Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet, as a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this
Speaker 1: is There Are No Girls on the Internet. It's twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six, and Facebook is back in the discourse, this
Speaker 1: time because Meta is throwing everything it's got into AI,
Speaker 1: new products, new models, full speed ahead, no breaks. And
Speaker 1: if this sounds a little bit familiar, it should because
Speaker 1: the story of how Mark Zuckerberg got here and who
Speaker 1: got left behind, erased, or just plane lied about along
Speaker 1: the way, well, that's a story that hasn't really changed much.
Speaker 1: I sat down with my friends Samantha and Annie on
Speaker 1: the podcast Stuff Mom never told you to revisit a
Speaker 1: movie that we like talking about a lot, the social network,
Speaker 1: a film that somehow just keeps getting more relevant. We're
Speaker 1: digging into what that movie has to say about the
Speaker 1: misogyny baked into the founding myth of one of the
Speaker 1: Internet's most powerful companies, and also looking ahead to the
Speaker 1: sequel centered on whistleblower Francis Hogan's findings about how Facebook
Speaker 1: knowingly harmed women and girls. So, on the one hand,
Speaker 1: it's a conversation about a film that came out over
Speaker 1: fifteen years ago. But on the other it's also kind
Speaker 1: of a movie about everything happening right now.
Speaker 2: We didn't anticipate when this episode was going to come out,
Speaker 2: you know, we've been hinting at it for a long time,
Speaker 2: but it is coming out at a time where I
Speaker 2: think we need to take a fun break. I think
Speaker 2: a lot of people need that kind of fun break
Speaker 2: right now.
Speaker 3: I let's say it is a fun break, but at
Speaker 3: the same time, like, we're still going to talk about issues,
Speaker 3: but it's way too I'm like, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, some things, yes, we are. Absolutely, it's a fun break.
Speaker 4: I guess for very I listeners will be like, oh no, well,
Speaker 4: I feel like the lens through using movies as the
Speaker 4: entry point to talk about things that are real or rough.
Speaker 1: I think is great because your brain is like, this
Speaker 1: is all fictional, even though another part of your brain
Speaker 1: is like, no, this is real. You get the I
Speaker 1: don't know it. I don't know if other people feel
Speaker 1: this way. It kind of lulls me into feeling like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is not scary or an upsetting even though it
Speaker 1: is real, because you've got that thin veneer of oh
Speaker 1: this is a fictionalized account.
Speaker 2: Yes, And as listeners know if you looked at the title,
Speaker 2: we are talking about the social network today. And I
Speaker 2: have to say to your point, Bridget, I kept when
Speaker 2: I was like just writing my random thoughts and notes,
Speaker 2: I kept referring to the like the like they were characters.
Speaker 5: I was like, Oh, then Mark did this or whatever.
Speaker 2: And it was so bizarre because I know that's a
Speaker 2: real person, Mark Zuckerberg out there, but I was referring
Speaker 2: to him as if he was like a character, which
Speaker 2: I do know.
Speaker 5: There is some.
Speaker 2: Debate about, you know, how dramatized this is, you know
Speaker 2: how accurate it is, But I did catch myself doing
Speaker 2: that several times.
Speaker 1: To me, Jesse Eisenberg is more Mark Zuckerberg than Mark
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg at this point, when I imagine Mark Zuckerberg in
Speaker 1: my mind, I'm actually picture picturing Jesse Eisenberg. That's how
Speaker 1: much he became Mark Zuckerberg. Or maybe is a Zuckerberg type.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but yeah, they're one and the same
Speaker 1: in my mind. I wonder how he would feel about that, Honestly,
Speaker 1: like when for the real Mark Zuckerberg that when I
Speaker 1: picture him, I don't picture the actual dweeb that is
Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg. I picture Jesse Eisenberg somebody who I actually
Speaker 1: like have a fondness for right, I think has a
Speaker 1: little bit has like charm.
Speaker 3: Yes, I think this movie was very kind to all
Speaker 3: of the ends visual people, totally character with the people
Speaker 3: that represented them. I was like, oh, is justin Timberlake
Speaker 3: sean totally totally Nope.
Speaker 6: I had a lot of questions.
Speaker 3: I Yes, like Jesse Eisenberg is definitely like endearing, seemingly
Speaker 3: like he has this persona.
Speaker 6: Of being endearing.
Speaker 3: So having an endearing person portray you did him favors.
Speaker 3: Even though from my observation of this movie, I was like, Okay,
Speaker 3: so what I'm understanding is Zuckerberg is an autistic could
Speaker 3: have been in Cell had he not had this route.
Speaker 6: Like that's the lot of what I found out.
Speaker 1: The way that massogyny and I know we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about it, but the way that misogyny bookens the film,
Speaker 1: and then is this thread throughout even you know, obviously
Speaker 1: with how Zuckerberg starts getting these ideas for Facebook, but
Speaker 1: even in ways that are not connected to the digital world.
Speaker 1: The way that these college campuses are sort of portrayed
Speaker 1: as like misogynistic meat markets where women artist commodities. I
Speaker 1: think the movie is trying to illustrate how like Zuckerberg
Speaker 1: didn't invent that, he just put it online and made
Speaker 1: it scalable.
Speaker 5: Oh, yes, we have so much to talk about.
Speaker 2: So I hope this is the first of a series
Speaker 2: where we do tech movies and we have these conversations.
Speaker 2: I know that you have some you've mentioned before, you
Speaker 2: want to talk about bridget but yes, I think this
Speaker 2: is a good one to kick it off with Social Network.
Speaker 5: So I'm going to give a brief.
Speaker 2: Rundown of it, and then I'll ask you if you
Speaker 2: can give a brief plot.
Speaker 5: Description of it.
Speaker 1: I sure can, I sure can.
Speaker 5: Excellent.
Speaker 2: So The Social Network was a twenty ten film based
Speaker 2: on the book The Occidental Billionaires, which was written by
Speaker 2: Ben Mezrick. It was directed by David Fincher and written
Speaker 2: by Aaron Sorkin, and it depicted the origins of Facebook,
Speaker 2: how Facebook came to be. So yes, we got Jesse
Speaker 2: Eisenberg playing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg Andrew Garfield playing his
Speaker 2: friend business partner until they weren't Eduardo saveregn Justin Timberlake
Speaker 2: Sean Parker, the founder of Napster and a mentor to
Speaker 2: Zuckerberg and Armie Hammer as the Vinkelvos ten Twins, which
Speaker 2: I remember when this came out, I watched like a
Speaker 2: special on how they did his how they did the
Speaker 2: twins And if you noticed, one of them is usually
Speaker 2: wearing like a bandana or something and that's for the
Speaker 2: face scanning.
Speaker 1: Oh that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, this film was a critical and financial success.
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty four, the Library of Congress named The
Speaker 2: Social Network as quote culturally, historically or esthetically significant and
Speaker 2: inducted it into their National Film Registry of Note. A
Speaker 2: lot of people depicted in the film were very adamant
Speaker 2: that this was not an accurate portrayal of events. And
Speaker 2: I also just have to say, the kid from Jurassic
Speaker 2: Park who I had a crush on when I.
Speaker 5: Was a kid, was in this movie.
Speaker 1: Who is he?
Speaker 2: Dustin Moskowitz. He's the roommate coder. Yes, wow, I would
Speaker 2: be from Jurassic Park.
Speaker 1: I would have never picked that up. And also sign
Speaker 1: out of course he had a crush on that kid,
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 5: So me, Oh my gosh. All right, so Bridget, can
Speaker 5: you run down the plot for us?
Speaker 1: I can. So the movie opens up in two thousand
Speaker 1: and three with Mark Zuckerberg. He's a sophomore at Harvard.
Speaker 1: He has just gotten dumped by his girlfriend, Erica, who
Speaker 1: is fictional like the Erica character that we see that
Speaker 1: bookends the film is not based on a real person.
Speaker 1: He is at a bar with her. He's being very
Speaker 1: dismissive and condescending to her. She breaks up with him.
Speaker 1: He goes home, he gets drunk, and he writes a
Speaker 1: nasty blog post about her, and in a fit of
Speaker 1: bitter energy, hacks into the Harvard student directories to build
Speaker 1: a site called facemash to let people rate the female
Speaker 1: students in all the dorms against each other. He said
Speaker 1: that he was initially thinking about having the girls pictures
Speaker 1: next to farm animals, but then he decided not to
Speaker 1: do that. That is not fictional. That is a real
Speaker 1: quote from what a then college sophomore Mark Zuckerberg wrote.
Speaker 1: So he ends up making this site facemash. It's so
Speaker 1: popular that it crashes the university servers overnight, becomes a
Speaker 1: complete sensation, and it lands Zuckerberg in some campus disciplinary trouble.
