It started with the current youngest billionaire in the world, Mark Zuckerberg, creating a website called the Facemash in which one can choose who's the more hotter girl in the website. He apparently, created it all in a span of hours while getting drunk and being broken-hearted. Talk about being a genius, if I even have an ounce of alcohol on my system, I wouldn't even know how to spell my name. I only know the basics of coding, HTML/CSS/Javascript but I was pretty sure hacking a handful of websites to get its images and creating a website in a matter of hours is just incredible. And probably exhilarating as well, imagine 22,000 visitors in just two hours, almost bringing down the school network.
Of course, the Harvard authorities detected the culprit and Mark was given a 6-months academic probation. He appears to be quite a cocky kid, played by the equally compelling, Jesse Eisenberg, but he wears it quite well, his snide remarks and quick wit was just enough to put the network security authorities on their rightful, shameful places. The real Mark Zuckerberg seems like a laid-back guy. I've seen a few of his interviews and he even seems nervous most of the time but you can't deny the the computer programming prodigy's brilliance. Still, I'd say his character was quite exaggerated in the film.
Anyway, Mark Zuckerberg's notoriety has taken the interest of the twins, Cameron & Tyler Winkleross and their business parter, Divya Narendra, fellow yet senior students in Harvard. The three wanted to create Harvard Connection, the basics of what we experience now in Facebook. They approached Mark to help them finish the coding. Mark then talked to his best friend, Eduardo Saverin about a new social network website and the legal issues began.
The movie was given large slices of flashbacks, with Mark misleading the twins and the business partner about making some progress in the Harvard Connection while the truth was, he was concentrating long and hard on the most popular social media site today, Facebook. It was launched without the knowledge of the three creators of Harvard Connection and it infuriated them. Mark's bestfriend, Eduardo, funded the website, initially giving a thousand dollars to keep the site up and running and was informed late of the legal actions.
Facebook was already a big hit in the Harvard campus, making the bestfriends, Mark & Eduardo notorious around the campus. Yet Mark was still hung over his ex-girlfriend Erica, and found out she hasn't heard yet of Facebook which propelled him to expand to the other universities. Which led them to the Napster co-founder, Sean Parker, played by the ever-curly & charming, Justin Timberlake. Parker was a smooth talker, making Eduardo a bit uncomfortable, especially about the former's history with drugs and the paranoia fits but Mark readily embraced Sean, connecting with him instantly.
When Sean was officially in the picture, setting up meetings with investors & bringing Mark to the coolest hang-outs, Eduardo was left behind, biting the dust. He might have given 19,000 dollars for expansion but it was worth nothing compared to a new set of investor's contribution of half a million dollars. To add insult to injury, when Facebook became a professional success, Eduardo's share in the company was diluted to 0.03%, which started the legal battle between the best friends.
I already knew that the movie mostly covered the legalities that involved the creation of the Facebook but the troubled friendship between the best friends, Mark & Eduardo was quite fascinating. It depicted Mark Zuckerberg as an asshole who didn't really care about the money but prioritized the state of being cool and being "in" and Eduardo Saverin, played by my future husband, I mean played by the sensitive-looking Andrew Garfield, as a cool-headed guy, who cared for the future of Facebook and was also genuinely concerned with his best friend's financial nonchalance. It might sound corny, but it was heartbreaking to see Mark getting a million users to connect with each other while he can't even manage to retain the only friend that he had.
The film ended with Mark adding his ex-girlfriend on Facebook and refreshing the page a couple of times, waiting to be accepted. The musical background along with the pathetic scene of the creator of Facebook, still waiting to be accepted plus the notes saying that the twins settled for 65 million dollars, Eduardo received an unknown settlement and was brought back as a co-founder again, Facebook's value and stating that Mark Zuckerber was the youngest billionaire in the world was a perfect way to end one of the most intriguing historical events in the social media industry. No deaths, no dramas, no gunshots, no major life-changing settings, no harshly depicted & highly exaggerated scenes of today.
It was just a guy waiting to be accepted as a friend on Facebook. Sad but true.
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