Mark Zuckerberg & Neutering the Modern Male
The three hour long Joe Rogan episode featured a freshly masculine Zuckerberg, promising listeners that the next God will not be decided by Artificial Intelligence. "More voice is the answer on this."
It’s difficult to believe that styled hair and a gold chain can signal such profound change in a man’s ethics. Even if I did believe rumors that the assassination attempt on Trump had an emotional impact on Mark Zuckerberg, how do we clean up the past from a treacherous misuse of power?
It’s less likely that Zuck was moved by a brush of death and a better guess that the moment Trump rose from his bloody fall, chanting fight, fight, that Zuck, along with the rest of America, knew that Trump 2024 was inevitable.
In conversation with former eat-this-cockroach enthusiast, podcast host Joe Rogan, Zuckerberg emphasizes that social media is the now greatest economy the United States has to offer, citing strategic advantages over other countries.
Social media has officially become political.
It’s been a few hours since this podcast aired and Jess texted me a photo of Zuckerberg touching down in Palm Beach. It’s Zuck’s second public meeting at Mar-A-Lago. Whoever Zuck hired for this MAGA rebranding needs a raise, because for a second I thought about giving him one more chance, if only I could forget about 2020.
From the dude who brought you Hot or Not: Harvard Edition, may I introduce you to The Future According to Mark Zuckerberg…
FREEDOM OF SPEECH, CHANGE OF HEART
Within weeks of Biden’s 2020 election win, Zuckerberg participated in a live stream conversation with Dr Fauci, and said at the time, “We’re already planning a push around authoritative information about the vaccines.”
They branded vaccination warnings as “hoaxes” and pitted well-meaning Americans against each other. We wondered then what the incentive was for tech moguls to side with elected officials.
Reviewing Meta’s public commentary from four years ago is a stark and almost unbelievable contrast to Zuckerberg’s public statement in August 2024, when he addressed United States Congress. In a letter confessing Meta had caved into unrelenting pressure from the Biden administration, Zuckerberg sought to appear humiliated for choosing to participate in banning content educating users on the unwanted side effects from COVID-19 vaccinations.
Meta’s decision to remove educated perspectives from one of the world’s greatest online platforms, and therefore resource for knowledge, did more than keep citizens in the dark. The Meta team created a divide amongst the general population. For a country already plagued with the mentality of “us versus them,” the public boundaries on information to inform body autonomy shattered that divide even further, inviting a violent dissection of intellect and mental aptitude to the general discord.
During the 2020 election, our Editor in Chief Jessica Reed Kraus, became a target to Meta’s draconian policies. In August 2024, Ms Kraus submitted her declaration against Zuckerberg and his team, citing that her account was banned and blocked for sharing information in alignment with Robert Kennedy Jr’s health initiative. Not only were these tactics intimidating to Kraus, but affected her livelihood and ultimately the perception Meta’s commitment to free speech and integrity.
Kraus is not the only citizen journalist interested in transparency and change. This is not the only lawsuit Meta is facing. In defense of what he knows is a crowd of dissatisfied users, Zuckerberg alleges to Rogan that the Biden administration was relentless during their time in office. The Biden team would call the Meta team screaming and cursing. Zuckerberg caved under pressure, constantly asking himself if he is the person to say what the final word is on public health? The truths of all truths? Could it possibly be him, Mark Zuckerberg, a tech billionaire with a global company that receives over 3 billion unique users each day from around the world? Or the President the United States, and his team of, um, medical professionals ? Zuck felt overwhelmed by this new pressure. It was no longer about silly memes or baby shower pictures, Meta applications were now the home to public health discord.
Despite a sour recollection of the past four years, Zuckerberg and his team are excited to welcome back President Trump. What do these formerly sparring gentlemen have in common? A vested interest in the US economy. Duh.
By now it’s understood that Trump’s alliance with Elon Musk is a relationship that will impact all of us. The influence of Musk extends past legends of Burning Man, beyond board meetings at Tesla, farther than any trip to Mars or lawsuits with Twitter. Was there a reality that didn’t include Meta, if Zuck didn’t change his tune with his greatest rival?
The bottom line is that Meta needs help managing laws overseas and it’s in Zucks best interest to comply with whoever is in charge of America. Restrictions over content online are difficult to manage on a global scale, with unchecked boundaries leading to loss of money or worse. One gentleman in Pakistan called for the death of Zuckerberg after his algorithm offered content deemed offensive and punishable under Pakistani law. In the last two decades, the EU has fined tech companies more than $30 billion, leaving a guy like Zuck vulnerable to the variety of unpredictable errors.
