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Chris (Xun) Wang

Dr. Erin McLaughlin
Writing and Rhetoric 13300
10 October 2014
The Social Network: an Alarm on Emotional Response
The 2010 movie, The Social Network is about the founding of Facebook. David
Fincher directs the movie, Jesse Eisenberg, and Justin Timberlake starred. The movie
presents us a picture of student life, and interpersonal relationship. It starts when Harvard
student Mark Zuckerberg creates a controvertible website called the Facemash to revenge his
ex-girlfriend Erica Albright. Later on, Zuckerberg builds a new website named the Facebook,
financially supported by his friend Eduardo Saverin. The website becomes popular
immediately. Meanwhile, Zuckbergs ambition grows bigger after meeting Sean Parker, the
founder of Napster. Afterward, Parker starts to take a great role in a company. Saverin and
Zuckerbergs relationship changes dramatically because of Parker. Saverin ends up being
rooted out of the company. The last scene presents Zuckerburg, alone. More than a pastime
movie, The Social Network tries to teach us a lesson. Through the effective use of sound
element, appeal to emotion, and other rhetorical techniques, David Fincher cautions us about
the risk of making emotional decision on social media, interpersonal relationship, and
business context. Through this paper, I am going to examine this film rhetorically, analyze
how Fincher utilized different rhetorical techniques to convince us of the danger of emotiondriven action in different contexts.
Fincher sets up the importance of emotional response early in the movie. Firstly, he
focuses on the emotional state of the main character Mark Zuckerberg. In the film, Mark is
dumped by Erica by the end of the first scene. Afterwards, the film presents him walking
alone from the bar to his residence hall. Fincher effectively uses the sound element to show

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the emotional change within Mark, utilizing the hypermediacy. According to Jay David
Bolster, a professor in Media at the Georgia Institute of Technology, considers the
hypermediacy as a tool to make the viewer acknowledges the medium and to delight in that
acknowledgment(Bolter, Grusin 41-42). In the film, the mixture of non-diegetic and
diegetic sounds achieves the hypermediacy. To be specific, throughout Marks long run back
to campus, diegetic sounds express peoples chattering, but the lonely Mark is isolated.
Diegetic sound allows viewers to run with Mark, and sense his loneliness, creating actual
experience. Meanwhile, the non-diegetic changes from the previously electronic music in the
bar scene into a piece of music mainly played by violin, an instrument good at playing a
melancholy melody. The music creates a gloomy atmosphere. The change in music clearly
indicates Marks emotion changing from relaxed to depressed. Additionally, since the nondiegetic sound is the sound element added afterwards, it acknowledges viewers that they are
watching an edited materialfilm. With this acknowledgement, viewers enjoy the film
medium that offers different layers of both non-diegetic and diegetic sounds. Hypermediacy
is thus achieved: viewers both acknowledge the film medium, and delight in it. Through the
skillful utilization of music, Fincher draws our attention to Marks emotional state.
Secondly, Fincher presents us Marks response to the emotional change. As soon as
Mark gets back to his dorm, he immediately starts blogging. Afterward, Mark crazily creates
the Facemash, a website allowing people to rate female students based on their hotness using
a stolen picture. This series of actions is the exactly Marks response to his depression. It
becomes the fuse of nearly all events presented later in the movie. In beginning few scenes,
the film foreshadows a key claim that viewers should question the role of emotional response
in social networking spaces, in interpersonal relationships, and in business context.
After the foundation of the significance of the emotional response, Fincher
specifically discusses the risk of involving emotional response in social networking space.

