Mark Zuckerberg's Harvard Commencement Speech

Overview

Mark Zuckerberg's Harvard Commencement Speech refers to a speech Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg gave to the graduating class of 2017 at Harvard University, his alma mater. Online, the event was notable for jokes made about pictures of Zuckerberg's speech and for a hack of Harvard's paper, The Crimson, which was briefly filled with puns and photoshopped images of Zuckerberg.

Background

On May 25th, 2017, Mark Zuckerberg returned to his alma mater, Harvard University, to give the commencement speech to the class of 2017 and receive an honorary degree (shown below). In the days leading up to the event, Zuckerberg toured his old dorm room on Facebook live^[1] and shared a clip of him receiving his acceptance letter.^[2]

Developments

The Crimson Hack

Hours before Zuckerberg's speech, Harvard's student paper, The Crimson, was hacked to show bizarrely edited photos of Zuckerberg and wacky headlines related to the Facebook creator (shown below). Though the site has since been cleansed of the posts, it can still be accessed via web.archive.^[7] According to New York Magazine,^[3] the hack most likely came from Harvard's satirical publication, The Harvard Lampoon. The moment was covered by Daily Dot,^[4] The Verge,^[5] and Business Insider.^[6]

Twitter Jokes

On Twitter, users joked about the speech by mocking the men sitting behind Zuckerberg, who were dressed in top hats and suits, for looking like aristocrats from the early 20th century. These jokes were covered by The Daily Dot.^[8]

Search Interest

External References