I disagree on your last statement that it's about trying to fit "in." I think from the beginning of the movie, with his convo with his girlfriend, to the lawyer scenes, to the end with him escorting his friend out with security, it's about fitting "above." Which, is much deeper and darker than the "average" underdog wanting to fit in. He would NEVER be satisfied with just fitting in. He had to dominate, at all costs. And the question to the viewer is "is that good or bad" If it's bad, you probably don't dominate. If it's good, you probably do or aspire to. And that's a truth most are uncomfortable with facing.
I don't think it's about fitting above or dominating. Mark is a character that desperately wants to be accepted by society. He wants to be accepted by Erica, by final clubs, etc. All his actions are because of his insecurities, his inability to communicate, and all his other issues
I enjoyed this analysis very much, I disagree with your conclusion: the movie is about a social network built by a guy with no social life. I think you are on the right track, but the message is more precise. I believe the picture was about how the most successful social media platform, something meant to bring people together and help friendships and relationships to grow and flourish, was built on the shattering of friendships amd relationships, and how real life choices made by the founders could so dramatically shake the foundations and utterly fragment the fate of the people around them. By the way, I love your videos. I find your work to be very insightful and your dissection and analysis to be tasteful and deeply introspective of many of the films you focus on. Keep up the excellent work.
I completely agree. This was also what I took away from the film. This interpretation colors the last scenes very interestingly as well. The juxtaposition between Zuckerberg refreshing the page to see if his friend request is accepted and the titles informing the audience of the unparalleled success of Facebook is very deliberate and well done.
I think people can take away more than "one" lesson from stories. That you are both correct. I also think that the final scene is kinda a great little joke saying "Even Zuckerburg can't help pressing "refresh" for dopamine hits. He is just as much an addict of the social narcotic addiction of his creation, and modern life. As always, art is subjective to the viewer.
Anyone here after RU-vid announced the removal of the dislike button? It popped up in my recommended. As someone aspiring to make video essays, how does one go about making it? What’s the process of analyzing a film? Is there a right way or a wrong way? How much research should one do? How do you make sure your insights are your own and not a paraphrased essay from another critic or essayist?
Haha I should make a coaching program on this. Maybe I will but for now I'll give you some tips for free. I would start getting the book 'Film: A Critical Introduction third edition' by Maria Pramaggiore & Thompson Bordwell. This is a great and fun book on film. It will teach you everything about film analysis and showcases a lot of great essays on contemporary films. Regarding insights of your own. The most important start for this is to give credit where credit is due. So if you use a good idea from another essayist/writer/scholar then say .... author argues that .... , and I agree/disagree because..... A good essay isn't per definition about dreaming up brilliant insights on a film all on your own. It's discussing different arguments and adding your own. But again, always give credit where credit is due. Both in the voice-over as in the description.
As for the The Social Network as a whole, surely one of the better movies released in recent years. I can clearly remember the first time I sat to watch it, it surely did suprise me with how deep it went and it did not show any sign of stopping. A magnificent video overall, as someone who is watching most of the big video essay channels, to see someone as new as you guys, still pushing the boundaries of what video essays can do, is surely comforting. Keep up the great work guys! P.S. Try not to bug yourselves on the gramatic and punctuation errors too much :)
Thank you so much man! Yeah the reason I chose the social network for analysis, a couple weeks back, is because it is one of my favorite movies and two friends of mine said it was boring. I wanted to both do a critical, cultural analysis but also convey why this movie is amazing. The dialogue in this movie is also an absolute masterclass, which I didn't touch upon too much but luckily Channel Chriswell analysed it. I started this channel with my best friend (we are gonna try to do a video every two weeks each, so every week a new video) and we are honored to hear you say we are pushing the boundaries. We definitely put a lot of work in each video, but also feel we still have lot to improve upon. So hopefully the videos will get better and better.
