The Zuckermoon is over

• Sometime in 2023, public perception of Mark Zuckerberg warmed up.
• But the tide has turned after Meta's big fact-checking changes and Zuck's Joe Rogan appearance.
• Want proof? It's not an exact science but just look at Meta's own AI summaries on Zuckerberg.

RIP the Zuckermoon.

Thus concludes a brief window of time when Mark Zuckerberg got to enjoy a honeymoon of sorts in the public eye — when he was both cool and beloved.

As a semi-professional Zuckologist, I'd peg the start of the Zuckaissance as July 2023 when Elon Musk tried to challenge the Meta CEO to an MMA cage match, and Zuckerberg posted a shirtless (jacked) selfie. This was around the same time Threads launched. It offered a new place for people disillusioned with changes on X — and Zuckerberg himself started posting playfully there.

But the warmth of the lingering "Hot Zuck Summer" seemed to abruptly go ice cold this month when Meta announced changes to its content policies and Zuckerberg went on Joe Rogan's podcast.

Now, it seems that the new Zuck 3.0 lost some of the fans that the CEO had won over.

Still, we can't rely on just my own personal vibes-based assessment of how public perception of Zuckerberg has seemed to turn. Which is why it's great that Meta — which declined to comment on this story — has its own sentiment analysis of sorts: Meta AI, which writes summaries of the comments people make beneath Facebook posts.

Zuck's getting roasted in the comment section

Let's look at Zuckerberg's own Facebook page and the AI-generated summaries below pictures from key points in Zuck's transformation.

For instance, take this photo he posted with his wife, Priscilla Chan, on January 1:

The AI summary of the comments is largely positive — commenters, the AI says, have wished the couple a happy new year:

(Of note: I think the "daddy robe" thing may be a reference to a photo of Priscilla wearing a fashionable robe in a photo of Zuckerberg gifting her a statue of herself — itself a moment that brought a lot of positive attention for being a cool Wife Guy.)

Now let's look at a similar photo of the couple, all dressed up for the inauguration earlier this month:

Meta's AI summary of the comments beneath the photo isn't quite as kind. It says commenters accused Zuck of "selling out," among other things:

Ouch.

The evolution of Mark Zuckerberg's image

I ask you now to think purely about Mark Zuckerberg's public image, not the realities of the human or the nuances of the company.

For a long time, public perception of Zuckerberg was focused on him being awkward and robotic, with his closely cropped hair and nervous mannerisms, like the widely memed 2018 congressional hearings where he appeared impossibly parched.

Sometime in the spring of 2023, things changed. Zuckerberg started posting more relaxed, personal things to Facebook and Instagram. He seemed to even be having fun on his new platform, Threads.

You know the rest — his new hairdo, hobbies, physique, and clothes all made him look like a fun, cool guy. He wore custom shirts with his own name! Someone paid $40,000 for his used chain! He seemed self-aware with a sense of humor about himself. And compared to his fellow tech billionaires, Zuckerberg seemed, frankly, pretty normal.

Whether his personal image shift was purely self-propelled or shaped by some of Meta's PR people or other advisors, we'll never know and are free to make our guesses. It's true that his PR people have some control over his public output, but it's also worth noting that he routinely has gone over their heads to post things they didn't want him to, like posting a joke about surfing in the midst of a scandal.

We know from emails that former Meta board member Peter Thiel advised him not to act like a boomer-pleasing millennial (like cringey Pete Buttigieg) and instead present himself in a way that would be embraced by his age-group peers. Whether that advice played into his sartorial choices, we can only guess.

Whether purely organic or not, the image makeover worked.

It also helped that during this time, Meta was enjoying a nice moment: record profits and a respite from any major public controversies.

That is, until now.

Controversial new policies at Meta lost him some fans

The decision to get rid of the fact-checking program and replace it with community notes and new loosened rules on speech on controversial topics, like allowing slurs for transgender people, rubbed some people the wrong way.

Changes at Meta itself, like removing tampons from the men's room in its corporate offices, didn't go over so well with all employees. And then there was Zuckerberg's appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast where he spoke about a desire for more "masculine energy," which raised more eyebrows.

All of this has seemed to lead to at least some of the people who had warmed up to Zuckerberg over the last couple years now starting to get the ick.

Now, to be clear, we need to put this possible vibe shift on Zuckerberg in context: There have always been millions — billions! — of people around the world who love and admire Mark Zuckerberg.

There are still big fans today — some people in the US were thrilled by Meta's CEO aligning himself more with the Trump administration.

And although some people made gestures toward quitting Meta platforms over the recent changes — Zuckerberg called that "virtue-signaling" — there's been no real dent to the company.

It's entirely possible that after a while, the recent news cycle will be forgotten and people will go back to enjoying his relatable Wife Guy antics.