Speaker 1: All of this hubbub catches the attention of the twins
Speaker 1: that you just mentioned before, Cameron and Tyler Winklbass and
Speaker 1: their business partner, who recruit Zuckerberg to help build out
Speaker 1: a plan that they had for a Harvard only social
Speaker 1: network that they were calling Harvard Connection. Zuckerberg agrees, there's
Speaker 1: definitely a dynamic where they are these tall guys on
Speaker 1: the rowing team, and Zuckerberg's this big nerd. You've got
Speaker 1: these big these these big strong men about town, like
Speaker 1: men on campus recruiting who are meant to understands like this,
Speaker 1: like kind of like mousey neurotic, you know, beta to
Speaker 1: use language that I'm sure that they have used amongst
Speaker 1: each other. So Zuckerberg ends up kind of besting these two.
Speaker 1: He just sort of he agrees. He takes their money
Speaker 1: to build the site, strings them along for months, doesn't
Speaker 1: do any real work, and then launches his own site
Speaker 1: that kind of has a very similar idea the Facebook
Speaker 1: dot com. The site explodes, Zuckerberg's best friend Eduardo becomes
Speaker 1: this co founder and puts up the initial money. Then
Speaker 1: Napster co founder Sean Parker, who is played by Justin Timberlake,
Speaker 1: breathes into their lives instantly, charms Mark Zuckerberg and gradually
Speaker 1: pushes Eduardo, who up until this point had been this
Speaker 1: like loyal friend to Zuckerberg ahough they did have some tension,
Speaker 1: ends up pushing at work out of the company while
Speaker 1: pulling Facebook towards Silicon Valley and toward Sean Parker and
Speaker 1: the investment of Petertiel. The whole story is kind of
Speaker 1: framed around these two simultaneous lawsuits, the Winklevoss twins suing
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg for stealing his idea, and Eduardo, Zuckerberg's previous best friend,
Speaker 1: suing him for pushing him out of the company and
Speaker 1: diluting his shares down to almost nothing. In the end,
Speaker 1: both cases and up settling. The movie, I said it
Speaker 1: starts with Zuckerberg having problems with a woman in his life.
Speaker 1: Well that in the sort of fitis and Caine reveal
Speaker 1: at the end of the movie is Zuckerberg sitting alone
Speaker 1: refreshing his ex girlfriend Erica's Facebook page, just waiting to
Speaker 1: see if she will accept his friend request, and she
Speaker 1: does not, And the irony is very clear. Facebook has
Speaker 1: five hundred million friends, Zuckerberg doesn't have a single one.
Speaker 5: I love the ending so much.
Speaker 7: It's so good because he's so sad and so alone,
Speaker 7: and he just keeps refreshing the page and it lingers.
Speaker 5: On that moment, it holds.
Speaker 2: And he has this conversation with Sean Parker. Sean Parker says,
Speaker 2: the reason I started Napster was because there was a
Speaker 2: girl I wanted to get her attention. She was with
Speaker 2: someone else, and Zuckerberg asked him, like, do you still
Speaker 2: think about her? Do you still think about that girl?
Speaker 2: And Sean Parker's like, no, but you've got Mark Zuckerberg.
Speaker 1: Who's still hung up on oh.
Speaker 2: She broke up with me. He tries to have that
Speaker 2: conversation with her later, like, oh, I made this website.
Speaker 2: I have you seen it?
Speaker 1: Maybe you've heard of it, and she's like, good luck
Speaker 1: with your video game. Yeah. That Sean Parker scene really
Speaker 1: stuck with me. He's like, oh, you want to know why?
Speaker 1: And then a Napster. The girl I loved in high
Speaker 1: school was with the captain of the lacrosse team, so
Speaker 1: I wanted to take her from him, so I started
Speaker 1: the next big thing. And he's like he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I saw your your Face smash blog and Zuckerberg is
Speaker 1: like ooh, Like that was just me you know, playing
Speaker 1: the the trolls and basements online. But Parker is like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I wasn't dismissing it. I loved it. Like, isn't that
Speaker 1: what this whole thing is about? You know, this is
Speaker 1: our time? And I think, like it just really points
Speaker 1: to the ethos of technology being that gross, childish, toxic
Speaker 1: men with the misogynistic chip on their shoulder. And clearly
Speaker 1: for Parker it was not even about that girl. Really,
Speaker 1: He's like, I don't even talk about her at all.
Speaker 1: It was about the girl was just a a through
Speaker 1: line to make himself feel more important than this, like
Speaker 1: Jock on the lacrosse team who feels like best at him.
Speaker 1: And so I said that to say, you see how
Speaker 1: much of our current tech infrastructure is built by personal,
Speaker 1: deeply personal, animate and massagedy.
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean that the whole idea that Facebook started.
Speaker 2: He in the movie at least he gets broken up with,
Speaker 2: goes straight home, makes this based on makes this being
Speaker 2: rating two pictures of two women. And then there's a
Speaker 2: scene that follows like a montage scene of a bunch
Speaker 2: of college dudes like laughing and rating the women.
Speaker 5: And then also there's a through line we're going to
Speaker 5: come back to.
Speaker 2: But of exclusivity and Zuckerberg really wanting to get into
Speaker 2: these private final clubs. Let me get it right at
Speaker 2: final clubs okay, which I don't know. They sound like
Speaker 2: great fraternities where you get haze and I guess they're
Speaker 2: really fancy and well known, but he really.
Speaker 5: Wants to get into them and does not.
Speaker 2: But so you have a scene of those final clubs
Speaker 2: where there's a bus picking up young women and the
Speaker 2: men are watching them like strip and kiss and all
Speaker 2: of this stuff. And then you have like shots of
Speaker 2: women seeing face mash and being like, oh, this is
Speaker 2: so pathetic, this is so sad. And then you see
Speaker 2: Erica kind of finding out Erica, the girl that broke
Speaker 2: up with him, finding out what she wrote about him
Speaker 2: and being mocked for it.
Speaker 5: And so I thought that was a really interesting.
Speaker 2: Like the way that montage breaks down of seeing how
Speaker 2: this plays out online, because Zuckerberg makes the point several
Speaker 2: times we're trying to put the college life online, but
Speaker 2: also how it is playing out in like in real
Speaker 2: life in college, like outside of the internet in college.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's the scene where that you sort of just
Speaker 1: decribed it where Erica is in her dorm and Mark,
Speaker 1: in his angry blog after she dumps him, says like, oh,
Speaker 1: she may seem like she's got a decent body, but
Speaker 1: she's getting a lot of help from Patting and Victoria's
Speaker 1: secret two guys bust into her dorm room to brake
Speaker 1: her about this, shaking bras at her, and I think
Speaker 1: it really shows like just a climate of casual massage,
Speaker 1: and these women are existing in both online and off.
Speaker 1: But once it's once that world is transferred to the
Speaker 1: digital realm, how it becomes super charged? Right? And you
Speaker 1: know Mark has this line in the movie where he says,
Speaker 1: what we want to do with Facebook, it's like building
Speaker 1: a finals club, except we're the president. Because in the
Speaker 1: movie you see both Mark and his friend Eduardo having
Speaker 1: a lot of like rivalry, intention and anxiety about whether
Speaker 1: or not they're going to get into the best finals club.
Speaker 1: That argument with eric at the beginning of the movie.
Speaker 1: It starts with her saying, you should try out for
Speaker 1: the easiest to get into club and he's like, what
Speaker 1: you think I can't get into the harder to get
Speaker 1: into clubs. And so, you know, I really think that
Speaker 1: idea that like what if we use the Internet to
Speaker 1: build a world that's all about the exclusivity and you know,
Speaker 1: gross parts of frat life, only we're in charge of it.
Speaker 1: Like that, I think that like that really is when
Speaker 1: I am on Facebook or x or Instagram, I feel
Speaker 1: like I he really did that really does nicely summarize.
Speaker 1: I think the tech landscape that we're all in now
Speaker 1: it's like a finals club, except it's run by people
Speaker 1: like Mark Zuckerberg. Yes.
Speaker 2: Yes, And he also has a line in the beginning
Speaker 2: when he's talking with Erica about so condescending, where he says,
Speaker 2: you know, you should really be more invested in this
Speaker 2: because I'm going to be opening the doors for you. Essentially,
Speaker 2: you're going to meet a lot of people because of me.
Speaker 2: And that just reminds me so much of a lot
Speaker 2: what is going on with her a lot of things,
Speaker 2: But in this instance, the tech industry is you know,
Speaker 2: you can women, marginalize folks, you can come in, but
Speaker 2: we're the ones going to open the door.
Speaker 5: You have to exist within our framework and with our
Speaker 5: within our rules.
Speaker 2: And I feel like we've just seen that at so many,
Speaker 2: so many lawsuits, like the lawsuit with Blizzard as one
Speaker 2: that comes to mind where it feels very like you
Speaker 2: can come in, but we can kick you out just
Speaker 2: as easily. You need to exist only for only in
Speaker 2: the way we think that.
Speaker 5: You should exist.
