Smoked Meats - DESKTOP

Mark Zuckerberg had big plans for Facebook Live. When the live-video streaming feature of Facebook launched in 2015, ol’ Zuck—disruptor of worlds, connector of randos—was playing catch-up against competitors like Twitch, Periscope, and Youtube, which were already letting users stream gaming sessions, street protests, and death-defying jumps from space.

So Zuckerberg did what he could to close the gap between Facebook's new product and that of his competitors: he threw a bunch of money around to publishers and internet celebrities in exchange for videos of exploding fruit and drying paint, while livestreaming videos himself in an effort to show how the app could be used to connect with people around the world. Many of the early moments of Facebook Live are lost in the mists of internet time, especially as the meme cycle grows ever shorter. But one moment sticks out, and it came straight from the top. Smoking meats, baby. I’m talking smoked meats.

Two years ago this week, Mark Zuckerberg donned a purple T-shirt—forgoing his usual grey because "weekends are for fun"—mustered his best impression of a human being, and hit that publish button, going Live for all the world to see. Over the next 32 minutes, he utters the word “meats” thirteen times, each with a delivery as animated as a slab of brisket thudding down on his butcher’s counter. Ever the product placer, Zuckerberg name-drops Sweet Baby Ray’s sauce 10 times, and plugs his two smokers, a Big Green Egg and a Horizon Smoker. He calls out the names of the video's commenters, reading their questions and salutations, his monotone failing to distinguish when he's quoting a fan or responding to one.

Throughout it all, Zuckerberg stares, wide-eyed and nearly unblinking, into the screen, somehow never actually making eye contact with 100,000 viewers at once. It’s painful to watch. We couldn’t look away. The video was an instant hit. The best memes are a little bit weird and thrive on repetition, and Zuckerberg’s ritualistic incantation of the word “meats” only serves to make the viewer or reader uncomfortable and curious at the same time. It made us hungry. In the intervening years, the live event was meme-ified, chopped and screwed, remixed and auto-tuned into a song, and most importantly, edited to only include references to smoking meats. But the edits removed perhaps the most interesting parts of the video, the parts that lift the curtain to show private life and how the demand for constant contact can affect that private life. In the unedited version, we see his wife, Priscilla Chan, toting around the couple’s baby as she becomes vaguely annoyed with her husband’s insistence on livestreaming their Sunday afternoon.

When his friends show up, in the form of Harvard classmate Joe Green and fellow entrepreneur Sam Lessin, the comparison between the nervous, asocial Zuckerberg and his affable pals shows anyone watching just how stilted Zuckerberg can be. By streaming his everyday interactions, Zuckerberg makes clear that live video has the power to inadvertently broadcast unpleasant truths about the live streamer’s life. It’s unpleasant to watch.

But ultimately, Zuck’s live foray into the joys of smoked meats provides us with a portal to a simpler time, for Facebook viewers and for Zuckerberg himself. Before the world knew about Facebook’s complicity in the Cambridge Analytica data scandal; before Facebook Live became infamous for livestreamed snuff films; before they lost our data; before he was dragged before Congress, Zuckerberg’s biggest concern was, for the moment, to popularize his pet project—Facebook Live—by sharing his real passion: smokin’ meats.

Zuckerberg’s monologue is punctuated by inexplicable laughter, nervous gulps, and—most surprising for a supposed barbecue nerd and proud owner of not one but two smokers—a shocking admission of ignorance about the basic tenets of smoked meats, including that he wasn’t aware of regional variations in barbecue.

"meats" Counter:

That time Mark Zuckerberg invited all of Facebook to the most awkward backyard cookout in history. The internet thanks you from the bottom of its dark, viral heart.

Get more stunning visual stories every week.

Internet Gold

"meats" Counter:

"MEATS"

Words by Noah Hurowitz Design by Martin Flores

You'll love our take on his apology for the infamous facebook data breach. Click here to check it out

Like Zucc?