Mark Zuckerberg responds to memes calling him a robot, tells Joe Rogan that Senate hearings aren’t set up to ‘accentuate the humanity of the subject’

Loading Something is loading.

Mark Zuckerberg has fielded loads of jokes over the years, including that he resembles a robot.

The Meta CEO appeared before Congress in early 2018 and showed some stiff public speaking skills. The internet, of course, had a field day creating memes.

And Zuckerberg is aware of the jabs. He went on the “Joe Rogan Experience” recently, where the podcaster referenced the now-infamous internet joke. As the pair were wrapping up the 3-hour segment, Rogan paid Zuckerberg a compliment and said he invited him because he was interested in talking to him.

“I don’t like the way you sip water though, you sipping water at the Senate, you were sipping water like a robot,” Rogan said jokingly, before asking Zuckerberg to take a swig of the water in front of him, which he did with a smile on his face.

“The Senate testimony is not exactly an environment that is set up to accentuate the humanity of the subject,” Zuckerberg said. “If you’re up there for six or seven hours, you’re going to make some face that’s worth making a meme out of.”

Congress grilled Zuckerberg in April 2018 over privacy, trust, and the Cambridge Analytica scandal, when as many as 87 million users had their personal information misused in political ad targeting.

Many of the memes likened him to a robot, including the Data character from the “Star Trek” franchise.

Rogan also isn’t the first podcaster to jokingly bring up the robot reference. Lex Fridman in March asked Zuckerberg to complete a CAPTCHA, the image puzzles that online users are prompted to solve to prove that they’re human, not a robot. 

Zuckerberg circled all the traffic lights on a piece of paper before the two began their interview.