When David Fincher's Facebook base narrative "The Social Network" premiered 16 years ago, it delighted critics alongside its witty conversation and nuanced character work. Aaron Sorkin was awarded the Oscar for finest adapted screenplay, and Jesse Eisenberg was hailed for his portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg as an aggrieved yet triumphant prodigy. Playing a rising tech titan earned Eisenberg an Oscar nomination and made him synonymous alongside Zuck — not a bad item in 2010, whenever Zuckerberg was crowned Time's Person of the Year.
A lot has changed since then. These days, Eisenberg would fairly not be connected alongside the tech amazement whose wealth, influence, and impunity have additional in average alongside that of an oligarch than a scrappy university kid. Eisenberg declined to reprise the function for Sorkin's new pseudo-sequel, "The Social Reckoning," and Jeremy Strong took on the part instead.
"He merely did not desire to be conflated alongside Mark Zuckerberg anymore," Sorkin told Vanity Fair of Eisenberg. "He doesn't akin kids coming up to him in airports alongside endeavor cards that say 'I'm CEO, bitch' for him to sign."
"The Social Reckoning," out Friday, reflects Eisenberg's alter of bosom concerning Zuckerberg on a macro scale. Gone is the smug, impish charm of Eisenberg's hoodie-clad Harvard dropout. Now, Strong's Zuck has tailored suits and the severity of a tyrant. Facebook — now Meta — is no longer the dorm-room startup that launched a milliard companion requests; the business is depicted as a sinister and relentless force, a tool that kids use to intimidate all another and extremists use to dispersed dislike speech. The movie's climax dovetails alongside the January 6 insurrection, which Zuckerberg watches unfold from his "war room."
It's far from the lone movie this period to coat a tech titan's increase to power as a sobering sign of the times. "The Social Reckoning" premieres the identical day as "Musk," Alex Gibney's super-sized documentary concerning Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, an incisive, nearly four-hour matter that Musk has decried as a "hit piece." Next week, there's "You Can See Everything," a genre-bending documentary that locks co-director Nathan Fielder in a chilling tete-a-tete alongside Theranos originator Elizabeth Holmes as he probes her psyche before she reports to prison. On Christmas, you can bask Luca Guadagnino's "Artificial," a biopic that depicts OpenAI CEO Sam Altman as amoral, manipulative, and Machiavellian, according to first reviews. Don't figure TV out, either: Graham Moore's "The Altruists," a Netflix constricted series that tracks the increase and autumn of FTX originator Sam Bankman-Fried, is coming in November.
Unlike the movies that defined the 2010s motion of techno-optimism, akin "The Social Network" and the 2013 Steve Jobs biopic "Jobs" — the two Sorkin-penned stories that map a founder's increase onto the traditional strikes of a hero's journey — this new motion of tech movies courses alongside an undercurrent of dread.
If the 2010s proved tech companies have awesome power, these new movies are reaching for their subjects to acknowledge that they additionally clasp awesome responsibility.
The next act of a billionaire's base narrative is concerning consequences — or deficiency thereof
During the climactic insurrection environment in "The Social Reckoning," flickers of guilt and panic continue complete Strong-as-Zuckerberg's visage as he hears the news. The Facebook CEO's infamous "free-speech absolutism" is being put to the supreme test, as President Donald Trump shares a slew of posts cheering on the rioters.
Although Zuckerberg ultimately agrees, at the urging of his inner circle, to suspend the president's account amid the violence, the movie ends alongside a actuality check: Meta has since abandoned fact-checking, not fair for politicians and governmental ads, but for everything. Trump's Facebook document was restored in 2023.
It's a bleak postscript to the far additional triumphant final heading cardstock of "The Social Network," which is presented as a kiss-off to Harvard's then-president scoffing at Facebook's earning potential: "Mark Zuckerberg is the youngest billionaire in the world." The end-credits opus is "Baby You're a Rich Man" by The Beatles.
While "The Social Network" wasn't entirely benevolent to Zuckerberg, it reflected a awareness of amazement concerning what he'd accomplished, and all the bigwigs he had to piss off in the process. There's a logic "I'm CEO, bitch" became a traditional touchstone — that precocious, defiant swagger felt revelatory at the dawn of social media's imperial age. For a generation of millennial founders, it was downright inspiring.
