Mark Zuckerberg is seen as the man who revolutionised online communication. He is also one of the most divisive men in the world. Seeing that The Social Network had earned a spiritual sequel, now seems like a great time to revisit the 2010 film.
In 2003, Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) was an arrogant Harvard sophomore who gets dumped by his girlfriend, Erica Albright (Rooney Mara). In an act of drunken revenge, he writes a bitter blog and hacks into Harvard’s various systems to build a website that ranks Harvard’s female student body. This action annoys Harvard’s authorities and every female student at the university but also brings Zuckerberg to the attention of the Winklevoss twins, Cameron and Tyler (Armie Hammer). The wealthy twins pitch the young man an idea for a Harvard-based social network. Zuckerberg instead built his own website, The Facebook, which grew in popularity at Harvard and America’s elite universities.
The Social Network was made when Facebook and Zuckerberg were at the peak of their popularity. Facebook was the cool website that every young person was on, and Zuckerberg was seen as an inspirational figure because he was the youngest billionaire who ‘created’ something so popular. The Social Network was one of the first dents to that image because Zuckerberg was shown to be an arrogant prick who screwed over everyone he could. The framing device was two lawsuits, one launched by the Winklevoss twins for intellectual theft, the other by his old college friend, Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), for being cut out from Facebook.
Looking back at the film in 2026, it ends up hitting harder now than it did in 2010, which is impressive considering how much praise the film received at the time. It was considered one of the best films of 2010, a year that included Inception, Black Swan, Toy Story 3, and The King’s Speech. This film showed Zuckerberg’s success was based on theft. His first action was stealing other students’ images to build a website; he used the Winklevoss twins for his own ends, and one of his big backers was Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), the founder of Napster. The more the public has learned about how Facebook is run and how Zuckerberg operates, the more they despise the man and organisation since they sell user data without their consent.
In real life, Zuckerberg has come across as a man who’s indifferent to humanity, or outright callous. Jesse Eisenberg gave the man more personality than he has in real life because the film version was bitter and arrogant, whilst the popular image of Zuckerberg is that he’s robotic (just look at how South Park portrayed him). Eisenberg’s Zuckerberg was hateable in his rise because he burnt every bridge possible. The last line in the film was “You’re not an asshole, Mark. You’re just trying so hard to be.” That character was wrong because he was an asshole to everyone.
I do find it funny that The Social Network shows Zuckerberg as a programming genius who wanted to prevent Facebook from having advertisements so he could keep the brand’s integrity when, in real life, Meta’s ad revenue has become the company’s infinite money tree that could fund Zuckerberg vanity projects, i.e. the Metaverse. The Social Network’s Zuckerberg was like Elon Musk because he had a prickly nature, wanted to amass wealth, be validated by his peers, and cut out one of the founders of Facebook out of spite. The Social Network said that Facebook went to Peter Thiel to get funding, which didn’t mean much back in 2010, but now very troubling because Thiel was a venture capitalist who was JD Vance’s mentor, has funded conservative groups and campaigns, and has unsavoury views against democracy and government.
The draw of The Social Network was the talent behind the camera. David Fincher had cemented his reputation as one of the best filmmakers in Hollywood thanks to Se7en, Fight Club, and Zodiac, and Aaron Sorkin was one of the best screenwriters. The Social Network was a talky film, as to be expected from the creator of The West Wing, and like Sorkin’s best work, the dialogue was fast-paced as characters intelligently flexed and at times were humorous. Fincher ensured that the film moved at a fast pace: it did win an Academy Award for Best Editing.
The screenplay was complemented by the fantastic cast of young actors. This was a film filled with talent who were in the early days of their careers. It features actors who eventually played Lex Luthor, Spider-Man, The Lone Ranger, and Lisbeth Salander, and they were all at the top of their game. Justin Timberlake gave the best performance of his career as the serpent corrupting the already corrupted Zuckerberg, as he destroyed a friendship as he used Facebook to fuel his ego. It’s a testament to all involved in the film that they made something where nearly everyone was entitled and unlikable and made them compelling.
The Social Network was a fine wine of a film that has only gotten better with age. It was a fantastic mix of direction, writing, and acting as it looks at how unethical people in the world of business are and shows some of the seeds of the tech oligarchy.
