“So, are you Zuck or Cuck?”
I’d barely hit the five-minute mark at the Zuck Rave when a girl lobbed that question my way.
I hadn’t drunk enough of my “Zucker Punch” — a $10, cherry-red mix of tequila and fruit juice, bitter and sweet in all the wrong ways — to give a proper answer. Which, on a meta level, was fitting for this half-ironic, half-earnest tribute to “the man, the meme, the myth,” to quote the invitation for San Francisco’s first Mark Zuckerberg-themed rave.
Roughly 90 people packed into a warehouse loft in SoMa for the party Friday night. They danced around a Zuckerberg piñata, sipped tea while seated on cushions surrounded by giant paintings of headless women, blasted their way through Sonic levels in the VIP room, rode an electric train in circles, and even gyrated with giant pandas.
Behind the dance floor, a live AI-augmented app transformed partygoers’ faces into the Meta CEO’s likeness, an immersive experience courtesy of the Fuzzy Place artist collective.
The rave was the brainchild of Pat Santiago, 27, cofounder of Accelr8 — a hacker house co-living startup that launched last year. “I’ve been in SF for six months, and I stopped going to networking events because they all felt so stuffy and insincere,” he said. “The idea was to make events people would find fun, where they could dance and chat to people. No name tags required.”
They’re not Zuck-stans, he added: “We’re poking fun at the meme … leaning into the metaverse irony.” If people need to blow off steam, they can smack the Zuck piñata, he added.
The real Zuckerberg has undergone a massive rebranding in recent years, from beloved but stammering sweaty nerd in gray tees and sunscreen face to unapologetic, bulked up jiu-jitsu bro in designer drip. His glow-up goes hand in hand with his shifting policies and political maneuvers, including cutting DEI initiatives and fact-checkers and publicly praising Trump’s supposed bad-assery.
Last week the CEO announced he was laying off 5% of Meta staff — an estimated 3,600 workers — only to announce a week later that execs’ bonus plans included a 200% salary bump. A Pew Research Center study published this month reported that 76% of Democrats view Zuck negatively — a significant stat in a city where 85% lean blue.
“It’s definitely something ironic, like, it’s not a celebration of his character,” said Dillon Tiu, a 28-year-old software engineer, of the Zuck Rave.
A 30-something guy who declined to share his name said his first day at Meta was two days away. “Do I like Zuck? I guess I have to now,” he said. “I’m excited to be at a big company after working at a dysfunctional startup.”
“This actually seems like a legit party scene. … People aren’t aggressively networking,” said Mark, a 48-year-old system engineer working on an AI estate sales startup who declined to share his last name. He was intrigued by the theme. “I guess it’s Zuckerberg’s arc to turn from weird reptilian to jiu-jitsu’s gold-chain tech bro,” he said. “Perhaps [that’s] symbolic of a shift in the zeitgeist of the whole nation.”
For all the vitriol Zuckerberg gets, we can’t forget his impact on social connection, Mark added. Yes, social media are blamed for making us more isolated, but “previously you’d leave high school, move out of town, and everyone you knew would disappear,” he said. “Zuck got so many people connected. … Facebook systematically changed everyone’s understanding of connection.
“I’ve never trusted him,” he added, “but I’m glad he’s coming into his main character phase.”
Grace Ling, 27 — founder of Design Buddies, a community boasting more than 2 million design pros — felt the rave could have pushed its theme further. “It’s a fun tech party … not necessarily a Zuck party,” she said.
She tries to stay away from politics, she said, but Instagram has been a pivotal part of her content-creator career. “I love social media, and I love what he’s created,” Ling said of Zuckerberg. “It helped me quit my corporate job. Zuck probably has bigger, more fancy parties to go to than this, but I think he’d be cool with it and would probably love to join.”
“Zuckerberg’s always been divisive,” said Jonathan Chiang, 34, the SoMa-based founder of a decentralized healthcare data startup. “There’s always people that want to chase after him, because he’s a billionaire, but I think that you have to take ownership from the successes and the failures … that kinda gets swept under the rug.”
Then again, Zuck’s recent corporate moves have not wowed him. “He bought WhatsApp and Instagram and hired a lot of engineers,” Chiang said. “Like, if you didn’t buy them, you’re fucking useless right now. Also, what the fuck is the metaverse, what is Oculus?”
Plus, fakery is endemic on Instagram, he added, questioning the validity of his own 328,000 followers. “Who knows how many of those are even real?” Chiang said. “I’m living in the Meta Zuckerverse, and it’s the fugazi.”
Partygoers take a train ride to nowhere. | Source: Niki Williams for The Standard
Screenwriter Adam Pachter, 54, from Boston, summed it up bluntly: “I thought Zuck sucks, but I already had a ticket.”
Pachter, who scored his entry as a twofer at the GenAI Tech Pitch Roast comedy show at Manny’s, added, “I like the Zucker Punch about as much as I like him, which isn’t much.”
He didn’t always feel this way, he said. “My impression of Zuck changed wildly when he bent the knee and kissed the ass of Trump,” he said. “Going from banning Trump or restricting his access because he was inciting an insurrection to giving him a million dollars to be front row at his inauguration … that’s a huge difference.”
By the time I left, around 1:30 a.m., the piñata was still dangling, untouched — a reminder that, despite all the angst, the animosity wasn’t strong enough to warrant violent stick-swinging.
Santiago was pleased with how things went and is already brainstorming his next rave. (He also throws ice cream socials, cornhole parties, and hot pot nights.) “I’m thinking maybe a WeWork, Adam Neumann-themed rave,” he said.