Speaker 1: And when we see the montage of all the different
Speaker 1: guys that are around, it's like part of me is like,
Speaker 1: these are the people she's meant to be thanking you
Speaker 1: for putting her around. These guys all seem like animals,
Speaker 1: you know, like these like drunk guys. We're like hooting
Speaker 1: at women to take their clothes off. I'm supposed to
Speaker 1: be like, oh, yeah, thanks for getting me into this world.
Speaker 5: This is what I've always wanted, right.
Speaker 3: I found it interesting because so this is my first viewing.
Speaker 3: I've never actually seen it. I've only seen like previews.
Speaker 6: Or like excerpts of it.
Speaker 3: So there was a lot of fascination because this is
Speaker 3: also putting me back into the beginning of Facebook, because
Speaker 3: I was in that era was I was at the beginning,
Speaker 3: remembering you had to be an edu. It had to
Speaker 3: be an EDU in order to register into Facebook to
Speaker 3: begin with, and it only really stuck with you in
Speaker 3: that university that that's the only way you could get
Speaker 3: into Facebook. Like I was in that era, So seeing
Speaker 3: all the beginning of this and then seeing the beginning
Speaker 3: of Silicon Valley and like, we didn't know what that
Speaker 3: meant at that time, as this was in the year
Speaker 3: of two thousand and five, by the way I found
Speaker 3: out I was older than Zuckerberg. Got that moment and
Speaker 3: I was like, I hate everything right now.
Speaker 6: I hate it.
Speaker 3: Like when you start like referencing timelines, I'm like, God, okay, fine, anyway,
Speaker 3: but seeing all of that, seeing it in unfolding and
Speaker 3: them not exactly with us, not exactly realizing what this
Speaker 3: would end to, but seeing this in an entertainment value.
Speaker 3: Also in the rhetoric of like Dawson's Creek era of
Speaker 3: monologues or dialogues that I was like, what is what
Speaker 3: is this?
Speaker 8: If that's a puling baby, Yes, it is like there
Speaker 8: Auray Nickmill days of dialogue and conversation and characters. I
Speaker 8: was like, Wow, Wow, this movie really is is What's
Speaker 8: the beginning of a whole new like subplot slash like
Speaker 8: ideals and plot lines that would become stereotypical now.
Speaker 1: It's so funny to hear you say this. I'm rewatching
Speaker 1: Dawson's Creek and boy do those kids make a lot
Speaker 1: of dramatic monologues in publics to each other. But that
Speaker 1: was Sorkin. Sorkin, I don't know if you ever watched
Speaker 1: The West Wing, which I loved, or The Newsroom, which
Speaker 1: is like a terrible show, but I secretly I've seen
Speaker 1: every episode and love it very much. But like them,
Speaker 1: Like in normal life, how often has someone stood up
Speaker 1: on a plane and made a dramatic grand standing speech.
Speaker 1: In Sorcin world, it happens like every other beat.
Speaker 5: Yes, it is kind of satisfied.
Speaker 6: Oh I love it.
Speaker 1: I love it. I'm such a sucker for I'm a
Speaker 1: sucker for so many of the Sorkin tropes. The speeches,
Speaker 1: the walking quickly while discussing something West Wing did that,
Speaker 1: It's just like, it's just like something in my brain.
Speaker 1: I'm like, yes, show me two people quickly strutting. They
Speaker 1: couldn't take a minute to discuss this thing standing or like,
Speaker 1: just get book time on my calendar, make have a meeting, No,
Speaker 1: we have to, We're so busy. You gotta like do
Speaker 1: a walk and talk. I love a walk and talk. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I remember when Facebook, so I was I was in
Speaker 1: college when Facebook became big. I remember when I started
Speaker 1: college before Facebook was invented, and I graduated when Facebook
Speaker 1: was a thing. I was a scene kid, an alt kid,
Speaker 1: so I was like a MySpace girl, a live journal girl,
Speaker 1: like if you were alt, those were your platforms when
Speaker 1: Facebook came. I remember the girl in the dorm next
Speaker 1: to me. She claimed to have been the reason why
Speaker 1: Facebook came to our college, because I think you had
Speaker 1: to like advocate for you at this time, after all
Speaker 1: the exclusive ivy's got Facebook, you had to advocate for
Speaker 1: your big public university to get it, like to have
Speaker 1: for Facebook to Dane to be there. And this girl
Speaker 1: who lived next to me was like, I'm the reason
Speaker 1: why Facebook came to East Carolina University. I remember thinking
Speaker 1: it was kind of passe and that my Space was
Speaker 1: where all the cool kids were because you could put
Speaker 1: music on your MySpace profile, like you could like customize
Speaker 1: your MySpace profile. And it's so funny how obviously MySpace
Speaker 1: did not have staying power. You know, my Space, Tom
Speaker 1: is not the like it's not meeting in the Trump
Speaker 1: White House and like disrupting our democracy. Not to say
Speaker 1: that my Space was all good, because it wasn't, but
Speaker 1: it's just funny how if I had to guess which
Speaker 1: one of these platforms would go on to entrench itself
Speaker 1: in power, it would not have been Facebook.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, I had to look up because now that
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, there was a there was a I
Speaker 3: guess a tier in how Facebook would allow who which universities.
Speaker 3: I had to look up my school. It was fairly
Speaker 3: late two thousand and four, two thousand and five. Wow,
Speaker 3: we were pretty early on and we were not IVY League.
Speaker 6: Because I had to look Uga. It was Uga, So.
Speaker 1: It's a really good school.
Speaker 6: It was a good school, but we're not IVY League.
Speaker 6: Come on, you like, come on. But like I was like,
Speaker 6: because I remember me, I think I started.
Speaker 3: I think I began my account in two thousand and five,
Speaker 3: two thousand.
Speaker 1: And six, Okay, I think my school was in the
Speaker 1: same I just looked it up and it said East
Speaker 1: Carolina University, where I'm to college, A much worse school
Speaker 1: than UGA. I mind, you got Facebook around two thousand
Speaker 1: and four, two thousand and six, so I would have
Speaker 1: been Yeah, that would have been like around junior and
Speaker 1: a senior year for me. That sounds right.
Speaker 2: I feel like I Facebook came out. I was never
Speaker 2: on MySpace. I wasn't on anything like that, so I
Speaker 2: just didn't join it, and my friends kind of got
Speaker 2: on it. And then in twenty ten, two thousand and nine. Oh,
Speaker 2: it had to have been earlier than that two thousand,
Speaker 2: I'd say eight, two thousand and eight. I when I
Speaker 2: went to Australia whenever that was, my friends made me
Speaker 2: sign up for Facebook so we could share pictures together.
Speaker 2: And I have to say that's pretty much what it's
Speaker 2: remained as this since then. It's just where I put
Speaker 2: some pictures sometimes.
Speaker 5: Now it's pretty much dead.
Speaker 2: That is another thing, And this is kind of a
Speaker 2: transition into one of the next things I want to
Speaker 2: talk about is it was fascinating watching this movie because
Speaker 2: now they have this whole conversation about how Facebook is
Speaker 2: so cool, we can't make money because it's so cool.
Speaker 5: That would ruin the vibe. Uh, And now it's like
Speaker 5: pretty uncool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it was, you know, tin, it was still
Speaker 2: pretty cool. But I wanted to talk about some of
Speaker 2: the the takeaways watching it now versus when like Bridget
Speaker 2: and I saw it.
Speaker 5: I saw when it first came out.
Speaker 1: Oh same, I was hyped for it, talked to the
Speaker 1: trailer remember the choral version of Rehabit its creep y'all
Speaker 1: know if if y'all weren't there, y'all don't remember. I
Speaker 1: was hyped for this movie. It was I was so
Speaker 1: that the trailer was so arresting. I must have watched
Speaker 1: the ex trailer half a dozen times. The tagline you
Speaker 1: don't get to five hundred million friends without making a
Speaker 1: few enemies. Like Annie and I were on the same
Speaker 1: the same way on this one.
Speaker 2: I would have never thought I would be at the
Speaker 2: theater to see it because I wasn't like big into
Speaker 2: Facebook or anything.
Speaker 5: But I saw that trailer and I was like that music,
Speaker 5: I gotta go.
Speaker 2: Which we are going to talk about the music later
Speaker 2: because the music is amazing, but yes, I just wanted
Speaker 2: to discuss and you know, Samantha. As a first time
Speaker 2: view it might be interesting, you might have some different thoughts.
Speaker 2: But it was weird watching it now, especially because we've discussed.
Speaker 5: And in several episodes. But the one that comes to
Speaker 5: mind that I didn't.
Speaker 2: Know about people show up that I wasn't expecting to
Speaker 2: show up.
Speaker 5: So Larry Summers.
Speaker 2: You talked about how Larry Summers. It's in the Epstein
Speaker 2: files he's a character in this movie. I forgot about
Speaker 2: Peter Cheele. I have to say I remember this movie
Speaker 2: pretty well. Maybe I just didn't know his.
Speaker 5: Name, but I was shocked with that.
Speaker 1: Name with tra fellow Epstein butt friend, it's like funny,
Speaker 1: like two different deep deep collect operators of Jeffrey Epstein
Speaker 1: in the same movie. You're portrayed in the same movie.
