Character Sketch Of Mark Zuckerberg Film Studies Essay

After watching the movie ‘The Social Network’, there was one thing quite sure; which was basically that we had just seen the movie of the year. It was a highly well directed movie which shows all the characters of the movie in a vibrant way. It was an inspirational story about how one must give up almost everything to get what one wants. Inspired by this movie which was based on true events which chose to make our character sketch on the protagonist of the movie, which was Mark Zuckerberg. He was born in New York and went to Harvard where he founded Facebook. He started programming at a very early age and clearly considers himself as a hacker. He comes from a Jewish family but considers himself as an atheist. His traits, throughout the movie, are highly complex and do make himself hard to understand. He was blunt, open-minded and would be highly influential to the world.

Mark Zuckerberg: The world’s youngest Billionaire:

Since Facebook has become a worldwide phenomenon, it has made Zuckerberg and its co-founders billions. Which begs the question, how does one become the world’s youngest billionaire? What does it take to go out there and earn so much, at such a young ago? After analyzing the character and personality of Mark Zuckerberg, we would clearly say that to achieve as much as he has, one need to sacrifice a great deal. Right away from the beginning of the movie, you realize that Mark Zuckerberg is highly interested in accomplishing success in his life. His passion towards becoming what he wants to become is remarkable. But along with that it is also know that he undermines his personal relationships along with his need of success. Zuckerberg shows an amazing part of his character when after breaking up with his girlfriend; he converts the negativity to positive outcome by creating ‘facemash’. Ignoring the fact that ‘facemash’ was morally wrong and also offensive to many women, the situation shows us that in moments like that when weak individuals might bring out their worst due to the grief or anger, Zuckerberg did what he was best at. Zuckerberg was influenced by The Winklevoss brothers’ idea about creating a social network for Harvard. Later they do blame him, saying that Zuckerberg stole their idea but Mark claims that he had a better idea than what they had. Basically, here we see that how Zuckerberg converted a small simple idea into a great one of his own. This was his strong ability to innovate. These character traits are a small part of his personality and the major traits are shown later once he had decided to make his idea a reality. After become sure about creating Facebook, he was highly committed to his mission. He believed in what wanted to do and didn’t get distracted. During the movie, it is shown that he was always looking for better idea to improve Facebook. An example of this trait was clearly shown in the scene where he comes up with the idea of ‘relationship status’ feature of Facebook. Extremely motivated and focused at his job. On a whole, Mark shows that once motivated he would be revolutionary. He believed in coming up with a socializing solution for college students. Zuckerberg was intelligent and knew how to play the smart move. Initially, he shares his idea only with Eduardo Saverin, who was his close friend. He did tell him about Facebook first because he was his closest friend, but it was mainly because he needed someone to financially support his project. It was after that he informs his room-mates who were programmers like him. Zuckerberg was never seduced by money. Facebook was being really popular among Harvard and other colleges. But Zuckerberg did not support the idea of advertising in Facebook which was put forward by Eduardo. This shows us that Mark had made Facebook for reasons other than money. He didn’t give up this principle of his, when he had the opportunities to earn money off Facebook.

In the second half of the movie, after the introduction of Sean Parker, we see another side of Mark. He was highly influenced by the success of Sean Parker. Later this leads to motivate him more towards expanding Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg always looked at Sean Parker as his role model. It was seen in many parts of the movie that he did compare himself to him. It was quite obvious as they both went through almost the same thing. Sean Parker was innovator of ‘Napster’ which was a major success over the internet. Hence, it was something that Mark found influential about Sean. His idea did chance at the end of the movie though. Now to concentrate on the negative traits on Mark Zuckerberg, the biggest of all was that he under-rated the personal relationships he had. As we mentioned earlier also, he was so passionate about success that his girlfriend leave him because of that. Later during the movie, he allows Eduardo to be removed from Facebook also. It was never really shown clearly but the truth was that Eduardo was only a financial member and once money was not an issue, Zuckerberg had to let him go. The shocking situation was that he doesn’t think from a best friend’s point of view before making this decision, but from the point of view of the creator of Facebook. Eduardo was not a programmers and he never did help in enhancing Facebook and this was good enough reason for Zuckerberg to remove him from Facebook. Zuckerberg showed us that he was so engrossed in becoming successful that he had no option but to let go off his friend. But to give him some credit, we did see in some parts where he did show regret and still had some mankind left inside him. This trait of his could be blamed on his highly professional attitude. Throughout the movie, you can notice that he keeps things as professional as possible. He was slowly and slowly becoming a workaholic. He was proud of his achievements, once Facebook became highly popular. That made him quite proud as well. He was not too proud as well which becomes a negative point but that let to him being even more disliked by people. Since the beginning, when he was first question at the outbreak of ‘facemash’ till the end where he was being sued by Eduardo, he was never afraid of anyone. He was proud of his achievements and knew he was going to be admired by many. Sarcasm was a trait of his, which he fed on. After watching this movie, one can’t deny the fact Zuckerberg was good at his sarcasm. We notice this in the scene when he wanted to tell Eduardo, that money wasn’t the thing he cared about. We would quote his line; ‘Money or the ability to make it doesn’t impress anybody around here’.

