First, Mark Zuckerberg dropped the “the” from Facebook (it’s cleaner) and we said nothing—partly because he was a college student and most of the world didn’t know about the social networking startup. Then, he ditched the signature dark gray Brunello Cucinelli t-shirt he’d adopted as a daily uniform (an update on his earlier go-to of zip-up hoodie and flip-flops) and started wearing chains and posting shirtless UFC thirst traps, and we said nothing. Now, Zuckerberg has pledged $1 million from Meta to Donald Trump’s inauguration fund and announced that Facebook is going to ditch its fact-checking program and rely on community members to police one another, a technique that, wow, has really not worked out well in the past. It’s long past time to say something.
Zuckerberg’s transformation, both inner and outer, appears to be complete. Tech schlub be gone: Mark’s a MAGA Guy now.
Bloomberg/Getty Images
What happened to the guy who, at a Facebook town hall event in 2014, explained that he wore the same thing every day because, “I really want to clear my life to make it so that I have to make as few decisions as possible about anything except how to best serve this community.” He said that small decisions like choosing an outfit, for example, “kind of make you tired and consume your energy. And my view is, I’m in this really lucky position where I get to wake up every day and help serve more than a billion people. I feel like I’m not doing my job if I spend any of my energy on things that are silly or frivolous about my life.”
Things can change in a decade, sure, but there does appear to be more than a shred of truth that the yassification of Mark Zuckerberg—including designing a t-shirt collab that likens himself to his own No. 1 favorite boy, Julius Caesar, and wearing a $900,000 watch to announce abandoning any sort of commitment to, you know, the truth—has corresponded with him finding it in himself to care a little more about the so-called silly and frivolous, and much less about that community he so badly wanted to serve.
Yes, Zuck has grown out his Caesar of the Valley haircut and gotten a little bit of color to his face, but his glow-up has been paired with attempts to seize yet more personal power and fashion himself into a sort of tech emperor, including making moves to get into the good graces of a powerful ally like Trump, bound for the White House in just a few weeks. Now feels like a good time to remember that just a few months ago, Trump wrote in his latest coffee table book (they can’t all be tweets, folks) that Zuckerberg had been plotting against him and that he nurtured a fond little dream of making the founder “spend the rest of his life in prison.”
Zuckerberg, in response, gave him a cool mill (you know what’s really cool?), a private demo of his neato AR glasses over dinner at Mar-a-Lago, and announced major changes to a Facebook policy that had been implemented in large part after it was found that false information shared on the platform, as well as a lax ad policy, played a significant role in Trump being elected to his first spin ‘round the White House. Oh, and that community Zuck once prized? In the name of “restoring free expression on our platforms,” as he characterized the policy changes, hate speech restrictions will also be relaxed. Women can be referred to as “property,” gay people as “mentally ill,” transgender people as “it,” and more. You’re welcome, valued community!
Bloomberg/Getty Images
