Plus: lead contamination and budgeting issues are plaguing SF Bay Area schools.
Mark Zuckerberg is lonesome — perhaps an all too fitting allegory on the loneliness epidemic affecting men, predominantly those who identify as heterosexual. His 40th birthday was an embarrassment and proved he’s surrounded by “yes” people, and his all-in on the Metasphere, the virtual reality space Meta inflated during the pandemic as the next major shift in digital life, reeks of hollowness.
In a recent interview posted by YouTuber Dwarkesh Patel, Zuckerberg shares a statistic that’s… well, off base.
“There’s this stat that I always think is crazy,” Zuckerberg says in a clip that’s now gone viral on X. “The average American, I think, I think it’s fewer than three friends. Three people that they consider friends.” He continues, stumbling: “And the average person has a demand for meaningfully more. I think it’s like 15 friends or something, right?”
The clip, which has now been viewed almost 17 million times as of publishing, comes across as a rare, albeit unintentional, slip into Zuckerberg’s personal life. The billionaire CEO, whose dryness and inhumane-like qualities shone in the 2010 film The Social Network, appears yearning, rather than factual. His failure to fit friendship into a quantifiable metric serves as a stark reminder of the vapid, hollow, uselessness of the shallow connections his products support. And yet, it’s what he’s synonymous with: doomscrolling and robbing of quality time spent with friends, IRL.
The fact that he’s purporting is, coincidentally enough, wrong and less grim. Most people have between three and five close friends — people in one’s social life that they hold great amounts of trust, affection, and gratitude for — but have tens more friends, i.e, more casual relationships that might be void of deep connections, though remain valuable and welcoming.
Zuckerberg’s inability to represent that fact correctly— or, perhaps, unconscious misunderstanding of said fact — reads lonesome.
God forbid his AI-driven future becomes commonplace, here’s hoping we can migrate over with our five or so close friends we met … you know … by existing in the real world.
What else transpired over the weekend? Let’s take a look.
- President Donald Trump’s plan to open Alcatraz Prison gives off a “where is the adult in the room” kind of vibe. America’s most unlike president wants to move the nation’s most vile criminals to the still-defunct federal prison on Alcatraz Island, never mind it would cost millions to update and spell disaster for migratory birds that call the island home. More info.
- San Francisco could see a teacher shortage next year. The San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) is freezing its teacher hiring initiatives for the 2025 to 2026 school year amid budget deficits; coalitions have received backing to protest SFUSD’s freeze on new teacher hires, and the school district has yet to explain how the freeze will affect San Francisco public schools. More info.
- A [$300,000] Lamborghini was found flipped in Santa Cruz. A 2023 Lamborghini Huracan, the italian sports car maker responsible for poster cars of the ‘80s, was found by California Highway Patrol (CHP) in Santa Cruz Sunday; CHP noted that the occupants only suffered minor injuries and wrote the car’s worth was $400,000, but Huracans of that year topped out at the low $300,000s. More info.
- (Not so) fun fact: Oakland schools’ tap water has traces of lead. Oakland high school students are rallying to call the school district to fix the lead-contaminated drinking water found in their schools; similar efforts have begun in SF’s Bayview-Hunters Point and the Mission amid discoveries of lead contaminants found in drinking systems. More info.
