Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg reveals a lot about men in general

The other day (Saturday Night being that other day) I watched the movie, The Social Network. It stars Aaron Sorkin as the writer with the best scripts for TV shows and movies. And he plays a bit part in the movie as an ad guy in New York annoyed by Mark Zuckerberg.

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  Spoiler alert: This film was released three years ago so if you haven’t seen it yet you will read things that will give away certain aspects of the film. Rent it anyway, the film is that entertaining. We know how it ends, just like we knew how Titanic ended.

It’s a pretty good movie and gives a little backstory into how the annoyingly addictive social network got its start: a young programmer got pissed off at his girlfriend and the world of Harvard (not quite sure if it was in that order) and put up a website to rate the hotness of women on the campus of Harvard. Some of the women were offended. Zuckerberg thought he should be congratulated for showing Harvard’s bosses the holes in their cyber security.

It wasn’t like hotornot.com where the women put their own profiles up to be rated, this guy (Zuckerberg) hacked into Harvard servers and grabbed all the photos and placed them in this site that went viral and shut down the Harvard system. Well done young undergrad.

He also blogs about the ex-girlfriend (Erica Albright played by Rooney Mara) and calls her a bitch on the Internet.

The angry blog is perpetrated by the GF breaking up with him in a crowded bar. In the movie the aggrieved party delivers one a great bit of dialogue: “You are probably going to be a very successful computer person. But you’re going to go through life thinking that girls don’t like you because you’re a nerd. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that that won’t be true. It’ll be because you’re an asshole.”

It isn’t by accident, serendipity or coincidence that women deliver two of the best lines of the movie. Little factoids about we men, especially as it pertains to the society of the World Wide Interwebs.

The other bit of dialogue that stood out from the rest of the excellent dialogue came towards the end of the film when lawyer Marilyn Delpy, played by Rashida Jones, says, “You’re not an asshole Mark, you’re just trying so hard to be [one].”

That tells us everything we need to know about some men on the Internet. Many of us like to be self-righteous assholes in the World Wide Web of deceit. In a man’s brain, “asshole” equals “tough guy.”

Not all men of course, but a large enough percentage of them that I can say anecdotally, most men. At least the ones that frequent the Internets a lot, like me. Being an asshole requires a lot of arrogance and a keen wit capable of delivering Sorkin-worthy quips at the drop of a hat, or, the digital equivalent in the age of Facebook.

•  Who knew Facebook would be so much better than MySpace?

The digital equivalent has a much broader time limit, so we can Google the internets looking for cool movie quotes to paraphrase for our own, rewrite them a little bit and then deliver the quip in the blink of a digital eye and look like the smartest asshole in that corner of the Internet. Thank you Google.

There are men I know who are fairly humble, but then in certain instances, like when they are talking about their line of expertise, they get arrogant. Then they feel bad for acting like an asshole over something so trivial and vow never to do it again, until the next time.

That’s not me. Over these past few Facebook years I’ve begun to learn and relearn the art, the principle, the moral code that says, “Nothing pays off like restraint of tongue and pen … and keyboard.”

Especially as it pertains to family and friends.

The reason I’ve been relearning it over and over is that when I get on Facebook, or some other social media-type operation where people who don’t know each other and are using ridiculous sounding aliases, when I get on that site and read something really, really stupid and/or offensive … “Goddammit! If I don’t effin’ reply right this effin instant …”

And off I’d go composing the perfect reply, hunting up words on Thesaurus.com and quotes that can be used or purloined to make me look like a braniac, a really tough, hard-as-nails braniac, worthy of being the subject of an Aaron Sorkin script. You know it’s really gonna be good if I go to MS Word to write it.

It used to be I’d write up a pithy reply, drawing upon my inner John McLane, and right this grievous wrong by not only setting the other person(s) straight, but by doing so in such a way that my contempt for them as living, breathing human concerns was such a heavy cloud of digitally toxic “truth,” they would end up becoming Luddites, never to touch electronic devices again, living their existence in the shame of knowing that they could not hang in this digital world with the likes of me, the smartest guy in this particular corner of Facebook.

“Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker.”

Except that, more often than not (always actually), the person at the end of my poison-dipped virtual arrow thinks he is the smartest guy in this little corner of Facebook and then he and his insignificant little like-minded minions respond with their arrogant, poorly worded “fuck you’s” and BAM! The Internet battle is on!

Exactly the way it happened in Die Hard, except that was a fictional movie with social commentary relevant to the times (1988. Remember how we all were told the Japanese were going to own America? Something to think about has people warn us about China owning America).

Our Internet battles are real enough, or as real as they can be in a digital world where were can hide from each other behind various media devices and ridiculous aliases and lob literary bombs at one another without fear of any real physical retaliation. Nobody actually wants to be tough, standing toe-to-toe, nose-to-nose, backing up their words face-to-face. We just want to act tough digitally because the vagueness and whimsical anonymity of the World Wide Interwebs makes it easy.

So, back in my early days on the World Wide Interwebs (about 15 years ago) to about relatively recently (like yesterday even), I would write my replies and hit that “Return” button on the keyboard (“Enter,” for you Windows users) and voila! Instant asshole, just add keyboard! I was so proud of myself.