Speaker 1: Larry Summers, former president of Harvard and Peter Thiel. I
Speaker 1: do think so. I just recorded an episode of my
Speaker 1: podcast or artiicles on the Internet about Peter Thiel and
Speaker 1: his connection step Steene, and like it's just a good
Speaker 1: reminder how much of the infrastructure of technology and the
Speaker 1: Internet Peter Tiel has been has had his hooks in
Speaker 1: and hands in, you know, whenever you hear about something
Speaker 1: involving like extremist influencers or just just know that like
Speaker 1: Peter Tiel's got his grubby little hands in there somewhere.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was kind of interesting to see in this
Speaker 3: perspective of like we don't want advertising, we don't want
Speaker 3: to be that and cool, but we will take a
Speaker 3: big investment from a really giant corporation.
Speaker 6: That's okay.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I feel like that's one and the same
Speaker 3: and this is a weird compromise except for the fact
Speaker 3: that they was thought up by who.
Speaker 6: I guess.
Speaker 3: I'm assuming this was true, that Zuckerberg really did love
Speaker 3: Sean Parker that much.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, was that true?
Speaker 1: Okay? So I can I make a quick diversions. I
Speaker 1: just love that scene so much, The scene where Sean Parker,
Speaker 1: portrayed by Justin Timberlake, takes Zuckerberg and Eduardo out to
Speaker 1: dinner to talk about Facebook. The way that Zuckerberg just
Speaker 1: instantly is in love with Sean Parker and everything Sean
Speaker 1: Parker represents so quickly, and Wardo basically watches his friend
Speaker 1: just like become enamored with this man. It's almost sexual.
Speaker 1: There's a scene. There's a scene where Sean Parker has
Speaker 1: suggested to Zuckerberg to move his operations to California. Uh,
Speaker 1: and a ditch ed Wardo. Zuckerberg does that. In the
Speaker 1: scene where Parker is told this information, they share such
Speaker 1: a meaningful, charged glance it almost it almost seems sexual
Speaker 1: to me. I guess I'll just put it. I'm curious
Speaker 1: what you all thought.
Speaker 2: Okay, fan fiction note of the episode, I have to
Speaker 2: put it in here.
Speaker 5: I wasn't even looking for this. I was not looking
Speaker 5: for this.
Speaker 2: But apparently it's a pretty big ship to ship Eduardo
Speaker 2: and Mark from the movie.
Speaker 1: There's social networking, there's social network fan fiction.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, there's fan fiction for anything you can imagine.
Speaker 2: But it came up, and I was researching something completely
Speaker 2: different and it came up, and I was like, this
Speaker 2: must be a pretty significant ship for it to be
Speaker 2: mentioned in this random article. But I bet I didn't
Speaker 2: see anything about Sean Parker and Mark Zuckerberg shipping.
Speaker 5: But I bet he's like.
Speaker 2: The one that kind of ruins their relationship and then
Speaker 2: they have to get back together.
Speaker 5: Like maybe he's the.
Speaker 2: One that Mark is like a flame so attracted to
Speaker 2: that has to Yeah, I didn't realize this terrible you
Speaker 2: make it a scenario, right, Yeah, And as we see.
Speaker 5: Here, I've read this story with different characters. I can
Speaker 5: see what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I can see it too. No, I totally see it.
Speaker 1: And I remember when Trump was reelected there was this
Speaker 1: like micro moment where people talked about like Mark Zuckerberg
Speaker 1: having a quote like mask off moment, and I think
Speaker 1: the I think the social network pushes back on that
Speaker 1: framing because I think Mark Zuckerberg is not wearing a mask.
Speaker 1: He is the mask. I think that we see it
Speaker 1: in that scene with Sean Parker, how quickly he just
Speaker 1: becomes enamored. I think that, like people were like, wow,
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg really just fell in line with Trump. I don't
Speaker 1: think that's I think that Zuckerberg, when when somebody with
Speaker 1: power is standing in front of him, I think that
Speaker 1: he just falls in line. I think he's completely spineless,
Speaker 1: has no internal morals or values or drive of his own.
Speaker 1: He is entirely dictated by people around him. I think
Speaker 1: that's what Eduardo is seeing about his friend in like
Speaker 1: clearly in that scene with Sean Parker. I think we
Speaker 1: see it in how Zuckerberg falls in line with people
Speaker 1: with power today in twenty twenty six as well.
Speaker 3: It is interesting because you note that he is found.
Speaker 3: He finds everyone in his age range in Harvard in
Speaker 3: that area to be inferior to him, even though they
Speaker 3: are out doing him in ways, and that makes him
Speaker 3: even angrier, like Eduardo being more of money and getting
Speaker 3: invited into these final clubs when he is not seeing
Speaker 3: the Winkelvoss Twins, who have come out to be Oh no,
Speaker 3: the rowing people that he feared, because his girlfriend actually
Speaker 3: mentioned want to be with a rower. Like that was
Speaker 3: that catalyst of like, oh, let me screw these people
Speaker 3: over to show her these people are not better than me,
Speaker 3: like these this level. But then the one person who
Speaker 3: is super cool and against the systems, supposedly it compliments him.
Speaker 3: That's all he had to have in order to like
Speaker 3: crumble and be like, yes, let me follow your lead,
Speaker 3: because like he, like Parker, knew how to manipulate. Yeah,
Speaker 3: those desperate for that type of attention exactly, and.
Speaker 1: Like we see the way that Zuckerberg is so easily
Speaker 1: manipulated along the lines of his own insecurities. And in
Speaker 1: that scene I was describing earlier where Zuckerberg is like, oh,
Speaker 1: I only made face Smash to, you know, appeal to
Speaker 1: the trolls online, and Sean Parker is that no, like
Speaker 1: I thought face Smash was good. Barker tells him, you know,
Speaker 1: when I started Napster, I like the grown up us
Speaker 1: in the room wanted to take it away from me
Speaker 1: because I was one of those trolls. Like ik, he's
Speaker 1: using language that is like we our like those are
Speaker 1: our people, and now this is our time to rule.
Speaker 1: So I think you're exactly right, Samantha. That's such a
Speaker 1: perceptive point that, like the whole thing is about inverting
Speaker 1: who has power. Let's take then, let's wrote these like rich,
Speaker 1: not that Zuckerberg wasn't rich, but these like jock guys
Speaker 1: who get everything. Let's invert everything so that they don't
Speaker 1: have power, and we do. This is our time. The
Speaker 1: grown ups aren't running it, the jocks aren't running it. It
Speaker 1: is people like you and me, and that's who's running it.
Speaker 1: That's what we're building a system around. And that system
Speaker 1: is built on misogyny and personal animis and insecurities.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yes, And it reminds me of your current political climate.
Speaker 2: It's obvious how much is run by personal vendettas. It's
Speaker 2: not even being hidden of these men being like, you
Speaker 2: know what, you wronged me once, in my opinion, and
Speaker 2: I am going to remember this and punish you forever.
Speaker 2: One of the things I do love about the ending, though,
Speaker 2: is you know, even then, he's never.
Speaker 5: Gonna be happy. He's never gonna be happy. But something
Speaker 5: else that.
Speaker 2: I my mind caught on watching this, rewatching this now
Speaker 2: is the line moves fast and break things. And that
Speaker 2: reminds me of the conversation we're having about AI, because
Speaker 2: I was watching some interviews with the people who are
Speaker 2: behind those companies and they were saying like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: it's happening now, even though it's not ready, so we're
Speaker 2: just gonna put it out right now, and whatever the damages,
Speaker 2: we don't really care. So seeing that, and the music,
Speaker 2: which I cannot stress enough I love it is by
Speaker 2: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross from nine Ish Nails and
Speaker 2: it's like so droning and full of dread, but it
Speaker 2: also has like these melancholy, melancholy notes and it feels
Speaker 2: like what's coming. The music to me feels like this
Speaker 2: is happening, This is inevitable, whatever this is. And so
Speaker 2: I have this quote from IndieWire that I love. The
Speaker 2: Social Network is both a thrilling, queasy exploration of how
Speaker 2: Facebook came to be and a searing indictment of what
Speaker 2: it would inevitably become. Yeah, yeah, that is so true.
Speaker 2: And you know, remember this movie came out in twenty ten.
Speaker 2: In the twenty tens, we were still seeved in a
Speaker 2: certain kind of techno optimism, right, like we still had
Speaker 2: this idea, like I think that Google their motto was
Speaker 2: still don't be Evil, a model they would later officially drop.
Speaker 2: I guess their motto is like a little evils okay
Speaker 2: as a treat but you know, I.
Speaker 1: Think that this treaty you can have a little you know.
Speaker 1: This movie, I think, really just cut through and gave
Speaker 1: us a different peak at what ultimately would be the future.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of a lot of media about
Speaker 1: technology and the climate around it was very positive at
Speaker 1: this time. I think this movie came in it was like, actually,
Speaker 1: the reality is gonna be something a little like that
Speaker 1: sounds like a melancholy Resnor score. It's not gonna be
Speaker 1: that positive. Actually, Yeah.
