The Smallness of Mark Zuckerberg
And why he should not be trusted as the world’s custodian of information
Mark Zuckerberg is a small man — five foot seven, according to Google — but that is not very widely known, because the only images of him available to the public are carefully crafted to make him look taller, according to former Wired writer Graham Starr. Having once read Starr’s remarks on this subject, it becomes impossible to see photographs of the Facebook founder without also seeing the stagecraft employed in nearly every image to conceal the truth about his height.
Zuckerberg is a brand, the chief executive of one of the world’s most valuable companies, and a would-be presidential candidate. Making him look taller is important because everything about a brand and a would-be president must be crafted to evoke warmth, admiration, and good feelings so the people keep coming, keep reading, keep liking, keep paying. And eventually, someday, maybe, keep coming out to vote.
Taller people tend to win elections, they say.
So here he is in the New York Times, traveling the country, sitting way up high on a tractor in Wisconsin, a native companion looking deferentially up at him. Here he is, smiling, having quite recently decided he’s “no longer an atheist” in the Charleston church where Dylann…
