2013.

"The Social Network (2010)." IMDb. Amazon.com, 2013. Web. 2 Nov 2013.