History Film / TheSocialNetwork

*** As noted under RashomonStyle, this example may be justified considering Eduardo (who knows little about computers) is recounting the story.

* ArtisticLicenseLinguistics: The French literature major who sleeps with Sean Parker speaks grammatically correct French, but her pronunciation is preeeeetty rocky ([[JustifiedTrope which may be simply indicative of her inexperience, considering she's an undergrad]]).

* InternetJerk: Mark, absolutely. While obnoxious enough in person, he becomes even worse behind a computer screen, as his drunken blog rant on Erica towards the start of the film show.
** When Mark approaches Erica later in the film to try and apologize, she uses the aforementioned rant to further accuse Mark of being this.
---> '''Erica:''' You write your snide bullshit in a dark room because that's what the ''angry'' do nowadays.

** The first scene ends with a woman accusing Mark of being an asshole. The movie ends with a woman reassuring Mark he isn't an asshole, but he's trying hard to be one.

*** As to Mark assuring Erica that he'd introduce her to a better class of people, contrast their companies the next time they see each other: she's sipping wine and enjoying dinner and conversation with polite and intelligent-looking people, and he's just gotten a semi-anonymous blowjob in the men's room.

** When the Winklevoss twins go to Larry Summers, the President of Harvard, to try to get him to do something about Mark plagiarizing their social media website idea, Summers parries every single thing they say, finds out that this whole meeting was arranged through [[{{Nepotism}} family connections]], and ends by telling them that this meeting shouldn't be happening in the first place and that if they want to talk stolen projects, they should take it to the courts (indeed, two court cases against Zuckerberg, one laid down by the Winklevii, make up the FramingDevice of the film).

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Erica officially cuts her ties with Mark with a devastating one (see top page quote).

* IJustWantToBeSpecial: At the start of the film, in his third line of dialogue, Mark Zuckerberg announces his motive: doing something noteworthy in a school full of thousands of incredibly smart people. Come the end, the film is hardly subtle in demonstrating the irony of a man (or man-boy) creating a revolutionary tool for connecting friends and [[spoiler:in the process driving away his own]].
** Fittingly, the film's official trailer utilized a cover of Music/{{Radiohead}}'s "Creep", one of the most famous musical examples of this trope.

* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: Possibly being made a VillainProtagonist, Mark Zuckerberg is portrayed in the movie as obnoxious, condescending and ridiculously arrogant. In reality, Mark was said to be quite the opposite, often regarded as "shy" and "relatively modest" despite the handful of claims of him occasionally holding a JerkassBall ("facemash.com" comes to mind).

** Zuckerberg's real diary was not on Website/LiveJournal, but is depicted there in the film. ([[http://twitter.com/bradfitz/status/26518065945 Brad was amused.]]) [=LiveJournal=] is depicted with a derivative of the Xcolibur site scheme, which [[http://news.livejournal.com/65335.html did exist in 2003]], although the default was still Dystopia. The page closely resembles the actual light version of update.bml, though the movie version lacked LJ's actual automatic timestamping.

** Eduardo Saverin is on record saying that he was indifferent to being part of Facebook's company operations--his removal from Facebook was due to Saverin ignoring his duties as the CFO, especially when he was needed to sign on crucial business deals. His lawsuit was just because he wanted to keep his agreed upon [[MoneyDearBoy financial stake]]. Additionally, the film leaves out the incident where Saverin went behind Zuckerberg's back and began running ads for another startup he was involved with on the Facebook site.

%%* TokenEvilTeammate: [[spoiler:Sean.]]

-->'''Tyler:''' (''muttering'') You can take the Harvard student handbook and [[AssShove shove it up your]]--
-->'''Cameron:''' Ty!

* EveryoneHasStandards: Mark is clearly made out to be a smug, antisocial {{Jerkass}} with [[SmallNameBigEgo a huge head]], but he's clearly not happy with Sean picking on Eduardo while [[spoiler:firing him.]] And while he has a notoriously low opinion of women, [[spoiler:Sean partying and doing drugs with a group of underage interns repulses him. Whether or not Mark ratted on him, it would clearly have been more than just as an executive decision.]]
** Upon hearing exactly how much [[spoiler: Eduardo's ownership share of Facebook was diluted down whilst everyone else's remained the same, the two lawyers defending Mark, even if their job is to help him win the lawsuit, can't help but look at him with faces that clearly say "that was a pretty messed up thing to do".]]