As a companion piece, "The Social Reckoning" is forced to grapple alongside the affirmative PR its predecessor gave Zuckerberg, whether intentionally or not. The genuine Zuckerberg has undergone his own development (or, several power argue, devolution) during his reign as CEO, accelerating his free-speech-at-all-costs rhetoric and cozying up to Trump in his second term as president.
Zuckerberg's portraiture in pop civilization has rotate into additional caustic and ominous to match. In "The Social Reckoning," Strong-as-Zuckerberg insists that Facebook should not be a referee for dislike address and misinformation, but a "public square" for all self-expression to coexist. "It's a business," he declares in one scene. "You cognize why we don't fact-check ads? Because we don't have to."
The movie makes the consequences of this guideline clear. Most of the act centers on the whistleblower controversy of 2021, whenever former Facebook employee Frances Haugen leaked tens of thousands of inner documents. The trove included evidence that Facebook's algorithm was designed to dispersed inflammatory content, shove its users into extreme groups, and prioritize "profit complete safety," in Haugen's words.
"Mark has been surrounded by group since he was 19 years old who told him he was doing a awesome job," Haugen afterward told Bloomberg, calling for him to stage downward as CEO. She added, "We can demonize Zuckerberg, but it's not going to create him heal faster."
"The Social Reckoning" makes this point, too, dotting Zuckerberg's orbit alongside preening yes-men, emergency PR experts, and wardrobe specialists. Still, the movie doesn't let him off the hook. In one scene, whenever he's presented alongside an undertaking to enhance safety measures for 38% of Facebook users — in toggle for losing concerning 1% of involvement — Strong plays the CEO's reply alongside icy indifference. He opts to keep the engagement.
Big Tech's commitment is starting to appearance akin a threat
Trends in art and movie frequently indicate the public's appetite, and that applies to today's techno-doomerism.
What does it say concerning our credulity that founders akin Holmes and Bankman-Fried can create it so far on fawning media narratives and false promises? What does it say concerning our current construction that men akin Zuckerberg, Musk, and Altman continue to wield stunning power complete what we see, how we feel, and equal who we ballot for?
To filmmakers akin Sorkin, Gibney, Fielder, and Guadagnino — and their enthusiastic audiences — it says that we're in profound trouble.
Particularly among young people, there's a expanding awareness of anxiety concerning AI, tech overlords, and prosperity allocation additional broadly. A latest NBC News poll established that 47% of voters ages 18 to 29 held a negative perspective of capitalism, up from 22% in 2018. Last year, amid Musk's tenure at the Department of Government Efficiency, a University of Massachusetts Amherst study established that nearly fractional of all Americans would depict the US as an oligarchy.
Musk's outsize function in the Trump administration underscores the actuality that tech bros have rotate into the chief characters, the two on and offscreen. Their inventions are affecting everything from teenagers' mental health to global ballot results. Researchers accept they could bring concerning the destiny of our species, alongside several comparing the likelihood to a coin flip.
Once upon a time, during the era of Obama hopecore, we were enthralled by the commitment and possible of scientific progress. Just think of what humans could do, stated the tools!
Now, we have to obtain a fine appearance at what we've done.
Read next
Callie Ahlgrim is a elder newsman at Business Insider who writes concerning pop culture, alongside a particular concentration on the music industry.As a cofounding associate of BI's music vertical, Callie has covered a range of hot topics at the intersection of art, community fig culture, and display business: the governmental implications of Bad Bunny's success; the fan feedback iteration in Taylor Swift's imaginative process; the symbolism of Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl halftime show; the business effect of Beyoncé's country album; the brand identities of stars akin Harry Styles, Morgan Wallen, Addison Rae, Katy Perry, and Frank Ocean; the contemporary challenges of making prosperity as a musician; and more.She additionally covers community fig PR strategies, blockbuster movies, prestige TV shows, and net trends.Callie graduated from Boston University alongside a Bachelor of Science in Journalism, a Bachelor of Arts in English, and a insignificant in Spanish. She earlier wrote columns for Man Repeller and ELLE.