Lest you think this is just Internet-inspired bravado, it tends to creep into my daily living. For instance: the other day (this other day being last Thursday) I was riding my Trusty Trek along Mira Mesa Boulevard here in San Diego — on the sidewalk because no one in his or her right mind rides a bicycle in the street while on Mira Mesa Blvd.

After patiently waiting for the “Walk” light to proceed across Mira Mesa Blvd I pushed out into the street, easily pedaling past the road divider on my way to the other side … only to clamp on the brakes and clumsily get my feet back on the ground. Some asshole making a right turn nearly hit me when clearly I had the right of way. He looked at me so I cursed him as loudly as possible and proceeded on.

Asshole in the Lincoln then looked at me again and slowed down. My next thought was, “Oh, this guy is going to get out and defend himself.” Stopping on the sidewalk I looked at him, but he sped up and drove away.

This wasn’t the first time I’ve been in that situation. I ride the Trusty Trek on Mira Mesa Blvd a lot and have cursed many a driver, with only a very few instances of almost threatened retaliation.

Then there was the lady in the late model Ford Expedition who chased me through an AM/PM gas station trying to run me over. Apparently she didn’t give a damn about nearly hitting a number of other cars and a gas pump or two, she was dead set on killing me with her huge SUV. I saw a cop a block away and told him about that and he just shrugged his shoulders.

Cops are, in some instances, great examples of “live and let live” and “forgive and forget.” I ain’t forgetting the lady in the Ford Expedition.

My friend Noble suggested that it’s best to curse other drivers from inside an automobile with the windows rolled up, not from a bicycle. I’ll take it under advisement, but good ideas aren’t always at the forefront of my thoughts when I get angry.

Getting back to the Internet portion of this rant: in the course of shooting off my virtual mouth on the Internets I’ve alienated a few friends and family members, or at needlessly insulted them. I don’t like doing that.

So, it’s been in my best interest to learn and relearn that old chestnut of wisdom, “Nothing pays off like restraint of tongue and pen … and keyboard” Especially if the one you’re cursing is in an SUV and has the option of running you down.

Getting back to the point put forward about 1,000 words ago, that in the male brain “asshole” equals “tough guy.” The flip side is that in the female brain, “asshole” equals “jerk.”

How could our understanding of that word, that vulgarity, be so different? Truly, when we men are acting like assholes we’re trying to impress you women, at least in part. Your response is supposed to be, “Look! There’s Tim channeling his inner Bruce Willis and Jason Statham!”

Instead, we get, “Oh, grow up!”

To women we’re channeling our adolescent immaturity, acting like assholes, when in fact, we are not a-holes.

But how can we do otherwise? With all this media giving us these role models, fictional characters doing fictional feats of masculine grandeur, the pithy and quotable dialogue from these fictional masculine displays of tough guy grandeur populates and informs the imaginary battles we engage in when we are daydreaming about being the Transporter or John McLane.

And sometimes that fantasy creeps into our everyday life and the next thing you know, we’re cursing motorists from our bicycle seats, waiting to see if that guy really stops and gets out of his car to have it out.

One of these days I’m going to get my ass kicked and I’ve resigned myself to that eventuality. As life has a painful way of pointing out from time to time: I’m not a 21-year old Marine anymore.

Getting back to The Social Network, Jesse Eisenberg did a great job of portraying Mark Zuckerberg, so much so I was thinking the actor is an asshole. He’s probably a nice guy playing a plum role, like Bruce Willis (who plays John McLane) and Jason Statham (the Transporter).

The movie gave us a little insight into what goes on at the most prestigious university in America and explains in part why one of its main exports is arrogance. If you get a degree from the University of Wisconsin, people automatically assume you have some insight into dairy futures. If you even go to Harvard people expect you’re going to change the world.

I’m still trying to remember if eggs are considered dairy or not.

Twenty-five years ago young people wanted to be Bill Gates. Ten years ago it was Steve Jobs. But now I wonder: do you young people look up to Mark Zuckerberg as a role model the way people looked up to Gates and Jobs?

He quickly became the world’s youngest billionaire by creating the “next thing,” but his personality has been on display in real time and it hasn’t been the least bit flattering. But, as it’s always been, money is the religion we worship in America and anyone who does what Zuckerberg did is automatically a high priest of the order.

My guess is there are young (and old) people trying to follow Zuckerberg’s lead, i.e., act like that asshole we see in the movie. Trouble is most of us don’t have the intellect to pull it off, nor are we so naturally arrogant. We have to work at it. The fact is if you don’t have a zillion dollar creation like Facebook to rest your laurels on, people aren’t going to look past your boorish personality.

For me, my family and friends are dear to me and if acting like John McLane and the Transporter puts them off, then maybe I’ll do my best to dial that back a bit. I’d rather make them smile and laugh. It’s a good bet Mark Zuckerberg has the same personal ambition, when he takes time to think about it.

Truth is none of us are the fictional characters in those masculine displays of grandeur. Not even the actors that play those parts are those characters.

It reminds me of that TV commercial from the 1980’s that features actor Peter Bergman uttering some of the most famous commercial dialogue ever: “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV.”

I’m not an A-hole, but I like to act like one from time to time.