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American Studies Commons

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American Popular Culture

Ying-bei Wang

Selected Works

2014

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Full-Text Articles in American Studies

Facebook, Made In Harvard: Youth, Stereotypes, And Exclusivity In The Information Age, Ying-Bei Wang Feb 2014

Facebook, Made In Harvard: Youth, Stereotypes, And Exclusivity In The Information Age, Ying-Bei Wang

Ying-bei Wang

In the paper, I conduct a film analysis of The Social Network and examine its portrayal of Facebook’s founders and collaborators. I argue that the film, while providing a new image of geek culture and youth’s role in digital culture, has incorporated the debasing views against women and people of color that is very common in the culture. The enormous popularity of the film indicates how this stereotype is widely accepted. Meanwhile, consulting literature that analyzes culture of the Information Age, I look at the power hierarchies within the culture, where young and white men are more visible and their …