** Eduardo Saverin is on record saying that he was indifferent to being part of Facebook's company operations. His lawsuit was just because he wanted to keep his agreed upon [[MoneyDearBoy financial stake]]. Additionally, the film leaves out the incident where Saverin went behind Zuckerberg's back and began running ads for another startup he was involved in on the Facebook site. The decision to remove Savarin from Facebook was because he ignored his duties as the CFO, especially when he was needed to sign on crucial business deals.
** Downplayed with the Winklevoss twins. Some say the real twins were not quite like the ones the film put in a quasi-sympathetic light. Larry Summers has said that the two of them acted a lot more entitled during their real-life meeting with him and his hostility towards them was more of a response to their attitudes. However, the film doesn't really go out it's way to depict them as all that decent either and even showcases some of their minor {{Jerkass}} tendencies.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: After the deposition with Eduardo is over, Marilyn asks Mark what happened to Sean after he was kicked out of Facebook following his arrest. Mark tells her he still owns 5% of the company.

* HateSink: Sean Parker. In a story full of GrayAndGrayMorality, he's the closest character portrayed as an outright villain due to how much of a {{Jerkass}} he is.
** Due to just how remarkably insufferable he is (or maybe "tries" to be) in virtually every scene he's in, Mark himself isn't far off.

** Eduardo Saverin is on record saying that he was indifferent to being part of Facebook's company operations. His lawsuit was just because he wanted to keep his agreed upon [[MoneyDearBoy financial stake]]. Additionally, the film leaves out the incident where Saverin went behind Zuckerberg's back and began running ads for another startup he was involved in on the Facebook site.

* HistoricalRelationshipOverhaul:
** Mark Zuckerberg is shown to have an ex-girlfriend, Erica, who breaks up with him in the first scene of the film and for whom he still harbors feelings. In reality, he was in a relationship with Priscilla Chan at the time, who he went on to marry (and to whom he's still married today).
** The film plays up Mark and Eduardo's relationship for drama, portraying them as {{Old Friend}}s.

* JailbaitTaboo: A recurring part of Sean's character is engaging in reckless behavior with likely underaged girls.

** It is hypothesised by Marilyn regarding Mark in the final line of the film: she thinks he's not an asshole, but "[tries] so hard to be"). The audience, meanwhile, is left to reach their own conclusions.

-->'''Sean:''' Ah ha. The shoe's on the other...
-->'''Amy:''' Foot?
-->'''Sean:''' ... table, which has turned.

** The film plays up Mark and Eduardo's relationship for drama, portraying them as {{Old Friend}}s. At most, they were somewhat cordial business partners.

* IResembleThatRemark: Mark answers a subjectively demeaning question (whether or not the Winklevoss' attorney deserves his attention) with an objectively demeaning response (no, he doesn't, since he's too busy thinking about the ideas at Facebook that are intellectually beyond everyone else in the room).

* ButtMonkey: The Winklevoss twins have nothing go right for them the entire film and are largely treated as a joke by everyone. For starters Mark steals their website idea and while he doesn't use any of their code and Facebook would extend beyond just Harvard, he still wouldn't have gotten that far without using them as a springboard. Every appeal the twins make to try and have the matter settled internally is shot down and mocked by the institution they so admire and they even lose a major rowing race near the end of the film. Somewhat subverted as we learn that they received a settlement in the end, but the Winklevoss twins will always be known as the guys who Mark Zuckerberg stole Facebook from.

* UnderestimatingBadassery: Mark and Sean both believed they could get away with forcing Eduardo out of the company without any consequences... only to have Eduardo file a lawsuit against them. Similarly, Mark blithely ignored the Winklevoss twins attempts to do things ''nicely'' with their cease and desist efforts, fully convinced they didn't have the guts to take him to court. Boy was he wrong...

'''Amy''': Seriously? You’re not like 15 years old or anything, are you?\\
'''Sean''': No. ({{beat}}) Wait, you're not like 15, are you?

** Eduardo Saverin is on record saying that he was indifferent to being part of Facebook's company operations. His lawsuit was just because he wanted to keep his agreed upon financial stake. Additionally, the film leaves out the incident where Saverin went behind Zuckerberg's back and began running ads for another startup he was involved in on the Facebook site.

* HistoricalRelationshipOverhaul: Mark Zuckerberg is shown to have an ex-girlfriend, Erica, who breaks up with him in the first scene of the film and for whom he still harbors feelings. In reality, he was in a relationship with Priscilla Chan at the time, who he went on to marry (and to whom he's still married today).

* TheTeamBenefactor: Eduardo Saverin is the team member who repeatedly steps in with the cheque book before the money starts rolling in.