The Social Network

Introduction

            Being the second paper I wrote during the semester this paper comes next in this journey. With this paper it was more than just writing a paper, it was more of finding a deeper meaning within a film and expressing it with words.

In class we watched the film The Social Network. We each had to discuss in a paper what we believed the cultural artifact the movie was trying to portray. It was hard to set myself on one specific idea, because there were so many seen in the movie. But once I found the idea I felt I could best elaborate on I went with it. With many revisions I was happy with the final paper.

In this paper I learned how to take one position and elaborate on it with more than the knowledge I have, more so with breakdown scenes in a movie.  With this paper I would’ve loved to use more scenes from the original movie than other movies.

Shavéone Fagan

Professor Mundy

English

October 19, 2011

The Film

Everything is not always what it is perceived to be. Wanting to fit in or become part of a fad, people tend to change who they are whether it’s how they act, look, dress or talk. The internet has made it so much easier to hide who you are. You can be whoever you want to be to those that don’t necessarily know you. Watching the film The Social Network, I’ve seen this to be true numerous times.

One of the main characters, Marc Zuckerberg was socially sound. However, when on the internet he was able to express all his feelings and thoughts. A particular scene from the film portrays this in an excellent way. After Marc’s then ex girlfriend, Erica Albright, broke up with him he did not have much to say. When he got to his computer that night he blogged about how he hated her, and degrading both Erica and her family. It was like he completely changed from a shy person to a completely outspoken, carefree person via blogging.  When Erica Albright confronted him about what he had blogged, he again became speechless. This is proof that it was easier to speak via internet than in person. The internet allowed Mark to break away from reality in that short period of time and take on a whole new outspoken identity. Although this was a negative way Mark used social media he was able to freely express himself.

            Every day, people are finding new ways of being who they want to be through the internet. These people are putting on a facade to be more desirable to what everyone likes. They are usually outcasts or people that are just too shy to speak up or be themselves. The movie Transformers is also perfect example of this.

            In this movie, the main character, Sam Witwicky(Shia Labeouf) , is a very shy person who is trying to fit in with the popular kids. In the beginning of the movie his attempts to achieve this ends in failure. He tries to make jokes and even attend get togethers that the popular kids have. On his eBay account he set up, he named himself “ladiesman217”.Going back to what I previously said, without prior knowledge of who Sam really is, people might really perceive him as a ladies’ man. But in reality he is nothing but an outcast trying to be cool like popular kids in school. To them he was far from a ladies’ man.

            Another movie that portrays this is the film, A Cinderella Story. In this movie the main character, Sam Montgomery (Hillary Duf), is not popular in school at all. She develops a relationship through text messages and emails. When Sam finds out that the person she is having this relationship with is the most popular boy in school, Austin Ames, who by far is a totally different person via text messages then he is in person. Austin portrays a jock type of boy, but this is a front he puts on this front for his friends. In actuality he doesn’t even want to be popular at all. Sam’s perception through text messages and emails is that he enjoys poetry. He feels he could never tell his “friends” this because they would never understand. This helps Austin express who he dreams of being which, unlike Mark a positive use of social media.

            With all of that said, without knowledge of who someone truly is, you cannot go off of what you see on the internet. People sometimes desire to be someone they are truly not, and since people don’t really know who they truly are, they can make anything up. The internet is not a very trustworthy place these days. People tend to use social media in ways they can easily express themselves. When using social media it can either have a positive or negative outcome. You shouldn’t believe everything you read without prior knowledge of it, especially when it comes to people.


http://photobucket.com/ , http://www.picnik.com/
          These are only two of many sites that allow people to "edit" their pictures. On these sites people are allowed to do numerous things to their appearance. They can make them self look lighter, darker, they can crop out this they do not want to be seen etc. It's allowing people to show the public eye what they want them to see or not to see. People are allowed to appear how they desire to be. 
        This being said as in my paper people are using the internet in a way most desirable to themselves. They are making their image into what society deems to be the best or most appropriate.