Editor’s note: Here’s a guest drop from rapper ternt writer and internets celebrity JIMMY VALENTIME.
The Social Network Is the Greatest Hood Movie of All time… All Time
The Social Network is the best hood film since Menace to Society, I know people are going to laugh at that, as it stars a guy from NSYNC and a guy I thought was in Super Bad for the first 20 minutes of the film. But like all great street movies, The Social Network is not about the baby face predators or the product they were selling. Instead the film is about the relentless pursuit of the American “dream” and the blood lust required to be a good capitalist.
This movie is a digital era New Jack City or Scarface, Cocaine included. While Cocaine is not Mark Zuckerberg hustle, Mark still comes through with a highly addictive product and then betrays all his friends and everybody else who tries to do business with him. But unlike Tony Montana or any real life street legend, mark is not sitting in jail or dead. Mark is now Twenty-six years old and sitting on Six Billion dollars.
If you plan on watching the film, which I would highly recommend. Do not read this description, as basically I do a breakdown of the plot. Taking the plot and with just a few words changes you should able to see the obvious Mafia / street film influence. I am a terribly sarcastic person, but I am dead serious about this comparison. When I saw this movie it clicked to me right way and I want to show you my point.
Now when I write online, I am very mindful of trying to speak in an intelligent manner and I keep the slang to a minimum. This description is closer to how; I actually talk when I am with my friends. So if you are offended with the language, go cry to Dallas about it. Network and Facebook will be referred to as work from here on out.
The Social Network AKA The Work
We meet Mark as he wants to get down with the hottest crew in town “The Finishing Club.” His girl is sick of his obsession with the big money dudes and breaks up with him.
When Mark gets home, he starts creating a new kind or work. Meanwhile, we get to see brief moments of the crew, mark wants to run with. The Finishing Club is about to have a party and has a bus full of girls coming through. Later we get to see the girls strip and make out with each other. The scene is an arty version of Tip Drill, so you do not see much. But you get an idea of why Mark wants to be down.
Some guys in “The Finishing Club” hear about Marks work and want to recruit him. They do not want him down with the click; they only want to hire him as a worker to improve the work they already started on.
Mark asks them “How is your work different from everybody else’s ?” They answer him by saying they want him to flip the work in a new way, by only allowing Harvard students to have access to it.
Mark then meets up with his boy Eduardo at a party. He asks Eduardo to let him hold a thousand dollars to get the products he needs for his work. Mark says they will go to business and split the profit 70 / 30. Mark going to create the work and Eduardo is going to handle the business. Eduardo got some news of his own as he’s been recruited to be down with The Finishing Club.
Mark takes The Finishing Club work and his own work and combines the two. While Mark is focusing on creating his work, he strings the guys in The Finishing Club along about needing more time. Then a few weeks later, he tells them he can’t be their worker. Mark then turns around and drops his work on the school.
Mark and Eduardo are on the come up as their work takes over the school and everybody starts using it. Some chicks even fuck Mark and Eduardo in a public bathroom, Eduardo marvels at them getting groupies over they work. Mark then runs in to his ex girl, and starts to brag about how his work is running the school. But she doesn’t give a shit and tells him to fuck off. Disrespected, he decides that being the man in his school just ain’t big enough anymore. He is going to start expanding the work to other schools. Mark is just thinking about taking over the east coast. Eduardo says they should expand to California, because that’s where the real money is at.
Enter Sean Parker; the man is like a real life Rick Ross, fucking Victoria Secret models and coked out of his mind. He is essentially the guy who was hot in the game, but got knocked and is looking for a new hustle. Sean Parker gets hip to Marks work from a user out in Cali.
Eduardo wants to take their work to New York because he wants to get hooked up with bigger connects. Mark is not crazy about the idea and feels other people are going to fuck up the work. Eduardo sets up a meeting with Sean Parker, which Mark is hype to meet because he was a legend in the game. Sean Parker comes through and tells Mark they are going to take over the game and be running things. This makes Eduardo the odd man out and Sean is able to get in Eduardo head and down play his plans on making money off the work. Parker has started to create a conflict between the two man crew.
They get back to School, but the year is ending soon. Eduardo still wants to meet with other people in New York and Mark is hyped about going to California. Eduardo gives Mark another 18,000 dollars to hustle the work out in California. Mark recruits more people to expand their work. One of my favorite parts of the movie is to get in the crew; you have to show you can create the work drunk and compete against others workers, to get in.
Sean Parker meets up with Mark and tells him the story of other hustlers like themselves, who had gotten played by the game. This time it was going to be different since Sean had already been through it and had figured out a way to beat the system.
Sean Parker moves in to the house that Mark is creating his work from. Sean even has two broads getting high and playing x-box around, just for the fuck of it. Eduardo stops by the house and tries to figure out what’s going on. Sean Parker is now acting as the business end of the crew. Mark tells Eduardo he better get down with the new crew or get left behind. Eduardo feeling disrespected and freezes up the bank accounts the crews been using for the work.
Mark takes this as the ultimate sign of disrespect because besides Eduardo fucking up the money. Mark feels if the users can’t get the work, they are just going to bounce and find somewhere else. The thing is Eduardo has fucked up, because Sean Parker has got Mark in with some real money. They just signed a deal for a half million dollars to expand in to a real office.
Mark gets on his Godfather Two shit and gets Eduardo and Sean eliminated from the crew. Eduardo (stupidly) signs a new contract that basically removes his thirty percent ownership and he only learns about this when the work is about to get to its millionth user. A few hours later Sean gets caught coked up with some interns at a house party. We learn all about this through scenes of Mark arguing with these people in litigation. The movie lets you think if some of these things where coincidence or if Mark was on his Machiavelli shit. (No Tupac)
People are probably wondering why the fuck I did this, besides it being highly amusing for myself. Now the thing is guess what kids, business is a dirty game. People betray their friends and punk other crews every day in corporate America. Capitalism only tells you to win, not to play fair or do right. But if you grew up poor, you get to be demonized by mainstream society and you get to go to jail or die from it. If you grew up in the right part of town, they make a movie about you and you get to keep all the spoils from your hustle.
Isn’t America wonderful?
Jimmy Valentime is a writer and recording artist. His writings have appeared on SmokingSection.net and Byroncrawford.com. His music has appeared on xxlmag.com and mixtapes by DJ Drama, DJ Vlad, and Green lantern. He is currently working on his first EP of original material entitled “Home” and a book of essays on hip-hop and American society.
