How Facebook became a freedom-gobbling corporate monster

Southwark Playhouse is beating the latest lockdown with a zingy new musical about social media. The performers, Francesca Forristal and Jordan Paul Clarke, remember the far-off days when Facebook was just a harmless supplement to ordinary social interactions. How did it turn into a freedom-gobbling corporate monster?

We meet the Zuckerbergs, Mark and Priscilla, as they usher a TV crew into their mansion like a pair of politburo bigwigs showing tourists around a glue factory in North Korea. The down-to-earth billionaires offer bland answers to scripted questions. ‘How do you raise children when you can give them anything?’ Mark reveals that the mini-Zuckerbergs are treated like normal kids. ‘But, guys,’ asks the interviewer, ‘how do you not bring work home?’ Priscilla pipes up robotically: ‘No work talk on date night. Mark’s idea.’

The show moves to the congressional hearings in 2018 when Zuckerberg admitted that he employs 1,500 censors to filter out the most horrific footage of stabbings and suicides. ‘Your workers get nine minutes of supervised wellness time a day,’ scolds a congresswoman, ‘which means nine minutes to cry on the stairwell while someone watches them.’ Zuckerberg rejects this portrait of Facebook’s working environment. These hard-hitting scenes are intercut with sketches that satirise self-help videos. We’re shown a YouTube shrink who manipulates children by attacking their vulnerabilities and then by offering to repair the damage he’s just done.

‘Are you sad? Lonely? Ugly? Keep watching… and learn how to be the most popular kid in the entire school.’

Some of the galloping narcissists on the web sound certifiably insane: ‘It’s been a while since I blessed you with my presence.’ Others are straightforward parodies of existing stereotypes, like the wellbeing guru Millie Fitnesse who speaks with an exaggerated Romford twang. ‘Being an influence-uh is duh best job ev-uh!’ The show covers a lot of ground, perhaps too much, and it treats its varied subjects in the same catchy upbeat melodic register.