thank for more vídeo essays. o love the opening music of this movie, it sounds that was made to me. the social network stay on my top movies so as elite squad 2. will be a day that i will make my own video essay, im not that courage yet. love you channel, pelase watch elite squad 1 & 2, (it is brazilian movies)
damn, ironically we learn that we should have more genuine relationships and less digital ones from a movie about Facebook.great video, man, I love your work! :)
One of my favorite scenes in this movie was the nightclub scene where Justin Timberlake's character explains the story of the owner of Victoria secret. There's just something about that scene that i just really like
I love Social Network as a movie, but you should have mentioned how the movie is almost entirely fiction though. Erica Albright never existed in real life, Zuckerberg was dating a girl at the time he came up with Facebook, that he later married. Yet, her character is presented as the main motivation for Zuckerberg in creating Facebook. Eduardo Saverin and Mark weren't friends in real life, they didn't even like each other, they were simply business partners, Eduardo tried to screw Mark first and use Facebook for his other business venture, Mark screwed him out of the company to protect it. The movie's Sean Parker is completely fictional too, having nothing to do with the real guy. Writers often view the world though a simplistic lense (because that's what you need to do when crafting a storyline). Real life is a lot more random, complicated and morally ambiguous. Thus writers often try to cram the real world into their simplified narratives (that reaffirm their own assumptions about the world). Thus Social Network is an ironic example here. It's a movie about how Facebook is a product of flaws of it's creators, yet the movie itself is a product of flaws of it's writers.
And now when you look at the subtle changes in facebook, the adverts, the focus on "instagraming" for profit, and now the sudden, "going back to basics of connecting people" its clear that there is still a lot of conflict and uncertainty around the core identity of what facebook is, and what its values are as a social media platform, after watching this i cant help but think Mark's troubles are far from over from the ending of the film
Dude this was fantastic. Absolutely well done, you gave some deep thought into this, and you presented it perfectly. Keep it up man, you got yourself a new sub! Came here from NerdWriter's Neistat video :)
Storytellers Indeed, if anything, it was your voice delivery I'd point out. It's only your accent, so it's alright! As you go forward, like you said, it can only get better! :)
Thanks man! You can help us out by sharing our videos and name on social media, we appreciate that a lot and it's the main reason that we've been able to grow a lot this past month! Thomas
so am i - well, you gotta do what you gotta do to get attention i guess...and it's not like he baited people, he actually has got quite something to offer ^^
This gotta be the only time a shameless plug had worked for me. Good job on the videos, subbed! My only gripe would be the music get's a bit too loud at times and it's hard to hear you.
Thank you so much! We're freaking out over how many followers we've gotten the past couple of hours. Also, we're dropping our newest vid in about 30-40 min, so keep an eye out for that one!:)
Officially mind blown and new subscriber. I also love the movie and your critique literally was a moment I had to put down my coffee and realize how similar my own experience with Facebook and social media has and does impact my own life on a level I didn't realize. Thank you for the blog inspiration.. again, absolutely amazing breakdown.. off to watch social network again.. Have a great day
Great video bro I finally watched the film after 9 years and I have to say it’s one of the best films of decade for me I enjoyed your analysis I’ll subscribe to you
Thanks! Yeah i'm trying to improve my voice every video. Especially because my best friend who I started this channel with (Thomas) lived in the UK for 6 months (we're from amsterdam), so his voice is quite good. But I (Lars) am working on it.
You might not be able to acces it because it is a peer reviewed article in a paid film studies magazine. I can only access it through my university proxy. If you are really interested. Send me an email, larsvdpeet@hotmail.com. I'll send a pdf. www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/fq.2011.64.3.46?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=the&searchText=dislike&searchText=button&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dthe%2Bdislike%2Bbutton%26amp%3Bacc%3Doff%26amp%3Bwc%3Don%26amp%3Bfc%3Doff%26amp%3Bgroup%3Dnone&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents this is the link but as I said, not sure if you can acces it. I would suggest try and otherwise the suggestion above. (Lars)
in the movie, Z wasn't trying to fit in. we wanted it more than anything, sure, but he wasn't really trying to build real relationships. he wanted to invent a whole new world where he was already the king and so he did. saying that he tried to fit in like he was someone we should be rooting for isn't the best POV
hello, I couldn't really get the name of the author of the paper that is cited in the video. The paper that has the quote:" One of the problems of Facebook is that it's like the Ikea of the mind..." Did someone catch the name of the author or knows the paper or could help me out find it? Thanks.