Mark Zuckerberg: Type A or Type B:

Hence, when asked what personality type would Zuckerberg fall in; one would undoubtedly say ‘Type A’. People who are considered to be in Type A personality type are always impatient. Zuckerberg was always inpatient to convert even a simple idea for Facebook into reality. They are aggressive and controlling. Zuckerberg can easily be called a leader personality. In the movie he leads his friends like troops in the creation and success of Facebook. His aggression was shown when we learn the process by which he interviews his programmers. The game of hacking and taking shots of alcohol was made to see who can work the fastest. In reality, it is a known fact that this method is still used by Zuckerberg whenever he employs his employees. He picks people who know how to understand and respond to command. This shows us his controlling nature. Type A personality people are time-conscious, professional and concerned about their status. The idea of other calling themselves’ the creators of Facebook was unbearable by Zuckerberg. He shows this trait all throughout the trials. The professional attitude of Zuckerberg, like we already discussed was his major trait and always influenced him. Zuckerberg also was competitive and Facebook to him was the ultimate difference. He never got to show his competitive attitude during the movie because his innovation was very strong. But this trait can be noticed in him before he had got the idea of Facebook, especially in the beginning when he was talking to his girlfriend about what he wants to achieve. Mark Zuckerberg was no doubt ambitious. To achieve what he achieved, one needs to be highly ambitious along with being hard-working. This is a common trait of Type A people. Type A people are considered to be ‘stress junkies’. They drive themselves with deadlines, and are miserable about delays. To notify another essential feature about Zuckerberg was his Blunt nature. He believed to saying what he felt like to anyone he felt like. Some might say he had complete disregard about others feelings. But he would say whatever he felt like. He many parts of the movie he is disrespectful to people who are older than him or even of better status than him. This trait was mainly seen as very rude nature of Zuckerberg, throughout the movie. Along with that he was brave. During his trials he speaks whatever he wanted and didn’t think of the consequences. We would quote the example; ‘I had to swear an oath before we began this deposition, and I don’t want to perjure myself, so I have a legal obligation to say no’ and another one was ‘I think if your clients want to sit on my shoulders and call themselves tall, they have the right to give it a try – but there’s no requirement that I enjoy sitting here listening to people lie’. Both of these quotes were maybe the most memorable moments of the movie. Over-all after comparing him to the characteristics of a person of personality Type A, it is quite clear that he is a great example of this personality.

Other Characters and their personality types:

Focusing on the other characters in the movie, we did see personalities of both Types A and B. Eduardo Saverin was a clear candidate for Type B personality. Even though, he wasn’t all that easy going person but he was always relaxed and patient. He never had any urgency of success and was loyal to Mark at all times. He cared about Facebook a lot and at many times he corrected Mark whenever he said ‘I’ in place of ‘We’. This did show us that he was not competitive in nature. Sean Parker could be considered as a mixture of both Type A and B personality types. This was mainly because he wasn’t all that workaholic and professional like a typical Type A. He believed in enjoying life. He did care about his status a lot and was passionate about success as well. But he did bring along a very casual attitude and was always relaxed. He plays a major part in the movie in influencing Zuckerberg and influential he was as well. This quote from the movie shows his influential trait; ‘We lived in farms, then we lived in cities, and now we’re gonna live on the internet!’ The brothers Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss were mainly of Type A personality. Except the brother Tyler was a little more patient that the other but eventually both were highly competitive. They could not accept the fact that Zuckerberg had created Facebook which was lot similar to their college network idea but better. Basically on a whole, the movie had a good number of Type A personality characters but of which Mark Zuckerberg was the most outstanding. The movie shows how all these Type A personality characters fight amongst each other and show the major trait of competiveness. They all show how success became the sole achievement in life for them.

Conclusion:

One major feature about the movie which was worth noticing is the fact that, like the other classic tales of deception, this was not driven by the hunger of money. Facebook was never first up, made to generate money. It was maybe that’s why it became an internet site which is now worth $25 billion. Mark Zuckerberg own 24% of the shares of Facebook and is the CEO of Facebook. He earns up to $6.9 billion annually. Facebook currently has up to 500 million active members. Since 2005, Facebook has become the biggest social networking site ever. Zuckerberg was the brains behind this idea, but he did step on some people to become what he is. On a whole, through this sketch about this character and his personality, we understand that one need a really strong mental and emotional moral fiber. Not once do we see a weak side of Zuckerberg throughout the movie. He was arrogant and condescending. He believed in no one but himself and that seemed to be enough for him, to become what he wanted to. We would say it is hard not to be influenced by a personality like his. And not just on the basis of his success, but the simple idea in which he chose to stand out from the crowd and get himself noticed. It takes great statures that he possessed which lead him towards world-wide fame. The fame that lead to us, university students to learn through his exam and realize what life exactly is and what it will cost us to learn the ultimate dream. The dream which might differ from people to people, but is similar in its own simple way.