Money Can't Buy You Social Skills

The Social Network portrays a pre-Facebook Mark Zuckerberg as a young, insecure, genius that is looking for a way to enter the inner circle of the socially elite at Harvard.  He is so consumed with trying to fit in and get noticed by girls, and the exclusive university clubs, that he does not realize that he is surrounded by good friends that would do anything for him, including his best friend and co-founder of Facebook Eduardo Saverin.  And although Saverin put up the money to start Facebook and managed it from their shared Harvard dorm-room, Zuckerberg, forced Saverin out of the business just before it expanded from a U.S. university social website to the international phenomenon it has become.   This movie made me feel sorry for Saverin who lost his best friend and a large share in a billion dollar business.  But at the end I felt worse for Zuckerberg, whose desperation to fit in and desire to be popular ironically resulted in him being friendless and alone.   One of the final scenes of the movie, when Facebook reaches a milestone of one million members, shows all the Facebook employees partying, meanwhile Zuckerberg is sitting alone in his office. 

I don’t think that The Social Network movie will really do any harm to Facebooks popularity, however, it may cause some facebookers to stop and wonder why they use Facebook.  And maybe a few will realize they should be out spending time with their real friends instead of looking at pictures of their facebook friends, or friends of facebook friends.  I doubt the few that decide to log off will make much of a dent in the Facebook fan base.

With respect to Tiffany Gallicano’s article on PR Blog about Zuckerberg’s response to the movie ,  I think his comments about the film are OK.  He downplays its significance and factuality.  I am sure the producers took some liberties with the reality of the story so it fit into the Hollywood formula. And his quote about the last six years being about computer coding and hard work is probably true. One of the results of his inability to relate to people and obsessive work habits, is his incapacity to notice the human casualties of his decisions.  So the last six years could be about working hard for him, but incidents like the ditching of Saverin, stick out more in the minds of average people. 

 I think Zuckerberg’s announcement about his foundation that coincided with the release of the movie is just another example of his social ineptness and underestimation of an average person’s intellect.  As Gallinaco says, Zuckerberg calling his announcement a coincidence on Oprah ‘insults the audience’s intelligence.’   If billions of dollars can’t buy you friends and social skills, it should at least be able to buy you a decent PR team.  

Soupy out.