Culture

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Says He ‘Was Human’ in Viral Video

Despite the comment, Zuckerberg maintains that he is, in fact, still human now.

Getty Images / Paul Marotta

Mark Zuckerberg wants you to know that he’s 100 percent human. A clip of the Facebook CEO giving advice to a high school student was uploaded to YouTube on Friday, where he tells an audience that he was human, before correcting himself to clarify that he still is.

“You kind of need to remind yourself that you need to focus and try not to let stuff bother you as much as possible, but it is going to bother you because you’re human,” Zuckerberg said. “I was human. I am human, still. But, um, but I was just referring to myself in the past. Not that I was not human.”

The clip was shared on the “videos” section of Reddit on Sunday, where, by time of writing, it had been upvoted more than 7,000 times.

“Logically explaining why you said you’re not a human is the best way to reassure people that you’re a human,” said Reddit user lulz.

The clip was taken from a Q&A session hosted at Facebook’s headquarters back in 2014. Zuckerberg was responding to a question from East Palo Alto eighth-grade high school student Melissa Gomez, who asked how he got past obstacles to reach his current position.

Watch the clip below:

Zuckerberg has something of a reputation for awkward public appearances. In a 2010 interview, an incredibly nervous Zuckerberg was asked about privacy on Facebook, an issue the social media platform has come under fire for. His tour across the United States to meet regular Americans has led to speculation he’s laying the groundwork for a presidential bid. A virtual reality tour to Puerto Rico earlier this month, where Zuckerberg demonstrated the technology in front of images of the hurricane’s aftermath, was labelled “heartless.”

During a Q&A last year, he responded to a question posted in the live video’s comment asking if he was “secretly a lizard”:

“I’m going to have to go with no on that,” Zuckerberg said. “I am not a lizard. But keep the high quality comments coming in, this is surely on track to be a great live Q&A if we continue getting stuff at that level of quality.”