And so, for a few hours Thursday, at least, people were talking about Zuckerberg — not as an all-powerful CEO 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.
Sweet Baby Ray's has become enmeshed in company lore ever since Zuckerberg made his love for the sauce known on a 2016 livestream video that has been memed into oblivion. In weekly companywide Q&A sessions with employees, references to the barbecue sauce sometimes come up along with other inside jokes, including the CEO'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, Zuckerberg posted a photo of a grocery store sale of his favourite barbecue sauce, calling it "my kind of deal".
The Sweet Baby Ray's cameo in Thursday's presentation was worth more than US$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, Zuckerberg appeared at a desk with a bottle of sunscreen sitting atop it and a surfboard leaning against the wall behind him.
The objects were a callback to a photo that circulated last year of Zuckerberg on the high seas in Hawaii, his face covered in a heavy helping of zinc sunscreen while riding a motorised hydrofoil.
That photograph, 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, 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," 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 whistleblower, a company name change and a few jokes are unlikely to erase Meta's past. But they may help undermine the public perception that 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," Zuckerberg quipped.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
