SUPERSWEET : THE SOCIAL NETWORK

THE SOCIAL NETWORK

F*ckbook, The Film

“YOU DON’T MAKE A SOCIAL NETWORKING FILM ABOUT FACEBOOK WITHOUT MAKING A FEW ENEMIES”

Are you a Facebook fan? Did your fingers twitch as you watched the trailer? Did you enjoy perusing 'The Social Networking' website? If so, this article might annoy you. F*ckbook, The Film is SUPERSWEET’s spoof tribute to forthcoming cinematic sausage The Social Network. Inspired by spoof trailers and Facebook hype, we couldn’t resist having a little poke at the bandwagon with our lame parody of the film’s promotional website, plot and cast details. For those who want facts, we’ve bothered to ask some serious questions of our own, compiling a little background history with some interesting facts. So...is The Social Network true to life or a load of fictionalised hyperbole? Why is Zuckerberg’s Facebook the apex of global attention when it wasn’t even the first networking site created? Does it even matter? Read on to find out more…

SYNOPSIS

On a fall night in 2003 (yes, a ‘fall’ night – this is American), curly ginger nerd Mark Zuckerberg has nothing better to do than furiously program a load of zeros and ones into his computer. Inspired by Harvard’s year book ‘The Face Book’, he copies the idea and sets about developing an online social networking experience. We figure it takes him all night. Hours later, he winces at the birth at his own genius. The next day… he sleeps. At some point in the plot, he tells his friends in excitable rapid succession:

“Peoplewanttogoontheinternetandcheckouttheirfriendssowhynotbuildasitethatoffers friendspicturesprofileswe’retalkingabouttakingtheentiresocialexperienceonline! Wheeee!”

Apparently, this is ‘cool’. It turns out to be worth an even cooler million dollars. No wait – make that a BILLION dollars. Six years, 50 million friends and 1 billion fat ones later, Mark Zuckerberg has created a communist digital networking empire, offended his co-founder, made extremist Islamic enemies(who doesn’t?) and turned the population into a tribe of neurotic Facebook addicts, while he retires to an expensive boatshed somewhere in the tropic of Capricorn with an Apple Mac. We reckon.

CAST

JESSE EISENBERG as MARK ZUCKERBERG (the co-founder)

They share the same berg, but that’s about it. Thankfully we have a sexy nerd to play the role of a fugly nerd, ‘cos with Zuckerberg there was some real carrot cake going on and apparently fugly carrot tops aren’t worthy leading actors yet. With Eisenberg, billions of girls and gays can go all doe-eyed over him, thinking Zuckerberg is actually that cute in reality. Just like when Jonny Depp played the part of John Dillinger in Public Enemies. Or when Jonny Depp played the part of JM Barrie in Finding Neverland. Or when Jonny Depp played the part of George Jung in Blow.

JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE as SEAN PARKER (the informal advisor)

Timberlake is pulling out all the moves to become a serious actor. We just wonder how many times he’s going to remove his top in order to portray the emotional depth of Sean Parker. JT’s expressions might range from “angry abs” to “happy abs”, and his pecs might twitch with excitement as they perform the talented combination of “crying-cum-laughing abs”, a complex reflect that many actors find difficult to pull off.

ROONEY MARA as ERICA (the girlfriend)

There’s always a love interest and this film is no exception. We wonder how Michael had a girlfriend at all, considering his nerd rating and addiction to computer programming. Perhaps this is why she dumped him, inspiring him to write the program ‘Facemash’, that allowed users to cruelly rate women as “hot or not” judging by their uploaded pics. Unfortunately, there’s no known images of Erica online so we can’t rate her, but we’re guessing she’s a 2.

ANDREW GARFIELD as EDUARDO SAVERIN (the forgotten co-founder)

Garfiled shares his name with an overstuffed cat, but he’s more suave than Saverin himself. Saverin got politically pissy at Zuckerberg due to “internal conflicts and differences of opinion.” The really teary moment comes when sexy Saverin’s influence on FB fades into the Californian sunset. In reality’s sequel, Saverin bounces back with alphaic superpowers to beat his former friend in a legal suit, winning the right to have his name listed as co-founder. He’s now worth $1.1 billion.

ABOUT

Facebook was created in 2003 in a Harvard dorm room (before settling in California), but Friendster was programmed as early as 2002 by little knowns John Abrams and Cris Emmanuel, also in California. In 2003, Friendster had a couple of users called Tom ‘Thumbs up!’ Anderson and Chris DeWolfe, who realised its global potential and created MySpace within just 10 days, again, in California. Hi5 was another social networking program created in 2003 by Ramu Yalamanchi. Bebo was programmed in 2005, formatted around its acronym for “Blog Early, Blog Often.” So why haven’t these rival domains attracted the same hype as Facebook, and why is Michael Zuckerberg apparently credited as the original entrepreneur?

SUPERSWEET signed on to Friendster to understand why it never took off. We derived three reasons: it’s aesthetically childish, uninspiring and technically limiting. Hi5 is butters, ‘corrupted’ by cheap advertising and spam. MySpace remains one of the top ranked social networking sites in America, but we can attribute its downhill ride to confusing inconsistency, egoistic teenagers, overloaded graphics and spam. Bebo is a vanilla teenage meat market. This leaves Facebook as the easiest, safest, cleanest, most consistent format to boot. Zuckerberg understood the importance of a professional, clean outlook - no matter how boring we might judge it, its unifying and long-lasting. Perhaps if MySpace had controlled the creative freedom for users’ profiles, we wouldn’t be scrolling down endless pages of visually clashing shit to message a wall. Ultimately, the responsible MySpace minority forced to uproot and settle in a new colony with a blue and white flag, because the multi-coloured flag of individualism became blotted out by an acne of glittery emoticons.

Circa 2006, the digital highways became clichéd with two opposing quotes:

“Hi guys, I’ve moved to Facebook because it’s better. Come and join me!”

“I hate Facebook but I’ve had to join it. All my friends are on it.”

In short, Michael Zuckerberg’s career is filmworthy because it’s an easily digestible story of aspiration with a naturally progressive climax. It hits a generation demographic: naughties kids earning billions of dollars interjected with more dramatic lawsuits than wall street. Doesn’t it speak to the majority? Everyone wants to have millions of dollars, everyone wants to have millions of friends, everyone wants to be famous. Facebook offers the illusion of fame and popularity, and it can even open up money making opportunities. Unfortunately, the majority of folk would be better off furthering their lives in reality as opposed to wasting hours of time of Facehook.

THE SPOOFS