Speaker 2: And one of the things you said that also stuck
Speaker 2: out to me and I found interesting reading reviews about
Speaker 2: this movie from twenty ten was that there is this
Speaker 2: idea of you know, we're the ones in power now,
Speaker 2: we're the ones making decisions, were the ones deciding who
Speaker 2: comes into the club, what have you? And there is
Speaker 2: a very kind of like nerd versus athlete vibe. And
Speaker 2: I love Erica's line where she says, You're going to
Speaker 2: go your whole life thinking people hate you because you're
Speaker 2: a nerd, but it's actually because you're.
Speaker 1: Not all time iconic C line.
Speaker 2: I have to say she handled that fantastically, that whole
Speaker 2: breakup scene.
Speaker 1: She says the kind of thing that you wish you
Speaker 1: could say in your head, and she actually says it
Speaker 1: that that's a line that would haunt me until I
Speaker 1: would be thinking about this somebody laid some like that
Speaker 1: on me. I'd be thinking about it on my deathbed.
Speaker 5: Yes, absolutely, oh so good.
Speaker 2: But what one of the things that stuck out to
Speaker 2: me of watching this now, And there's a quote I
Speaker 2: can never find it. I believe it was a John
Speaker 2: Oliver stand up bit, but he was basically saying, like, nerds,
Speaker 2: stop being so angry.
Speaker 5: You inherited the earth.
Speaker 2: You're like, I, I don't know why you're still having
Speaker 2: all of this rage when you're the ones that are
Speaker 2: controlling so many spaces and making so much money. So
Speaker 2: that was kind of interesting to watch because a lot
Speaker 2: of the reviews at the time were saying that this
Speaker 2: movie was very anti nerd, and I didn't get that
Speaker 2: take at all. I thought it was, if anything, sympathetic
Speaker 2: to Mark Zuckerberg, like not too sympathetic, but more sympathetic
Speaker 2: than you would think.
Speaker 5: I didn't think it was anti nerd.
Speaker 2: I thought it was like, look at this poor guy,
Speaker 2: can't get any friends.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean Sean Parker is like the nerd king
Speaker 1: in this movie who sleeps with Victoria's secret models, always
Speaker 1: has drugs, always has young probably kutn't it close young
Speaker 1: women around. That's actually based in some rumor that is
Speaker 1: not fictionalized. I cannot confirm or deny, but you could
Speaker 1: do your own research there. But then in the end,
Speaker 1: he also is somebody who cowers when Eduardo like goes
Speaker 1: to punch him. He somebody who has lots of allergies
Speaker 1: and asthma, like the movie, I don't. I think the
Speaker 1: movie is trying to show a more complex portrait. I
Speaker 1: do agree with you that it's that it's sim that
Speaker 1: it's a more sympathetic, complex portrait than just like the
Speaker 1: nerds are bad, the Nerds aren't winning, the nerds are rich,
Speaker 1: the nerds control everything. The nerds are building their tech infrastructure,
Speaker 1: Nerds and all the power, and they're also pathetic. Like,
Speaker 1: I think that's what it's trying to say.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I agree, I think the I guess it's
Speaker 2: the lawyer at the end, I feel is the most sympatheticic.
Speaker 2: Otherwise I wouldn't noticed it at all. But when she's like,
Speaker 2: you're not an apple. You're trying so hard to be
Speaker 2: a same But maybe he is. Maybe he feels like
Speaker 2: he has to be.
Speaker 1: And you know, you put something in the outline that
Speaker 1: I hadn't thought about before. How in the movie the
Speaker 1: only person who is trying to get in the way
Speaker 1: of this meteoric gross at all costs is Eduardo Zuckerberg's
Speaker 1: good friend. And I do think it, Like I just
Speaker 1: I know how we treat people who are moderating voices,
Speaker 1: people who are like, let's pump the brakes, let's do
Speaker 1: more research. Here's research that I did showing that this
Speaker 1: thing is harmful. How tech spaces deeply marginalize and silence
Speaker 1: at best those people. At worst they do like that's
Speaker 1: the best. Typically, the best case scenario is those those
Speaker 1: voices are silence, are marginalized. And I think we see
Speaker 1: it in Eduardo. I think we see the voices who
Speaker 1: have anything other than move fast, break things, balls to
Speaker 1: the wall, do what needs to be done when all costs,
Speaker 1: Like anybody who might present any kind of challenge to
Speaker 1: that Ethos is quickly labeled as as a hostile enemy.
Speaker 2: Yes, and it reminds me of a lot of the
Speaker 2: conversations we've had about guardrails with Ai and Eduardo kept
Speaker 2: being like, you know, maybe.
Speaker 5: Is this legal.
Speaker 2: We've got to see some desist letter, Like maybe just
Speaker 2: having all these concerns and being completely dismissed, which I
Speaker 2: have to say, in the movie, at least Zuckerberg does
Speaker 2: not listen to anyone but Sean Parker, I suppose.
Speaker 5: But he just doesn't listen. He's just like on his
Speaker 5: own wavelength.
Speaker 2: But it did reminded me of how we've seen that
Speaker 2: in tech time and time again. Let's just don't worry
Speaker 2: about that. We don't need to care about that not listening.
Speaker 1: Like I just supported recently on the scores of global
Speaker 1: women's groups and advocates begging Mark Zuckerberg and Meta not
Speaker 1: to put facial recognition techology in metaglasses, basically saying we
Speaker 1: already know from all this reporting about how metaglasses are
Speaker 1: already right now being used to harass a rail and
Speaker 1: stock women. Right, that's going that's on, that's happening now.
Speaker 1: If you add facial recognition technology. You are going to
Speaker 1: supercharge this, this is going to be you are going
Speaker 1: to be making it so much more dangerous. And like,
Speaker 1: first of all, obviously like I don't even I don't
Speaker 1: even think that you would need to be a researcher
Speaker 1: to show that, but just the way that, like I've
Speaker 1: seen this movie before, they're they're gonna do it, and
Speaker 1: then they're gonna be like, Oopsie, we didn't know, like
Speaker 1: we need to like and it's like, no, you did know,
Speaker 1: you just didn't listen. You did know. You just decided
Speaker 1: to do it anyway because you saw a way to
Speaker 1: make more money and get more power. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: think I think we're just seeing the same dynamic with
Speaker 1: Eduardo and Guardrails in the way that Meta moves today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that relates to something else that stuck out
Speaker 2: to me in this movie is when Sean Parker says
Speaker 2: privacy is a time gone by, which felt so strange
Speaker 2: because that was in twenty ten.
Speaker 5: That was such.
Speaker 2: A different time when it came to that, when it
Speaker 2: comes to privacy and now here because he's saying it
Speaker 2: more in the sense of he was very paranoid. People
Speaker 2: are following him, you know.
Speaker 5: Somebody planted the cocaine. It wasn't mine.
Speaker 1: How the cocin in there?
Speaker 5: Do you think it was Eduardo.
Speaker 1: Or maybe it was Zuckerberg, I don't know. At the end,
Speaker 1: they make a very compelling case.
Speaker 2: Yes, I agree, But you know that idea of Zuckerberg
Speaker 2: hearing this person he idolized, having this, you know, privacy
Speaker 2: as the time gone by, they're going to be trying
Speaker 2: to destroy you, trying to find anything to destroy you,
Speaker 2: and then him having this company that just erodes all
Speaker 2: of those privacy protections for everybody.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it erodes privacy pet and figures out a way
Speaker 1: to turn people's data into a commodity that they benefit
Speaker 1: from and profit from. Like the scene early on when
Speaker 1: somebody comes up to Zuckerberg and he's like, do you
Speaker 1: know if so and so from your such and such
Speaker 1: class has a boyfriend? And he's like, it's not like
Speaker 1: people wear a sign around their neck that says single
Speaker 1: or married or taken or interested. And he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, I should invent that, and then I
Speaker 1: would profit from it. Like privacy. I agree with John
Speaker 1: Parker's assessment, like privacy is dead and people like Mark
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg and John Parker have figured out a way to
Speaker 1: cash in from the intimate parts of people's of who
Speaker 1: people are, like it's dead because they broke it to
Speaker 1: make money off of it.
Speaker 3: I did find it interesting because they try to portray
Speaker 3: Sean Parker as if he was just completely paranoid about
Speaker 3: these are the.
Speaker 6: Things that are happening.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, actually, now that I'll look at it,
Speaker 3: if I'd watched it then I would have thought he
Speaker 3: was paranoid. Watching it today, I was like, no, it
Speaker 3: was probably true.
Speaker 6: Part of that was probably true. They probably really were
Speaker 6: watching you, to be honest.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think he was beating I mean cocaine
Speaker 1: does make you paranoid.
