How Mark, the beta geek got a meta makeover
Who’s had a makeover?
Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg.
What’s he done?
His new nickname ‘Mark Zuckerbeard’ might give you a clue.
So he’s sprouted facial hair. Big deal. Find me a clean-shaven man in 2024.
Mark Zuckerberg!
But you just said he’d grown a beard.
I didn’t – I said he’d had a makeover. The beard wasn’t real.
Sorry, Mark Zuckerberg has started wearing a false beard?
It all began late last month in the run-up to Meta’s first-quarter earnings report.
Must have been bad if he had to disguise himself.
Details of the expected ad revenue growth have already been forgotten. The headline news was the Meta CEO announced it online wearing a hipster silver chain.
But…
Stay with me. He’d also grown his hair. The tousled look was more skater boy than Silicon Valley.
But…
I’m getting to the beard. One X/Twitter fan was so inspired by this newly cool Zuckerberg that they doctored his image to give him designer stubble.
Meta morphosis: Zuck before and after AI
Was the AI beard well received?
People loved it! Even Gwyneth Paltrow pitched in.
What did Gwynnie say?
‘He looks like my ex-hubs [Chris Martin] in this pic’, wrote the Goop founder. Other X users were a little more direct.
Come on, then (we shall dissect ‘ex-hubs’ another time)...
‘I’ll give him more than just my data,’ promised one. ‘I’d zuck him,’ offered another.
They want to ‘zuck’ the nerdy guy who famously wears the same grey T-shirt every day?
That was 2014 Zuckerberg. The 2024 incarnation does mixed martial arts with his top off and likes to go all Yellowstone in a shearling coat.
Oh, we’re fine with men curating their appearances now, are we?
I wouldn’t necessarily say that – there’s curation and curation. Barbie star Ryan Gosling’s newly puffed-up face has been raising eyebrows (not least, his).
You mean he’s had fillers?
That’s what people are saying as he promotes his film The Fall Guy.
Well, he clearly doesn’t want his face to go the same way.
Try telling that to the fans. ‘I am asking you nicely with the most love in my heart: please dissolve your cheek filler’ begged one on X. ‘I need to have a word with whoever did Ryan Gosling’s filler,’ posted another.
Hang on… cosmetic intervention is out, but curated facial hair is fine?
Unless you’re Donald Trump.
There’s no way he’s grown a beard!
No, but observers reckon he’s had a deep-plane facelift.
Maybe they feel Fall Guy Gosling has further to fall in the looks department.
Possibly, but whatever Trump is doing doesn’t seem to be diminishing his appeal. ‘Top-notch facelift, he’s not playing around this election,’ was typical of the responses to recent photos.
Where are we at with his man-tan?
Mid to dark mahogany, enhanced – thinks one X commentator – by ‘Maybelline mousse foundation’.
What's Ryan been guzzling?
Are you suggesting that overt man make-up is now acceptable?
It is according to new Swedish venture Obayaty, which has just launched in Selfridges on the men’s floor.
Is that really going to catch on?
‘The beauty landscape for men is still significantly underdeveloped,’ the brand’s co-founder Lajjo Strand told The Times.
Round my way the men’s lipstick landscape is a deserted wasteland.
That’s because men don’t want lipstick.
What do they want, then?
Concealer, it appears, and a lot of eyebrow tamers.
Maybe the Meta CEO could think about investing in this nascent market.
In which case, I’m calling his next online moniker before anyone else does.
Go on...
Mark Zuckerbrows.