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Firstly, Fincher detailedly presents Marks emotional response in the social networking space.
In the film, Mark is depicted as a person who lacks an emotional filter, who is unable to deal
with his emotion appropriately. After he is dumped, instead of talking with his friends to
soothe the negative emotion, Mark starts blogging immediately. He posts rude words about
Erica in blog: a common social networking space. Utilizing the camera angle, and sound
effect, Fincher creates the transparent immediacy. Bolster describes the immediacy as aiming
to make medium disappear (Bolter, Grusin 21). In the scene, Fincher locates the camera
carefully to erase the presence of the medium: numerous close shots are used to capture the
flashing cursor on the computer screen, and swiftly moving fingertips on the keyboard.
Fincher smashes the screen for us, drawing our attention away from the film medium, and
dragging us into the actual scene. The chosen camera angle assigns us to Marks role. We
become Mark in this scene. Moreover, Marks voice is added to the soundtrack to express his
own thoughts in the mind. We sneak into Marks head, recognizing his fury. Aware of
Marks anger, at the same time, we experience how he spills all his complex emotion out,
through the blog, a famous social media. We realize that Marks actions are immature,
irrational, and disrespectful. The series of actions associated with social media are exactly
incited by Marks emotional change. Thus, Fincher draws us to consider the potential danger
of actions, driven by change in emotion, in social media.
Secondly, through dialogue, Fincher critiques the tendency to spill out the emotion on
social networking places, specifically, blogs. In the movie, Erica says, you (Mark)
writebecause thats what the angry do nowadays. Fincher clearly uses Ericas mouth to
disagree with the tendency to release negative emotion without carefully consideration in
social networking sites, particularly through blogs. It further infers that blogging may not be
the best way to deal with emotional problems. Thirdly, to caution us against the risk of
making emotional decision on social media, Fincher dissects the nature of the Internet for us.

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The Internet is not modifiable, and spreads fast. Dialogues in the film support this statement.
In the movie, the subtitle shows that at 8:13PM, Mark is blogging. At 2:08AM, the next day,
Eduardo comes to Mark to check on him. He mentions, you and Erica split up, and its on
your blog. It directly shows that he has read the blog within 4 hours after it is posted.
Obviously, things on the Internet spread fast. Moreover, Fincher presents the unchangeable
nature of the Internet. In the movie, Erica says, the Internet is not written in pencil; its
written in ink. This line supports the Internets inerasable nature. Due to the fast-spreading,
public, and unchangeable nature of social media, Fincher draws us to consider the risk of
involving emotional response in social media.
Furthermore, utilizing appeal, Fincher shows that it is risky to make emotional
decisions in interpersonal relationship. In An Overview of Rhetoric, Herrick describes appeal
as symbolic strategies that aims either to elicit an emotion or to engage the audiences
loyalties or commitment (13). In The Social Network, Fincher depicts Eduardo to appeal to
our emotions, pity. To start with, Eduardo is depicted as a friend of Mark through the scene
of him checking on Marks emotional state. Secondly, Fincher demonstrates that Mark
mistreats Eduardo. In the movie, Eduardo has been forgotten at the airport by Mark, arriving
their house soaked. Moreover, Mark mocks Eduardo for being useless. However, through
dialogues, Fincher uncovers the fact that Eduardo has taken 14 hours of subway in New York
everyday to run the business. Until here, we feel the mistreatment. Eduardo functions
symbolically, arousing our pity.
Building on this recognition of unfairness, Fincher furthermore appeals to us a sense
of justice for Eduardos confrontation. In the film, Eduardo becomes angry. Considering
himself as Marks only friend, Eduardo is irritated by Seans growing role in the company.
To revenge Mark, Eduardo freezes the bank account. Based on the previous aroused pity by
Fincher, we naturally justify his understandable action. However, as the film goes on,