I think The paper is called "The Dislike Button" and the author is G M Tiery but I also couldn't hear it clearly and am unsure how to spell the surname. If you find it, please let me know and I will do the same.
I always found this film a bit too cold for my liking. I enjoy darkness and cynicalness in my movies, but this one...I don’t know if it’s the atmosphere artificiality or what. Just that something was off about the way the characters came across.
Really great content, but i think you need to work more on your music and construction of speech. it looks like you are reading directly from the script.
I was so young during the age of the worship of e- celebrities like that dude from MySpace, Moot from 4chan, Zuckerberg, and Steve Jobs. Weird times those were.
Seven is actually the worst example that you could give, because the whole movie is a detective snooze fest until the ending that widens your eyes in absolute terror, that's like asking not to give spoilers that Walter White cooks crystal.
I agree with your analysis, however, I think it's important to separate "Mark Zuckerberg", a character from the movie and Mark Zuckerberg, the real person who founded Facebook. I don't know how much of the movie is true, but I'm sure they had to make at least a few changes to make the narrative more interesting. And regardless of the accuracy of this particular film, we shouldn't pass moral judgement on real people because of their representation in works of fiction. Anyway, I love this movie and this video is great, just wanted to comment this specific point. Ps: edited for typos
If you guys refer to these videos as Video Essays somewhere. anywhere in on your channel, meta tags, video titles or description your views will go up. Watched four after your comment on Nerdwriter's video on Casey Neistat. I love Video Essays and people like me hunt for them :-) Good luck!
nerdwriter, everyframeapainting (the best and biggest ones probably know them already) now you see it, channel chriswell, what it all meant, (all film) maybe history buffs, I mainly know the big ones too, hard to find new gems. You could start one yourself of course ;) Was just talking with Thomas today that we couldn't find any female film analysts on youtube.
Will Check out what it all meant. Also not Video Essays but great film exploration on D4Darious. He has 100 videos mainly talks about 3 act story structure but lots of other great film stuff in there.
As a new subscriber, I really like the channel, but I think your voice sounds kind of uninterested. I'd suggest just trying to put a bit more energy and inflection into your voice, and it would make your videos way more engaging.
I know, working on it, it's already better than my first vid (steal like tarantino). This video in the middle part my voice starts getting boring I feel. Had to do with the fact I was editing for six hours straight. I'm trying to improve my voice a little bit each video I do. Especially because Thomas' voice is very good (he lived in England for 6 months, we're from amsterdam). So i'm feeling the pressure :) Just trying and improving bit by bit every video (Lars)
Ik geef toe, als Belg was ik eerder sceptisch toen ik je accent hoorde, maar de inhoud van dit essay is zo sterk dat je accent onbelangrijk wordt. Subscribed!
I love Finchers cinematography style, but there are more fascinating social media inception stories than FB. There were a handful that came before FB and weren’t built on such close minded, pretentious ideas. It seems that breed of social media like FB and Twitter was built on stolen ideas and backstabbing friends that helped create it.
fincher's worst movie, about an awful human. the only thing to walk away from this with is negativity. i thought it was well acted, but i can't stomach the subject matter. there is really no arc. the entire film is just a slow reveal of how ugly zuckerberg really is. it's watchable, but it's not a good story
nice video, nice content. Two things: 1) Audio is way to loud, narration is hard to understand from time to time 2) You sound as if you were forced to do this as an assignment. You could be a little more excited about this, or change narrator 'cause you sound bored AF
This video didnt brang anything new to the table. It was more like a best of scene compilation. Your comments just stated the obvious and were difficult to understand with that bad microphone of yours and the loud music over it. I guess creating youtube channels about movie-talks is the new shit right now...
