Chapter Text
I could write a better book than that Mezrich asshole half-asleep and in Latin. He thinks he's some latter day Hunter S. Thompson? Thompson would eat that fucker for breakfast and never look back. He writes shitty fiction and passes it off as neo-non-fiction. Sorry, but that's not how it works. See, fiction is fiction and truth is truth and no matter how nice a face you put on it, never the twain shall meet. Either tell the truth or tell some fiction but don't believe the lie that this is some world where they can all mix.
He told you fiction. I'm going to tell you the truth.
The truth starts here: there was nothing accidental about what happened.
It's gonna be a blog, originally, but it reminds him too much of being 17 and having a LiveJournal. Besides, Mark doesn't trust the Internet, it's way too insecure. So, he finds a little black and white composition notebook (how cliché, he knows) and starts writing. Pen to paper writing. It feels, well, good. Watching the words sprawl out on clean, white paper. There's something particularly empowering about it and it just ...flows.
It was the exact outcome his therapist, Laura, had envisioned when she suggested he take up writing as a supplement to talk therapy. He'd balked at first, but in the six months he's been working with her, Mark has come to trust Laura. When he decided he was going to go into therapy, he spent a long time hand-picking the perfect therapist for his issues and Laura's pretty amazing (hey, Mark hand-picked her, of course she is) so he's not going to question her too hard. And, well, therapy is Mark's big "go big or go home" gesture for fixing his life. Not that his life is terrible or anything, far from it, but Mark knows there's some unpleasant stuff pushing its way around under the surface: the stuff that makes him keep people at a distance when he doesn't really always want to, that makes it hard for him to feel intimate with anyone and thus makes him not want to have a significant other, much less sex, the stuff that gives him insomnia for days as he lies in bed and can't shut off the whirl in his brain. Mark wants to fix that, damn it, so it's not like he's in therapy to do things halfway. Laura says try writing it down? Mark's gonna try writing it down.
He just doesn't expect the story, his story to start with with the start of Facebook, is the thing. He thought maybe there'd be some stuff about his childhood or boarding school adolescence or maybe even with his daily life as the head of a multi-billion dollar company that's revolutionized the world.
But no - it's the start of Facebook that flows out of his pen on the neat, blue-lined paper and once the words start flowing, well, he just can't stop.
--
See, 'accidental' implies that I didn't know what I was doing, that everything that happened just happened. Which I guess makes for a good story if you're some lazy, uncreative wanna-be journalist who wants to make a metaphor about our 'modern times' and 'regular Americans' and shit. But that's not this story and, besides, I've always found metaphors to be for the incurious and uncreative.
So, no, there was nothing accidental, oops, isn't this crazy, who would have thought, golly-gee-whiz, about what happened.
Because, see, that's some lie that people want to say to make themselves feel better.Well, it just happened. Things spun out of my control. Before I knew it... But that lie does a disservice to all the things that happened because of sleepless nights, because of hours spent designing and creating and sacrificing and making. I won't dismiss that. I can't let a lie erase that.
So here's the thing: none of this just happened. I made it happen.
That's the part I'm proudest of.
And the part I'm most ashamed about.
Because - because of Eduardo.
He's gone through about five notebooks now: tiny scrawl on line after line, he watches the first book fill up and realizes he has more to say and before he knows it the second book is filled too and - it's getting easier to talk to Laura during therapy, to not dance around her questions with sharp comebacks and vagueness. And maybe that's going to help with all the other stuff writing is dredging up, all the stuff he hadn't even thought about when he started therapy. He just wanted a good night's sleep, you know? And now ... this.
The last thing, he means it, the very last thing, he ever expects is to come into his office one day and find Sean, sitting at his desk, reading one of his journals.
His blood boils. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"
But when Sean pulls his eyes away from the journal he doesn't look mocking or ready to make a joke. His face is grave and his eyes are suspiciously bright. "Mark, man, I'm - I didn't - I'm sorry, but I -"
"Put it down," he commands, his voice iron.
"Mark," Sean says, his voice startlingly soft "Mark - we need - you need to publish this."
And that's how it starts.
--
So this is my mea culpa then? My apologia? This is the part where I pour out my heart and beg forgiveness for my sins?
Fuck that.
See, I don't believe in bullshit like confessing on your deathbed and thinking that makes it OK. Apologies, mea culpas, those don't mean shit. That's glib and surface and slick and who'd believe me anyway, yeah? Oh, I just bet Mark Zuckerberg feels bad, with his billion dollars and worldwide fame. Cry me some tears, poor baby! That shit is for lazy people looking for metaphors. Like me, sitting all by my lonesome in a room trying to 'friend' someone. OH - THE DELICIOUS IRONY or whatever. That's too easy for all this. That's intellectually lazy.