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audiences begin to realize that this justifiable emotional response ultimately ends Mark and
Eduardos friendship. This realization is thought provoking. Fincher calls us into question.
He shows us that the emotional response, which is justified by us, brings an unpleasant end. It
is also true that when we justify an action, we might act in the same way. Therefore, we start
to worry that our emotional response might ruin our relationship with others. Ultimately,
Fincher alerts us with the uncertainty of involving emotional decision in interpersonal
relationships.
Additionally, Fincher employs arrangement of scenes to reveal the risk of involving
emotional decision-making in business context. Herrick explains that, arrangement is
using the planned ordering of a message to achieve the greatest effect(4). In The social
network, Fincher uses the arrangement of different scenes to prove his claims. In the
beginning few scenes, Fincher introduces Eduardo as Marks friend, however, skillfully
presenting lawsuit between Mark and Eduardo right afterwards. Due to the dramatic
arrangement, we naturally inquire about the cause of the lawsuit. Later on, Fincher uncovers
that Eduardo financially supports the Facebook. We realize that the lawsuit may involve
business conflict. The California scene becomes the turning point of Mark and Eduardos
relationship. In the movie, Eduardo, the only source of financial support of the company, is
treated as insignificant. Moreover, Marks growing trust in Sean irritates him. More than a
business partner, Eduardo also considers himself as Marks friend. In both aspects, Eduardo
strongly desires recognition. He responds to his mixed emotion by freezing the companys
only financial source. We sense the rising conflict after the irrational emotional response.
Later, Fincher shows the dilution of Eduardos share in the company. Finally, we dig out the
cause of the lawsuit presented early in the moviethe dilution of Eduardos share. In
addition, Fincher draws us to believe the dilution of Eduardos share is Marks revenge for

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Eduardos actions. In other words, Eduardos emotional decision of freezing bank account
ultimately leads to the dilution of his share.
Overall, Finchers arrangement of scenes encourages us to search for the cause of the
lawsuit from the beginning. Thus, when we figure out that Eduardos emotional response
eventually brings him to this situation, our feeling is intense. We start to question the
emotion-driven action: whether it is worthy. In this case, Eduardos action is a bad business
decision, ultimately rooting him out of the company. It also ends friendship, bringing
unpleasant outcome. Through Eduardos story, Fincher cautions us about the risk of
involving emotional response in business context.
Some might think in Marks case, his lack of emotion causes all the trouble. They
believe that Mark is a person dont value friendship and have no compassion. As in the movie,
he unfairly treated Eduardo, his friend, taking away Eduardos entire share from the
company. Furthermore, he irrationally creates the Facemash to insult female students without
any compassion for them or the sense of justice. These evidences prove Marks lack of
emotion. However, throughout the movie, Fincher spends lots of scenes to present Mark as an
emotional person. The violin music piece obviously shows his depressed emotional state. He
is sad, and then turns angry, thus insulting Erica in the blog. His irrational behavior is exactly
result from his complex emotion. On the other hand, he cares about Ericas opinions. For
example, after Erica says she has never heard the Facebook, Mark decides to expand it, and
directly asks to introduce it to Boston University. He cares. All his actions demonstrate him
as an emotional person, who acts largely upon his emotion. Therefore, it is undoubtedly his
very emotional responses that bring him problematic interpersonal relationships.
In The Social Network, Fincher conveys a message that it is risky to make emotional
decisions in social media, in interpersonal relationship, and in business context. Since the
target audience of the film is mainly young adult. As beginners in adulthood, they are likely

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to let emotion take control in decision-making. Therefore, Fincher furthermore tries to
persuade them to think twice before acting emotionally in these contexts, and be thoughtful
with possible outcomes. The more thoughts we take into account, the less bad decisions we
are likely to make. Thus, more than a pastime movie, The Social Network teaches us a
practical lesson. Indeed, this movie is worth carefully examining in a rhetorical context.

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Works Cited
Bolter, Jay David and Richard Grusin. Chapter 1: Immediacy, Hypermediacy, and Remediation.
Remediation: Understanding New Media. 21-50. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999. Print.
Herrick, James. A. The History and Theory of Rhetoric. 2rd ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2001.
Print
The Social Network. Dir. David Fincher. Perf. Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake.
Columbia Pictures, 2010. DVD