Last night I went to see a film about Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook. The Social Network was a fascinating study of a person without any ability at all to communicate or empathize with others. Of course, it is more than a little ironic that a person like this would understand so well how other people might like to connect.
Like many people in the computer and engineering field, this fellow was more than a little autistic, but no one seemed to recognize it or get him any sort of help because of his brilliance and the way he was entirely prickly and unpleasant to be around. I am sure he would rebuff anyone who dared to suggest there was something wrong with him. The film focuses in on this guy who is totally obsessed with his work on the computer for its own sake. For him, it isn't about money, but about the challenge he takes on. And despite his cutting tongue, invariably homing in on the worst possible way of hurting each of the people he encounters, he doesn't seem capable of understanding what he has done wrong.
His isolation and his run ins with other people make a very interesting subject, a sad and tragic one,and you agree with the guy's young lawyer at the end of the film that although he is not such a bad guy, "[he is] trying very hard to be an asshole."
It is a wonder to me that the guy hasn't sued for libel, which tells me that the charges levied against him in the film of stealing the idea for Facebook brazenly from fellow Harvard students and screwing over everyone who ever tried to befriend and help him must be essentially true, even if the rest is fictional.
1 comment:
My daughter and some of her gang also saw it this weekend.. Interesting that this should be a better movie than most out of L. A. of late.
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