Fact And Fiction In The Social Network, the Facebook Movie

As the world’s biggest social networking site, you can rest assured that Facebook is a name recognised by most. In fact, as the title of the recent film by David Fincher – The Social Network - suggests, the name Facebook has in fact become somewhat synonymous with the term social network, due to the massive number of people who subscribe to the site.

The film details the meteoric rise to fame of both the networking site and its prodigal founder, Mark Zuckerburg. However, while the film has been received to great critical acclaim, there have been many who have questioned the accuracy of the movie. The question on everybody’s lips is: how much of The Social Network is based on fact, and how much is pure fiction?

Turning a real life event into an entirely accurate movie can be a pretty much impossible task, so you have to forgive directors from employing a little artistic licence. However, one of the parts of the film that’s caused the most controversy is the appearance of Erica Albright. Introduced as Mark’s love interest, many people have questioned whether she ever actually existed. It’s been found that there was indeed a girl on the scene, and that the part of the film referencing Mark’s Livejournal post about her (under a different name) was accurate, but no one really knows exactly how big a role she played in Mark’s life – aside from Mark himself.

Sean Parker is the other person who’s under a lot of scrutiny when it comes to the film, and some people have wondered whether he actually had a hand in Mark’s creation of Facebook. It turns out he was indeed instrumental in the initial stages of the site and acted as a sort of critical advisor for everyone involved. In fact, he was more helpful in real life than he was in the film, as he helped Mark deal with venture capitalists to his best advantage. It’s also true that Sean was arrested for partying with young girls and being in possession of cocaine, and that this directly affected his decision to leave the company.

A couple of other surprising events that turn out to be based on real events are Mark’s contentious business card and the fact he once pitched to a VC while in his pyjamas. Now you are armed with the facts, a watch of The Social Network DVDcould be an even more enlightening experience than it was before.

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