Why Mark Zuckerberg’s style transformation worked.

Mark Zuckerberg looks different. The social media mogul is dressed to the nines in a sequined jacket patterned like tin ceiling tiles. At the bottom, his black button-down shirt is missing more than a few buttons, revealing tastefully manicured chest hair and a thick gold chain adorning his neck. His shirt fits neatly into tight, pleated white wide-leg trousers – without a belt, of course. On his head are loose curls, messy enough to be neat, neat enough to befit an industrial titan.

This outfit was a costume for a disco-themed birthday party, the Meta co-founder and CEO hosted his wife Priscilla Chan. (Happy birthday, Priscilla.) But if you’ve seen images of Zuckerberg in the past year, you know this isn’t abnormal: At the funky-fresh age of 40, the former boy wonder has embraced a style transformation and mood makeover . His newfound flamboyance is part of a charm offensive after years of being Silicon Valley’s dumbest face, if not its most demonized figurehead.

This isn’t the first makeover Zuckerberg has been a part of in recent years. In 2021, Zuckerberg’s company Facebook changed its name to Meta, an embrace of a science fiction concept called the metaverse. The idea was simple: soon, more of our Internet will exist in virtual or augmented reality, and Zuckerberg wanted to build the ecosystem for it, just as Apple and Steve Jobs had built the software ecosystem for the mobile Internet.

A digitally rendered avatar of Zuckerberg appeared in Meta’s new world, wearing a cropped, long-sleeved Henley T-shirt – a look that could only change if Right learned to code. Meta also desperately needed to revamp its brand after years of massive criticism from journalists, civil rights advocates and global regulators angry about a litany of issues: privacy violations, deliberately addictive technology, widespread misinformation and the use of Facebook as a tool for genocide in Myanmar. . The Metaverse still hasn’t taken off despite Meta’s repeated attempts, and the company has focused mainly on talking about artificial intelligence as the future, just like any other tech company. In the distant future you will be able to buy large augmented reality glasses from Meta that will match Zuckerberg’s new style just because they look downright ridiculous– something SpongeBob SquarePants could wear to the club.

Around the time of the Facebook Meta Transformation, Zuckerberg not only looked terrible in avatar form, but also in real life.

But Zuckerberg hit rock bottom when the paparazzi photographed him in Hawaii riding an electric surfboard with his bubble butt out and his face lathered – absolutely caked – with bright white zinc oxide sunscreen. An instant meme – and not the good kind.

In his 80-minute presentation in 2021 announce that Facebook had gone Meta, Zuckerberg and his army of PR professionals saved some Easter eggs in the background of his keynote. Most notable was a bottle of Sweet Baby Ray’s tucked away on a bookshelf, a reference to perhaps the earliest example of Zuckerberg’s attempt to relate to his fellow man. Before the pandemic and just a few years into fatherhood, Zuck livestreamed himself live on Facebook in a purple T-shirt and a Supercuts-quality haircut as he smoked meat with his friends, repeatedly saying: called obsessive that he was going to lather the barbecue ribs and brisket with Sweet Baby Ray sauce. Later in the address, as he sits at a desk, a surfboard and a bottle of sunscreen hang on the wall behind him. These details almost seemed like an admission that he was in on the joke, or at least that his lameness was ending along with the company’s.

In recent years, Zuckerberg has started working out, feeling better and participating jiujitsu tournaments. He has started to get dressed oversized designer T-shirts, massive sheepskin coatsand a slim suit with dragonflies on it – with matching dragonfly shoes.

Zuck’s style switch works. He suddenly feels more human, more relatable and – yes – in on the joke that he’s a more than slightly ridiculous figure.

But maybe Zuckerberg’s metamorphosis is only working because he’s no longer the most vilified person in Silicon Valley. The ire of Zuckerberg’s fiercest critics is now focused on Elon Musk, the SpaceX and Tesla boss who took over Twitter, renamed it campaign for Donald Trump.

Disgruntled Twitter users have flocked to Zuckerberg’s copycat platform, Threads, seemingly forgiving him for a lifetime of social ills in the process, proving that it’s exhausting to loathe multiple tech czars for multiple reasons. Plus Musk’s shirtless paparazzi photos are completely nauseating, so maybe he has the Zuckerberg sunburn photo.

And so Zuckerberg’s dad-chic couture is endearing. Because we don’t hate him anymore, I guess. The rebranding worked.