What fits one country, doesn’t fit another. The internet is still being born and our world leaders almost never address the internet as issues for change. Which country will go first?
According to Mark Zuckerberg, politicized conversation boils down to two categories, the first being misinformation and the second being hate speech. In a world full of online users begging to be perceived, who is to judge the validity of a statement ? What is hate speech and what is curious educated conversation? Zuckerberg points out the pressure to maintain positive discord around topics we can’t ignore. Is it hate speech to ask questions in conversations of protected categories? You know, the one about transgender inclusion in female sports.
”If it’s okay to say on the floor of congress, you should probably be able to say it on social media”
Meta’s upcoming scope of changes goes on to highlight the roll back of its fact-checking team in favor of community spaces, as well as internal changes within the Meta team as their leadership has announced a roll back of DEI programs.
The memo reads, The term "DEI" has also become charged, in part because it is understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others.
”I think at this point, we have a much more thorough understanding of what this space is. And I think our values and principles on this are likely going to be much more durable going forward. I think that is probably a good thing for the internet.”
ZUCKERBERG’S PERSONAL PHILOSOPHIES
If tech in 2025 is to America as the 1800’s were to farming, Zuckerberg ironically seems to express his personal philosophies in metaphors relating to the maintenance of his vast family ranch.
The Zuckerberg family enjoys their beautiful escape on the Hawaiian island of Kaui, where they own approximately 1,400 acres with plans for multiple buildings, an underground shelter, and facilities for ranching and agriculture.
Among their menu for harvest are pigs who “multiply quickly,” introducing Zuckerberg’s practical approach to death when solving farm problems. “We have to apply pressure to the population or else they just get overrun and threaten the birds and other wildlife.”
For a while, Mark and his wife Priscilla taught their daughters that their father ran a company called “Mark’s Meat,” joking that it’s more tangible to teach the girls about running a ranch or a farm than explaining the in’s and out’s of a billion dollar tech company.
We kill with respect, we eat their meat and we celebrate their lives, Zuck explains his parenting approach like a new age western.
With a variety of interests and skills, Zuckerberg's daily routine always includes a few hours each morning of Brazilian jiu jitsu.
“Jiu Jitsu is important because running a company will never be as scary as someone trying to choke you out.” joked Rogan.
Mark replies that in the corporate world, it can feel like you’re being choked out for months at a time.
For a sport so physically demanding, jiu jitsu is equally skillful in its demand of intellect. It’s a hobby that rounds out an otherwise awkward Zuckerberg, perhaps adding character or at the very least, a thicker neck.
In the 90’s, Rogan was doing backstage interviews at UFC and his friends said what the sport needed was “billionaires who just throw a bunch of money at it and make it huge.” Zuck laughs. They agree that it seems like the modern man exhibits an energy of having been neutered, and it makes me wonder how many times people told Zuck he seemed neutered before he started getting spray tans and showing emotion.
WATCHING ZUCK WATCH US
Anyone sharing their data with Meta should be interested in holding this team accountable, and for the apologetic rebrand Zuck is trying to achieve, I wonder if the Joe Rogan Podcast will suffice. The hair, the clothes, the new administration. For a society losing interest in the concept of traditional corporations, Zuckerberg keeps one thing alive: The necessity of being a chameleon. It’s a survival tactic, and it lacks integrity.
Spineless, inconsistent, insincere, desperate to keep his company alive even if it means doing a complete about-face in the political area, setting no standard except to be a mouthpiece, still not into you, you literally have a bunker, tuck your chain in every once in a while or try other pieces of jewelry, how are you getting away with this with just a press tour?
You silenced us and we will not forget that. Not any time soon.
In regards to Facebook’s 2020 commitment comply with Dr Fauci, we are some things left to laugh about. Kolina Koltai, a vaccine researcher at the University of Washington gave this statement to the press in 2020 , “This is one step in the correct direction but still there is much work to be done to correct the damage that has already been done.”
If you keep bouncing back and forth, Zuck, you can’t ever win.
Will Zuck’s new structure be a foundation that carries the Meta through any version of political leadership? Or will he continue to bob, weave, and restyle by request?
I watched the podcast, and throughout the entire almost three hours, I was bickering and arguing with him as if he were in the room with me while I was folding laundry and watching him lie. He spoke from both sides of his mouth. He was not prepared at all, and he still pushed that the COVID vaccines were more for the benefit of health than anything else. I think he can’t read the room, any room. He didn’t have a sense of moral standards one way or another.
His actions are still speaking, louder than his words. Bottom line until House inhabit has all of her Instagram account running completely. He’s not doing squat. Pinocchio.