Review: Get Hooked into "The Gay Social Network"

The Gay Social Network - A One Woman Show

Written and performed by Seerat Jhajj

Directed by Pearl Emerson

With Maya O'Day

Presented at UNDER St. Marks

94 St. Marks Place, Manhattan, NYC

June 18, 2025

Seerat Jhajj (front) and Maya O'Day (rear). Photo by Marissa Moorhead

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, never a paragon of ethics, has really leaned into the role of insecure technocapitalist supervillain in recent years, joining peers such as Elon Musk, Sundar Pichai, and Jeff Bezos as a prominent living reminder of why billionaires should not exist. In The Gay Social Network - A One Woman Show, Seerat Jhajj takes the 2010 film about the founding of Facebook, The Social Network, written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by David Fincher, as a jumping-off point for a thoroughly hilarious, inventive, and queer skewering of Zuckerberg and the mindset that he represents. This week's performance of The Gay Social Network, headed to Edinburgh Fringe Fest later this summer, was part of FRIGID New York's 2025 Queerly Festival, "FRIGID’s annual celebration of all things artistic and LGBTQIA2S+," which is currently curated by co-artistic director Jimmy Lovett and runs through July 3rd.

The Gay Social Network begins in voiceover, with a breakup phone message from a woman for Zuckerberg (Seerat Jhajj), and wastes no time in establishing the resentful, infantile Zuck as misogynist, just like his project–here inspired by a Mean Girls-style Burn Book–which he envisions as providing the men of Harvard with a platform for expressing themselves about the women of Harvard. Jhajj then undergoes a costume change at the hands of a second, unnamed figure (Maya O'Day) who not only swaps in a new wig and jacket but also adjusts Jhajj's posture and even puppeteers the actor a bit to play Zuckerberg's friend Eduardo Saverin, possessed of an extremely rich father and an extremely powerful romantic longing for Mark. For the next scene, a similar interaction results in Jhajj wearing a wig and outer layer both split down the middle, not unlike Batman's Two-Face, after which she plays both Zuckerberg and Saverin, presenting a different side of herself (literally) and a different voice for each character. Later in the show, when Jhajj takes on a third character, Zuckerberg and Saverin are physically represented by Ken dolls, still voiced by Jhajj. Zuckerberg, of course, exploits Saverin not only in the early stages of Facebook but also when it has become successful enough that Mark becomes involved with Justin Timberlake (Maya O'Day), who in real life acted in The Social Network. The Social Network has been a popular text for queer counter-readings online, and, with JT, The Gay Social Network adds a love triangle that, as we watch Zuckerberg push Saverin to his limits, makes it clear that all of the former's relationships to others are purely self-interested.

Throughout, in the scene transitions–which make excellent use of Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor's "Painted Sun in Abstract" from the score of the Social Network movie–wherein O'Day changes (or attempts to change) Jhajj and the set, a kind of second, embedded storyline about controlling (the) narrative and (self-)presentation unfolds. The lo-fi staging, including what looks to be a tinfoil-covered shoebox playing the role of "Awesome Mark's Awesome Laptop!!," a very DIY Justin Timberlake costume that manages to appear simultaneously comedic and uncanny, and a very funny version of the "what happened to the characters" end text endemic to biopics, perfectly fits the show's unrestrained sense of theater-as-play. And that sense of silliness only increases the production's satirical force, utterly puncturing the self-importance of the tech bro ecosphere and its packaging of globally damaging rapaciousness in utopian promises and rhetoric. As these various rich men, O'Day is entertaining and expressive even with no spoken lines, and Jhajj not only bounces among characters with ease but also wrings laughs from details like her way of typing maniacally as Zuckerberg or her capturing the cadences of a particular well-known politician. Since these reviewers have never seen The Social Network, we we can say with complete confidence that you don't have to be familiar with Fincher's film to have a fantastic time at The Gay Social Network, nor to come away thinking, whether for the first time or yet again: this is who we're giving such disproportionate power to? This guy? If only there were hope that this story would end in the real world more like it does in the alternate reality of this play.

-John R. Ziegler and Leah Richards

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