Speaker 6: I think he wrong.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think he's I don't think what's the Xiles quote? Like,
Speaker 1: it's not paranoia if they actually are out to get
Speaker 1: you with that.
Speaker 3: It like looking back knowing where we are today, without
Speaker 3: like twenty ten, I would have not guessed this is
Speaker 3: where we would be, like this is a sixteen years
Speaker 3: down the road of like, wow, this is progressed in
Speaker 3: such a way, and looking up Sean Parker because I
Speaker 3: was like, what's he up to today? Turns out he's
Speaker 3: an AI Yeah, Like, I'm like, he really jumped into everything.
Speaker 3: He jumped into Spotify, he jumped into all these things
Speaker 3: knowing that Yeah, like he knew things were coming and
Speaker 3: he understood the groundwork. But seeing all of this from
Speaker 3: that perspective to this and then also linking to them,
Speaker 3: like were they all on the Epstein list? Yes, because
Speaker 3: that group knew who these kids were going to be
Speaker 3: at that time and who was going to be able
Speaker 3: to control what. On top of when they had that
Speaker 3: conversation about Victoria's Secret, I thought that was a really
Speaker 3: interesting tidbit, not only because like they were marketing off
Speaker 3: of like the bodies of women, but because this corporation
Speaker 3: took something and made it be like not a big
Speaker 3: deal into something giant that grew into this network that
Speaker 3: became really insidious behind the scenes, and they're all linked together.
Speaker 6: It's such an like mind blowing moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, seeing that, say the past, speaking of Victoria's Secret,
Speaker 1: the person who was briefly mentioned at that scene when
Speaker 1: Parker is talking about Victoria's Secret, Lex Wexner. Guests who
Speaker 1: le Lex Wexner gave a significant portion of his operations
Speaker 1: to run Jeffrey Epstein, including limited to a tween girls store.
Speaker 1: So when you talk about the ways in which these
Speaker 1: guys really did design what it meant to like this
Speaker 1: like what what my girlhood felt like looked like what
Speaker 1: I existed in. That's I mean, like, I mean, I
Speaker 1: cannot overstate the level to which exactly as you said,
Speaker 1: it is a connected network, like you know, your Teal's
Speaker 1: funding it, Jeffrey Emstein's funding it. Plus it's like it's
Speaker 1: like they're all connected. And you know when people say
Speaker 1: things like oh, we need to like you know, like
Speaker 1: all of this toxic stuff is baked in. This is
Speaker 1: what we mean. In my opinion, there is no reforming this.
Speaker 1: We need to the only way, like we got to
Speaker 1: tear this system down because all of these things are
Speaker 1: built in by intention from the very beginnings. When I
Speaker 1: say that, I feel like sometimes it sounds like, you know,
Speaker 1: just a grand stand, but this is what I mean.
Speaker 1: I mean it very literally, like.
Speaker 3: When you look at the names that are being dropped
Speaker 3: and you look at the circles that they are in,
Speaker 3: how they brought people in, who invested what to create
Speaker 3: this thing. Literally they have Victoria's Secrets, where they have
Speaker 3: the models, where these models are kind of filtered out
Speaker 3: to these young people who were like I've always dreamed
Speaker 3: of dating a model like it came like came into
Speaker 3: a network of like what is happening On top of
Speaker 3: the fact of creating young girls mindsets with these companies
Speaker 3: like Little Limited To, Abricom, Briam Fitch and Victoria's Secret,
Speaker 3: we were very heavily influenced by what this was femininity
Speaker 3: and this was also being a successful woman is to
Speaker 3: be in these types of clothing, to look like these
Speaker 3: types of people. That was created by groups that also
Speaker 3: funded this and are who are now in charge exactly.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Another thing that we've been meaning to talk about this
Speaker 2: in an episode for a while.
Speaker 5: I don't think it's news to anybody, but is the
Speaker 5: kind of.
Speaker 2: You know, the male super genius who is an that
Speaker 2: you have to let him be in it because he's
Speaker 2: a super genius, but.
Speaker 10: Not always like a lot of times, there's a lot
Speaker 10: of mythos of that, and even even if there isn't,
Speaker 10: I just don't think we should allow assholeary.
Speaker 2: Against like people you work with, people who work for you,
Speaker 2: just because you are a genius.
Speaker 1: This is one of my biggest pet peeves in media.
Speaker 1: How often you have normalized the idea that if somebody
Speaker 1: is good at something, they get to treat others like crap,
Speaker 1: and that, oh, well, treating people like crap is actually
Speaker 1: why this cool thing happened. No, you can make good
Speaker 1: stuff without you don't have to be an asshole. And
Speaker 1: I and it's also very gender, because the research is
Speaker 1: very clear that we're much more likely to tell men
Speaker 1: that they are geniuses and then women. And so it's
Speaker 1: like who gets to who gets to like who gets
Speaker 1: the runway to treat people like crap? And then it's
Speaker 1: just fine if the thing they're making is important, or
Speaker 1: it makes a lot of money, or it's a really
Speaker 1: good movie or really good show. You know, I agree
Speaker 1: with you, Annie. I think that we've had so much
Speaker 1: media portraying, you know, these delicate male geniuses as people
Speaker 1: who shouldn't be allowed to do whatever they want if
Speaker 1: it means that they build things that are good. I
Speaker 1: don't agree. I think I think that's a I think
Speaker 1: that's like that that sentiment has done a world of
Speaker 1: bad even if perhaps it is like also maybe like
Speaker 1: lent itself to like a really good movie or something
Speaker 1: or a really cool platform.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and also a lot of these uh tech companies
Speaker 2: don't actually make money ever, haven't made money yet.
Speaker 1: So but we're like, oh, yeah, no, he's a genius.
Speaker 2: He knows and I'm like, does he I don't know,
Speaker 2: we should be giving him that.
Speaker 5: Like blank blank check.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 9: Oh.
Speaker 2: One of the other things I just briefly wanted to
Speaker 2: touch on is does succeeding in a capitalist economy at
Speaker 2: this level necessarily involved back saving your friends or using
Speaker 2: people only for what they offer you. Because I feel
Speaker 2: like Zuckerberg in this movie is very much I can
Speaker 2: use you for this and then I'm going to drop you.
Speaker 2: I can use you for this, and then I'm going
Speaker 2: to drop you. And he has this whole he wants
Speaker 2: to be cool, he wants Facebook to be cool and
Speaker 2: exclusivity vibe.
Speaker 5: But I don't know.
Speaker 2: There was just something about how I saw that in
Speaker 2: all of his relationships, whatever they might be of you
Speaker 2: know what, I'm going to get what I need out
Speaker 2: of you, and then I'm going to drop you because
Speaker 2: Facebook is my life and that's it.
Speaker 1: He certainly did it to Cheryl Sandberg in my opinion.
Speaker 1: You know, Cheryl Samberg came on as the first ever
Speaker 1: coo at Facebook. She came on at a time when
Speaker 1: there was a lot of bad press, a lot of
Speaker 1: bad behavior, a lot of wrongdoing, and the sense was, oh,
Speaker 1: we were bringing in a woman to sort of be
Speaker 1: the adult in the room for Mark, and Mark got
Speaker 1: a lot of cachet out of that of like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: don't worry about my erratic decision making and erratic behavior
Speaker 1: and like bad business practices. There's a woman around who
Speaker 1: is supposed to be helping. When when Caryl so like
Speaker 1: she came to Facebook with like so much fanfare, she
Speaker 1: wrote lean In it was like the book that was
Speaker 1: supposed to be the defining book of like what it
Speaker 1: meant for women in the workplace, YadA, YadA, YadA. Cut
Speaker 1: to her leaving Facebook with hardly even a peep. There
Speaker 1: was like very little fanfare. And then in the earlier
Speaker 1: in the early days of a second Trump administration, Zuckerberg
Speaker 1: completely threw her under the bus. He met with the
Speaker 1: Trump administration and said, oh, yeah, all of that content
Speaker 1: moderation and fact checking and diversity stuff, I wasn't into
Speaker 1: any of it. All of that stuff was Cheryl Sandberg,
Speaker 1: you know how women are. And there was a little
Speaker 1: bit of like her dark arts where she were like
Speaker 1: he made a Facebook post about like, no, actually we
Speaker 1: respect Cheryl Sandberg didn't walk back any of the things
Speaker 1: that he said about all that stuff being quote her fault.
Speaker 1: But it just goes to sho like he is somebody
Speaker 1: who will when he needed to signal to people that
Speaker 1: the company had a woman in charge who was a
Speaker 1: grown up who was moderating him. Cheryl Sandberg was his
Speaker 1: ride or die. When the tide turned and Trump wanted,
Speaker 1: you know, there to be less diversity, less inclusivity, less guardrails,
Speaker 1: he threw her under the bus so quickly. And so
Speaker 1: I think if you asked Mark Zuckerberg that you should
Speaker 1: be using people only for what they offer you, and
Speaker 1: people who are in his orbit should understand that that
Speaker 1: runway is very short. That is that what I believe
Speaker 1: I think that you I if he wants to be cool.
