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Mark Zuckerberg Got a Bit Meta in His Meta Presentation

Amid a massive company pivot, a monthlong press cycle and increasing calls for regulation, Mark Zuckerberg wants everyone to know he has a sense of humor.

In an 80-minute keynote presentation announcing his company’s name change — from Facebook to Meta — and a shift away from traditional social networking, the 37-year-old chief executive made sure to insert a longstanding gag that his employees and followers would appreciate: a bottle of barbecue sauce.

Eagle-eyed watchers knew that this wasn’t just any condiment standing on the bookshelf behind Mr. Zuckerberg. It was Sweet Baby Ray’s, the tangy grocery store staple that’s been elevated to meme status ever since the Facebook founder mentioned it in a now infamous 2016 video at least 11 times while “smoking meats” in his backyard. He was poking fun at himself.

While Mr. Zuckerberg has struggled to make himself seem empathetic and relatable, he and his army of press handlers seem to have figured out that a little self-deprecation goes a long way in making a man worth $116 billion look a bit more normal. They’ve made a yearslong effort to rehabilitate his image — one that’s been defined by onstage meltdowns, weird declarations and constant company crises. Just like his company, Mr. Zuckerberg seems keen to leave the past behind.

And so, for a few hours on Thursday, at least, people were talking about Mr. Zuckerberg — not as an all-powerful C.E.O. whose company has provided a platform to undermine elections, spread misinformation and incite violence, but as a pretty cool guy.

A Meta spokesperson declined to comment for this article.

A surfboard and a bottle of sunscreen that appeared in the presentation referenced a viral image of Mr. Zuckerberg surfing in Hawaii in 2020.Credit…Meta

Sweet Baby Ray’s has become enmeshed in company lore ever since Mr. Zuckerberg made his love for the sauce known on a 2016 livestream video that has been memed into oblivion. In weekly companywide Q. and A. sessions with employees, references to the barbecue sauce sometimes come up along with other inside jokes, including the chief executive’s love for McDonald’s spicy chicken nuggets and his obsession with owning goats.

In April, amid a larger effort to shift his posting away from addressing accusations about the company’s role in spreading misinformation and hate speech, Mr. Zuckerberg posted a photo of a grocery store sale of his favorite barbecue sauce, calling it “my kind of deal.”

The Sweet Baby Ray’s cameo in Thursday’s presentation was worth more than $2 million in media mentions within 24 hours, according to Apex Marketing Group, a brand consulting firm based outside of Detroit. (A Sweet Baby Ray’s spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.)

That wasn’t the only Easter egg that Face— er, Meta stuck in the presentation.

At one point in the stream, Mr. Zuckerberg appeared at a desk with a bottle of sunscreen sitting atop it and a surfboard leaning against the wall behind him.

Understand the Facebook Papers


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A tech giant in trouble. The leak of internal documents by a former Facebook employee has provided an intimate look at the operations of the secretive social media company and renewed calls for better regulations of the company’s wide reach into the lives of its users.

How it began. In September, The Wall Street Journal published The Facebook Files, a series of reports based on leaked documents. The series exposed evidence that Facebook, which on Oct. 28 assumed the corporate name of Meta, knew Instagram, one of its products was worsening body-image issues among teenagers.

The whistle-blower. During an interview with “60 Minutes” that aired Oct. 3, Frances Haugen, a Facebook product manager who left the company in May, revealed that she was responsible for the leak of those internal documents.

Ms. Haugen’s testimony in Congress. On Oct. 5, Ms. Haugen testified before a Senate subcommittee, saying that Facebook was willing to use hateful and harmful content on its site to keep users coming back. Facebook executives, including Mark Zuckerberg, called her accusations untrue.

The Facebook Papers. Ms. Haugen also filed a complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission and provided the documents to Congress in redacted form. A congressional staff member then supplied the documents, known as the Facebook Papers, to several news organizations, including The New York Times.

New revelations. Documents from the Facebook Papers show the degree to which Facebook knew of extremist groups on its site trying to polarize American voters before the election. They also reveal that internal researchers had repeatedly determined how Facebook’s key features amplified toxic content on the platform.

The objects were a callback to a photo that circulated last year of Mr. Zuckerberg on the high seas in Hawaii, his face covered in a heavy helping of zinc sunscreen while riding a motorized hydrofoil.

That photograph, Mr. Zuckerberg later said in an Instagram Live video, was an attempt to hide from paparazzi. It had the opposite effect.

Following a demonstration of Meta’s planned expansion into video games, Mr. Zuckerberg made a verbal nod to his lathered up face: A gaming opponent, in the video, asks if he wants to play again. “Maybe later,” Mr. Zuckerberg replies. “I’m going to need a lot more sunscreen, though.”

As outlets continue to publish stories based on thousands of leaked documents from a company whistle-blower, a company name change and a few jokes are unlikely to erase Meta’s past. But they may help undermine the public perception that Mr. Zuckerberg can’t take a little ribbing.

In one part of Thursday’s presentation, his avatar tried to sit down to a virtual card game with a group of friends. One of them had chosen their digital presence to be a robot.

“I thought I was supposed to be the robot,” Mr. Zuckerberg quipped.

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