Mark Zuckerberg, the baron of Facebook and the father of social media, took some time outside of his busy wall-building schedule to speak at the graduation at his old stomping grounds, Harvard University. On a day where Hillary Clinton delivered another speech not too far in Wellesley, Zuck broke out of his completely relatable shell to bond with the students and their concerns about the future.
Jack Allison documented some of the funny, awkward, and just downright cringeworthy highlights of the commencement. In which, Zuckerberg tapped into the Democratic platform of invoking Nobel Peace Prize nominees J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter, and added some slay queen tactics:
he wins the democratic primary guaranteed pic.twitter.com/EAQJfIY4y5
— jack allison (@jackallisonLOL) May 26, 2017
How about the godfather of likes and pokes teaching us two different pronunciations of “David”?
hahahahaha he is so bad at this pic.twitter.com/iNBFjEHDr6
— jack allison (@jackallisonLOL) May 26, 2017
The noted former atheist explaining the importance of church communities to the Harvard faithful:
on “communities” pic.twitter.com/0RCm6nYbbR
— jack allison (@jackallisonLOL) May 26, 2017
These highlights don’t mean that the message, or the messenger, didn’t have some great points to drive home.
Some other class-defining moments (from the speech transcript in the Harvard Gazette):
“Let’s face it. There is something wrong with our system when I can leave here and make billions of dollars in 10 years while millions of students can’t afford to pay off their loans, let alone start a business.”
Actually, that’s called capitalism — the system that rewards individuals with great timing and ingenuity.
“How about stopping climate change before we destroy the planet and getting millions of people involved manufacturing and installing solar panels? How about modernizing democracy so everyone can vote online, and personalizing education so everyone can learn?”
This won’t exactly play well with conservatives (including myself) that believes the planet is constantly changing anyway, and looking for voter ID laws.
Surprisingly though, Zuckerberg espoused, and has lived, many conservative values — including the valuable weight of family and religion. He has been with the same woman (as far as public knowledge goes), Priscilla Chan, since they met at Harvard in 2003 and married in 2012. As mentioned above, Zuckerberg is a former atheist, who in a comment on a Christmas/Hanukkah post said he has seen the importance of religion, and sings a line from the Jewish prayer Mi Shebeirach to his daughter every night: “May the source of strength, who blessed the ones before us, help us find the courage to make our lives a blessing.”
Plus, let’s not forget the idea Zuckerberg had for a social media network, that went on the free market and turned into an empire.
Hopefully the Class of 2017 can take the conservative lessons from his life, and the story of The Social Network as a whole, and turn them into meaningful purpose in their own lives — as was the point of the speech. Or, they can take the excellent line Zuckerberg used to flirt with Chan:
“I had just launched this prank website Facemash, and the ad board wanted to ‘see me.’ Everyone thought I was going to get kicked out. My parents came to help me pack. My friends threw me a going away party. As luck would have it, Priscilla was at that party with her friend. We met in line for the bathroom in the Pfoho Belltower, and in what must be one of the all time romantic lines, I said: ‘I’m going to get kicked out in three days, so we need to go on a date quickly.’ Actually, any of you graduating can use that line.”
