The Post Modern World of "The Social Network"

When learning about post-modernism and the structure of meta-stories, I was reminded of a movie I have watched more times than I can count. “The Social Network”, a film about the creation of Facebook, completely embodies the concept of post-modernism.

It is told as a meta-story, in a non-linear fashion. Throughout the movie, the main character Mark Zuckerberg, a founder of Facebook, is facing two lawsuits. The film tells the story of how Facebook came to be, what went wrong, and how it was handled by the law. One scene shows a moment from the past and in the next scene characters comment on the previous one during different depositions.

One scene in particular does this brilliantly. It begins with Eduardo Saverin, the CFO, walking into the offices of Facebook and being greeted by a lawyer. The lawyer presents him with papers to sign, and although you don’t know what they say, his expression, followed by an angry verbal attack on Mark, tells you it can’t be good. Then, it cuts to the deposition of Eduardo and Mark. Eduardo is telling the story of what happened that day; how he was cheated out of all of his stock in the company. It cuts back again to the offices where Eduardo tells off Mark and gives him a look that that could kill.

Not only is this film post-modern because of its structure, but also because of Facebook itself. Its ironic that Mark Zuckerberg was an antisocial college student and he created the most popular social networking site in the world. He promoted a culture where people take pictures at a party, look at the pictures while they’re at the party, comment online about the party, and then post the pictures later online to “relive” the party.

You’re never more aware of being somewhere than when you’re living in a post modern world. Or are you?