Speaker 1: I don't think ditching your friends is cool. But I
Speaker 1: also do think like I'm not even really sure how
Speaker 1: to describe this, but like we are in a time
Speaker 1: today where acting like this has been rebranded as cool.
Speaker 1: When I was coming up, the cool kids step by
Speaker 1: their friends. The cool kids had values, they had morals,
Speaker 1: they had backbones. I think today what we've repackaged as
Speaker 1: cool and sold it to a generation of young men
Speaker 1: and boys is you are a lone wolf. You are
Speaker 1: in alpha, money over everything, your success over everything. You
Speaker 1: are not part of a community. You don't even need
Speaker 1: to think about stuff like that. The only thing that
Speaker 1: matters is cash and power, and so like, I guess
Speaker 1: I hate to say it, but I feel like Mark
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg was kind of on the upswing of this wave
Speaker 1: of that new sentiment that I do think is very
Speaker 1: is very an commonplace today. I guess. Does that make sense, Yes,
Speaker 1: I completely agree.
Speaker 2: One of the things I was thinking about when I
Speaker 2: was rewatching this was, I think the first because you can,
Speaker 2: you can like join Facebook and not know who Zuckerberg is,
Speaker 2: especially in the early days, so I didn't know who
Speaker 2: he was. But I think the first time I heard
Speaker 2: about him was some news piece about how he I
Speaker 2: don't know, or sandals at a meeting and like war
Speaker 2: t shirts, and it was like, Oh, he's changing the game,
Speaker 2: and like it was such a look at him.
Speaker 5: He's a maverick, and that has stuck. I was thinking
Speaker 5: about how.
Speaker 2: You know, in Silicon Valley now it is kind of
Speaker 2: the the office has got a slide, and like it's
Speaker 2: a very the impact he had. I think of that
Speaker 2: mentality of that kind of I'm an I'm a lone wolf,
Speaker 2: I'm an alpha. I think has had a really lasting impact,
Speaker 2: and you can see it reflected in a bunch of
Speaker 2: other companies.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, And I think it's important to note like
Speaker 1: who kind of gets away with that, because I don't
Speaker 1: think if I if I if like a founder that
Speaker 1: looks like me rolled in wearing a bonnet, I think
Speaker 1: they might feel very differently about it. But even look
Speaker 1: at people like Elizabeth Holmes, she very intentionally styled herself
Speaker 1: to look bad like she this is a known thing.
Speaker 1: She intentionally styled her hair to look undone, to signal
Speaker 1: to people like, Oh, I'm the kind of founder that's
Speaker 1: way too busy focused on my business to worry about
Speaker 1: things like brushing my hair or proper hair care. And
Speaker 1: so you see how like this just becomes another piece
Speaker 1: of artifice to build your mythos around. Like that scene
Speaker 1: where Zuckerberg shows up to a hearing in pajamas or something,
Speaker 1: or like sweats. I think it's like it just becomes they're, they're,
Speaker 1: they're they're like, oh this is my I'm miss being
Speaker 1: my authentic self, but not really, You're actually using this
Speaker 1: as a kind of artifice or costume to signal something
Speaker 1: to others about you. So like it's not even any
Speaker 1: more authentic than somebody who wears a suit to signal
Speaker 1: that they're a professional. You know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because this whole thing was like I'm breaking through rules.
Speaker 2: I'm not a Mavericks exactly, but you're not really breaking through.
Speaker 5: You are the whole thing now, Well.
Speaker 6: He also had to make sure he had to some.
Speaker 3: The authority in some way and like me, like his
Speaker 3: whole speech about I'm not paying the dangest to you.
Speaker 3: I'm giving you the minimal attention that I have to
Speaker 3: because i'm here. But understand, I don't want to because
Speaker 3: I think you're irrelevant. I think this is irrelevant. As
Speaker 3: well as the way he dressed. This is not this
Speaker 3: is all for show and I'm better than y'all. Like
Speaker 3: this is that continuation of having to prove himself beyond
Speaker 3: his like making sure that he's meeting his worth and
Speaker 3: meeting their worth, and he needs them to know where
Speaker 3: they stand because he's so insecure, like this level of
Speaker 3: understanding of who he is because he has to establish
Speaker 3: himself somehow and this is the only way he can
Speaker 3: have power.
Speaker 1: We still see it today hearings when when Zuckerberg is
Speaker 1: like called before senator or Congress for inquiries and hearings.
Speaker 1: I think that it is that exact personality dynamic where
Speaker 1: I'm better than you, I don't have to answer to you.
Speaker 1: I have seen him try to moderate that because that
Speaker 1: I think that really is who he is. He really
Speaker 1: does think that he's better than everybody, smarter than everybody,
Speaker 1: should not have to Why should he have to answer
Speaker 1: to anybody? Why should he have to answer about people
Speaker 1: that he's harmed, women and girls that he's harmed. Why
Speaker 1: should he Why who are you to be asking him questions?
Speaker 1: You know, you're just a senator. But seen I've seen
Speaker 1: in hearings, in my opinion, him trying to moderate what
Speaker 1: I think is his natural inclination toward disdain for others.
Speaker 6: Yeah, on his side.
Speaker 3: Note there was a random moment of like that popped up.
Speaker 3: As an Asian person, I'm gonna as an Asian woman specifically,
Speaker 3: I want to very much notice this because in my mind,
Speaker 3: I thought Brenda Song, who plays one of the girlfriend
Speaker 3: in the character Edward's girlfriend, I thought she was actually
Speaker 3: the wife that Mark Zuckerberg eventually marries.
Speaker 1: Oh, Sean Zuckerberg.
Speaker 3: Yes, I had no idea who she was because I've
Speaker 3: never seen the movie. I just knew there was an
Speaker 3: Asian woman in there, and I really thought this was
Speaker 3: going to be the revelation of like his wife.
Speaker 6: But then the conversation.
Speaker 3: Came in about how Asian girls who can't dance like
Speaker 3: nerdy Jewish boys, they are like attracted to each other,
Speaker 3: and then all these things that I was like, Oh,
Speaker 3: what is happening, And then knowing later on that Mark
Speaker 3: Zuckerberg does have an Asian wife that I'm like, there's
Speaker 3: something odd in this conversation. I don't know what Sorgan
Speaker 3: was thinking and putting this specific scene and then predicting.
Speaker 6: Like you get married to this Asian woman.
Speaker 3: Who, by the way, is this philanthropist as well as
Speaker 3: a pediatrician.
Speaker 6: Like, what the hell?
Speaker 1: I'm so good he brought this up. And I feel
Speaker 1: like the movie is trying to say something or do
Speaker 1: something as it pertains to Asian women. What are your
Speaker 1: thoughts on hal Asian women are portrayed in this film.
Speaker 3: Well obviously between her being super crazy as he notes
Speaker 3: and she sets fire to his bed essentially h and
Speaker 3: then also that they are so fetishized by a whole community,
Speaker 3: which I had gotten that line from a Jewish dude
Speaker 3: one time that tends that to me. I kind of
Speaker 3: was like, what, I've never heard this? Is this your
Speaker 3: pickup line for me? Because I gotta go like this.
Speaker 3: It was a weird moment. But now that I've seen
Speaker 3: this movie, I'm like, oh, maybe that's where he got
Speaker 3: it from.
Speaker 6: I don't know. But all of that to say is
Speaker 6: like it felt very much like in.
Speaker 3: This realm of worlds like there is first of all,
Speaker 3: women are not respected in any way. There are secondary characters.
Speaker 3: Obviously at the Secretary we saw that with a girlfriends
Speaker 3: with the groupies as they called them, and then with
Speaker 3: a girlfriend like all of these things, and even Anne
Speaker 3: from partson Reck was.
Speaker 1: Her real name, Rashida j.
Speaker 3: Jones, Thank you Rashida Jones, even her placement, even though
Speaker 3: she was a little more significant. They were all their
Speaker 3: secondary characters to fulfill this narrative that the men were
Speaker 3: all in playing for power. That it was interesting, of course,
Speaker 3: like there would be a fetishized person but immediately had
Speaker 3: to be an Asian woman, and I felt like it
Speaker 3: was targeted, but I get like I can't really grasp it,
Speaker 3: but I obviously very much noted it.
Speaker 1: That was my sense to Honestly, as much as I
Speaker 1: love this movie, I think the movie. I think the
Speaker 1: movies handled the thread of race only really like like
Speaker 1: other than Asian women like racist. I mean, race is
Speaker 1: present because they're all like upper across white folks, and
Speaker 1: it's certainly very exclusive to non whites, but the only
Speaker 1: real way that race is handled is through these Asian women.
Speaker 1: And I think it was a little clunky, Like I think,
Speaker 1: I think that like they're going for something and I
Speaker 1: don't think it was fully explored, so just comes off
Speaker 1: this like what are they trying to say here?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: It really was like that very throwaway line, the very
Speaker 3: throw away characters that it was just kind of like
Speaker 3: what is what is Is this supposed to be a
Speaker 3: joke in this movie at the expense of these women?
