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The Anti-Social Network

I’ve got a new column up over at Flow called ‘The Anti-Social Network’ about The Social Network film and how Zuckerberg is treated as a metaphor for all Facebook users.  Here’s the introduction:

A film about writing a piece of software and two lawsuits about who really owns that software doesn’t sound like blockbuster material, but that’s exactly the premise behind The Social Network (2010) penned by Aaron Sorkin, of West Wing fame, and directed by David Fincher, best known for Fight Club (1999). Despite the seemingly dry premise, powered by Sorkin’s amazing dialogue and Fincher’s eye for pacing and casting, the film has done remarkably well, largely embraced by critics, and for a film in which nothing blows up and no one gets shot at, it has taken an impressive $175 million (U.S.) at the global box office thus far. Of course, the real story is about Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s creator and co-founder, and how more than half a billion people have voluntarily used the software he wrote to share their personal details and lives, in the process making Zuckerberg a billionaire many times over. It’s fair to say that the portrayal of Zuckerberg is far from sympathetic, but what’s a little more disturbing is how the depiction of Zuckerberg’s social awkwardness and moral ambiguity seems designed to paint all Facebook users with the same generational brush.

If you’d like to read the rest, it’s here.

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