Facebook创始人的故事：《社交网络》

The movie about Mark Zuckerberg and the beginnings of his creation, Facebook, is a prime example of an op-ed* movie.

Most movies don't care about the real world of commerce* and communication. "The Social Network," however, depicts* the Facebook enterprise as a cultural change.

Director David Fincher and his screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (creator of "The West Wing"), adapting* Ben Mezrich's nonfiction book "The Accidental Billionaires," are cynical* about the ways in which this enterprise racked up the betrayals* on the road to glory. More often than not, Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) comes across as a soulless savant*.

These filmmakers are nevertheless awed* by the system that made Facebook possible. Zuckerberg is both the unlikeliest and likeliest of heroes – or, more precisely, antiheroes – for our time. He's a wolf in geek's* clothing.

It begins in the fall of 2003, when Zuckerberg, having just been dumped* by his girlfriend and licking his wounds, retreats* to his Harvard dormitory* and hacks into the university's computers to create the site Facemash – a database of all the women on campus. Photos are lined up two at a time and users are asked to choose who is "hotter." The site is immediately so popular that Harvard's entire* system crashes.

From these unseemly* beginnings is born what later becomes Facebook, which quickly spreads beyond Harvard to become a global phenomenon. Zuckerberg drops out of college after his sophomore* year to run the business from Palo Alto, California.

Along the way, he alienates* his closest friend and Facebook's cofounder, Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), who sues him, and is likewise sued by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, identical twin Harvard BMOCs who, with a whiff of WASP-ish disdain*, claim Zuckerberg stole their idea.

The filmmakers trumpet* the irony that a friendless dweeb* – the "Mark Zuckerberg" they created for this movie – founded the world's biggest aggregator* of "friends." But why is this such a surprise? If he had a raft of real friends he probably would not have felt the need (or had the time) to create a social-network engine.

op-ed 专栏评论版

commerce 商务

depict 描述

adapt 改编

cynical 愤世嫉俗的

betrayal 背叛

savant 学者

awed 敬畏的

geek (精通电脑和网络的)高手

dump 甩掉

retreat 退缩到

dormitory 宿舍

entire 整个

unseemly 不体面的

sophomore 大学二年级学生

alienate 疏远

disdain 轻蔑

trumpet 鼓吹

dweeb (俚语)怪胎

aggregator 聚合