Speaker 5: Well, I yeah, and I wasn't. I didn't know that
Speaker 5: about Mark Zuckerberg.
Speaker 2: I actually was going to ask about his current relationship
Speaker 2: status to bring up a Facebook term I didn't know.
Speaker 5: It is interesting to me that that was the thing
Speaker 5: that when.
Speaker 2: He heard Justin was the one who asked, you know,
Speaker 2: do you know that if this girl is single? That's
Speaker 2: when Mark had the idea of like, oh, we'll add
Speaker 2: relationship status and that's when it's done. Yeah, because yeah
Speaker 2: it is. I mean, that is a big part of
Speaker 2: college life. But just to go back to that hole,
Speaker 2: this was rooted in misogyny.
Speaker 3: But it's also interesting because they also hit on the
Speaker 3: point that they became descriptors the Facebook me.
Speaker 6: Facebook me called like I'll friend.
Speaker 3: You, Like, yeah, I were so excited about that, and
Speaker 3: then also that whole like why is your as single?
Speaker 3: And that was just a big deal at the beginning
Speaker 3: of Facebook, like to say your Facebook official.
Speaker 6: Yes, it's relevant, it was relevant.
Speaker 1: Did you ever do the thing where you became like,
Speaker 1: I'm like in a relationship with a friend of yours
Speaker 1: or a buddy of yours for some reason, I don't.
Speaker 3: Say, but it's complicated. One, yeah, I'm going to see
Speaker 3: what it would do.
Speaker 1: You did. It's complicated.
Speaker 6: There was no one there. It's complicated. I'm single.
Speaker 5: Hey, that's fair.
Speaker 1: It's actually not complicated. But yeah, but yeah, no, and
Speaker 1: did you do this, Bridget did you do Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: this was like I don't know why, it was like
Speaker 1: you would you would become in like a complicated you
Speaker 1: could because like you can also tag a friend or
Speaker 1: will be like Bridget Todd is in a complicated relationship
Speaker 1: with such and such, like I would do that with
Speaker 1: my friends for some reason. I don't know why. Don't
Speaker 1: even ask me why. But like to your point, I
Speaker 1: do think. I think the movie. One of the undercurrents
Speaker 1: of the film is how just how much of just
Speaker 1: like you were saying, Sam, the how we understand and
Speaker 1: talk about digital relationships and behaviors was started by Facebook.
Speaker 1: Like this is a small a small scene, but it
Speaker 1: really stuck with me. While all the lawsum stuff is
Speaker 1: going on, Zuckerberg is still in school at Harvard and
Speaker 1: he's trying to prep for an art history final, and
Speaker 1: he does it by starting a Facebook group as an
Speaker 1: with an alias, posting pictures and then asking people to comment.
Speaker 1: And he's like, oh yeah, I just pop in every
Speaker 1: now and then and leave an insidiary comment to stir
Speaker 1: the pot, to keep the conversation going. And I feel
Speaker 1: like that really mirrors our current tech landscape where you know,
Speaker 1: insidiary content gets better engagement than other types of content.
Speaker 1: Bots and like conflict entrepreneurs are able to just like
Speaker 1: manipulate people into giving engagement to these platforms and just
Speaker 1: you know, putting money in people's pockets. I'm like, it's
Speaker 1: such a small thing, but that one little seed would
Speaker 1: go goes on to be a significant part of the
Speaker 1: experience of being online today in twenty twenty six, which
Speaker 1: is fascinating to me. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Also, side don't I don't know if your colleges were
Speaker 2: like this, but the one I went to were very
Speaker 2: clear that if you invented anything at the college while
Speaker 2: you were a student, they owned it. So really, yes, absolutely,
Speaker 2: so that makes sense.
Speaker 5: Yeah, people came up.
Speaker 1: The only thing, I mean, the only thing that came
Speaker 1: I mean, I invented some unique ways to smoke weed
Speaker 1: out of devices and some interesting water pipes. East Carolina University.
Speaker 1: Oh no, oh no, I'm interesting. Paraphernalia and other devices
Speaker 1: for debauchery were definitely invented, but they got the rights. No, Bridget.
Speaker 2: I'm curious, just briefly, because I know you have worked
Speaker 2: with Facebook. How is it watching this movie as somebody
Speaker 2: who's kind of worked with them.
Speaker 1: Oh, what a good question. I would say much so,
Speaker 1: like my work with platforms was like meeting with them
Speaker 1: and being like, your platform is harming women in XYZ
Speaker 1: kind of way. There's a better way to do it.
Speaker 1: What do you say some platforms would be more of
Speaker 1: a steptive than others. I would say Facebook was. Actually
Speaker 1: this was before Elon Musk bought Twitter. Now Elon Musk
Speaker 1: or ex Is definitely the world would be the worst.
Speaker 1: But like back then, I would say Facebook was the
Speaker 1: most challenging because all of this stuff is really entrenched.
Speaker 1: Like they would take the meeting, they would like listen
Speaker 1: to the presentation and all of that, but like nothing
Speaker 1: really ever got done, And I guess it was. I
Speaker 1: don't want to sound too cynical, but I do believe that,
Speaker 1: like Facebook is a platform where they're just not They're
Speaker 1: just they just don't think about this kind of stuff
Speaker 1: the same way that you. I don't think that they
Speaker 1: you know, and like when you take taking it back
Speaker 1: to the way the company was founded in the origin,
Speaker 1: it's no surprise that they are so hostile to even
Speaker 1: the implication that their platform should be a place that
Speaker 1: is not hostile to women, Like I think that like,
Speaker 1: it's not. It's just not terribly surprising to take it
Speaker 1: back to the origin and be like, oh, yeah, well
Speaker 1: this is the this is like their bread and butter.
Speaker 1: Why would they want to make a space that's not
Speaker 1: hostile to women?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 2: Right, Well, we could go on and on. I know,
Speaker 2: are there any like final thoughts you wanted to share?
Speaker 1: Bridget Well, I'm really excited about the sequel, Yes, the
Speaker 1: Social Reckoning. I did read this, so I've been calling
Speaker 1: it a sequel, but I read that Sorkin has described
Speaker 1: that as a companion piece rather than a sequel, and
Speaker 1: it's I do feel like the Social Network is the
Speaker 1: seed that was planted. We're like, hey, these guys are
Speaker 1: all massive misogynists, and I'm hopeful that the Social Reckoning
Speaker 1: will be like the flower that blooms because it's really,
Speaker 1: according to Sorkin, it really focuses on Facebook whistle blower
Speaker 1: Francis Hogan, who we know revealed so much about how
Speaker 1: Facebook knowingly harmed women and girls based on the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one Wall Street Journal expose the Facebook files, And
Speaker 1: so if the Social Network is like Zuckerberg really was
Speaker 1: a misogynist to his personal animists and difficulties with women
Speaker 1: led him to build Facebook. I am hoping that this
Speaker 1: movie is like and here's what that meant. Here's what
Speaker 1: that means for your daughter, Here's what that means for
Speaker 1: your the women and girls in your life today.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I when you told us that that was the topic
Speaker 2: they were going to be handling, I was like, Oh,
Speaker 2: that's gonna be intense. You're definitely gonna have to come
Speaker 2: back for that, Bridget when we have our reactions, Oh.
Speaker 1: Yes, go ahead and put it on your calendar. So
Speaker 1: the movie's coming out in October, so I will be back.
Speaker 5: Okay, perfect, perfect, Well, thank you so much.
Speaker 2: This was so much fun. I can't wait to continue
Speaker 2: this series. We'll come up with a good name for it.
Speaker 2: But you know, movies about tech. It's gonna be fun
Speaker 2: because this also was kind of the start of like
Speaker 2: a lot of the shows and movies around Silicon Valley.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So there's a lot for us we could tackle.
Speaker 2: But in the meantime, Bridget, where can the good listeners
Speaker 2: find you?
Speaker 1: You can listen to my podcast. There are no girls
Speaker 1: on the internet. You can find me on Instagram at
Speaker 1: Bridget Marine DC and on Threads also at Bridget Marie
Speaker 1: DC Bank Buckerberg.
Speaker 2: It is always so strange, isn't it when we do
Speaker 2: these episodes and then at the end of yeah.
Speaker 5: You can find me on there.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much, Bridget listeners. If you would
Speaker 2: like to contact us, you can. You can email us
Speaker 2: at Hello at stuff I Neever Told You dot com.
Speaker 2: You can find us on blue Sky at mom Stuff podcast,
Speaker 2: or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff I Never Told
Speaker 2: You for us on YouTube, we have some Merchandisicom Bureau,
Speaker 2: and we have a book you can get wherever you
Speaker 2: get your books. Thanks as always for help this week
Speaker 2: from Casey and to our executive producer Maya, and thanks
Speaker 2: to you for listening self. And Never Told You is
Speaker 2: production by Your Heart Radio. For more podcasts from My
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