And false besides that.
I am not sorry. I am not sorry. I'll keep saying it forever, if you think that would help. I'm not sorry, Erica Albright. I'm not sorry, Cameron and Tyler and Divya. I'm not sorry, all you people who bitch about privacy controls while posting your whole life on the Internet.
I am not sorry.
Because for all that? I don't have anything to be sorry about.
But for how things happened with Eduardo Saverin? Who was my first investor? The first person who ever said "yes" to my idea? Who was not, contrary to what that Bambi-eyes motherfucker made you get choked up over in the stupid movie, my onlyfriend but was probably my best friend?
For that, I am sorry.
"We are not publishing my - my - that's not for - put it down," Mark tries to keep his voice calm.
Sean sets his journal down and looks at him. "Mark. You know it's not like I'm still President or anything. So, you know I'm only saying this as your friend but... I...you're a good writer. This is good stuff, Mark. People would want to read this notjust because of who you are - I think it could mean something to -"
And Sean is his friend. Mark can tell from the look in his eyes that he's being sincere. That this has nothing to do with business. But that doesn't mean it's a good idea.
"Sean, no," he interrupts. "They're - they're my private -"
Sean narrows his gaze. "Mark," he says, cutting him off before he can stumble along even further, "Mark, if you won't publish these I think... people ... there are certain people who ... Mark, these need to be read."
Mark's no fucking moron. He hears the name Sean won't say.
Eduardo.
Maybe that's how the seed for publishing was planted. Maybe in that second, when Sean said that in Mark's journals, in all those words he couldn't stop spilling, there were things that needed to be read.
Maybe it started with the name that wasn't said.
--
"...In this is your life (and it's ending one minute at a time) Mr. Zuckerberg not only re-invents his own mythos and takes control of his own narrative but fires off a manifesto for his generation. Brutally and unflinchingly honest, the man who invented poking has found a new way to 'poke' at our 21st century consciousness by demanding his audience face the ugly truths about their own lives. This is never clearer than in Mr. Zuckerberg's sharp and heartfelt writing about his former friend, Mr. Saverin. It's his regrets and reflections about what happened between he and Mr. Saverin that provide the memoir with its richest and most nuanced moments. Their connection, illustrated here by Mr. Zuckerberg as one of mutual give and take that was too often clouded by miscommunication, will read as achingly familiar to anyone who has ever drifted apart from a friend or a lover. It's not entirely clear which of these Mr. Saverin was to Mr. Zuckerberg, but it doesn't matter: Zuckerberg's muscular, fearless writing makes the heart of the matter clear."
-Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times Sunday Book Review
"...Ever since we heard the title Zuck chose for his memoirs, a gentle tweak on Fincher's work, we knew were in for a treat. Bowing at #1 on the NY Times hardcover list (great, more money ... just what he needs) the biggest revelation in the book isn't just that Zuck writes readable, gripping prose like a house on fire but that we've all got the "Facebook story" wrong because it turns out it's really a tragic love story about a guy who betrayed not his business partner or best friend but his big, unrequited gay love. Betcha no one besides Sorkin and Spider-Man 2.0 saw *that* coming."
-Brian Moylan, Gawker.com
"...we've been hearing how revelatory Zuckerberg's work was since the BEA buzz, but the last thing we expected was that it would surpass the prepub expectations. In what the preface makes clear are Zuckerberg's completely unedited journals we find, dare we say it, if not the great American novel a truly great American story. While it is a story of greed, ambition, betrayal, invention, and creation, it's also, clearly, a love story. It's this love story that makes the story so compelling. Would you trade changing the world and billions of dollars for a best friend who could possibly be more? Zuckerberg's not sure he has the answer and, by the time you've experienced the full-force of his exceeding talent, you won't be so sure you do either."
-starred review, Kirkus Reviews
"I mean, I wasn't the only one who read this wondering when he was going to get to the part when he sweeps him up and gives him one of those kisses that make your knees bend back, right? It's the push and pull relationship, which helps and challenges Mark in ways he clearly didn't really understand until he started work on these journals, that gives this work some real soul. It's a classic romance ... but where out HEA? We here at SBTB HQ agree: this is the romance of the year and our leads don't even know it."
-smartbitchestrashybooks.com
--
Well, these were certainly not the reviews Mark was expecting, he can promise you that.
++
Tyler Durden version (with meta)
Pulitzer Prize version (no meta)