On Being Mean to Mark
A reader reacts to my recent astrological profile on the tiny tech titan. And I respond.
Several weeks ago with Mark Zuckerberg: Trouble Child, I published a close read on the new ruler of the metaverse’s horoscope. In addition to the post’s comments, I also received personal emails from readers who did not want their identity associated publically with their impressions, grievances, and fears related to Zuckerberg. As a public figure, Zuckerberg provokes dislike and mistrust on epic levels. Once he was only a pariah with teens, but now adults are struggling to find an escape from his platform’s roach motel. Which makes the irony and desperation of the 2 billion+ remaining users all the more troubling. One thoughtful comment, to my original article, provoked a lengthy response from me, which I’m sharing here.
Going to be the contrarian here; there are plenty of accolades.
Not that I deny your analysis, but my astrological take has always been that energy is neither positive nor negative. The outcome depends on how it’s directed.
There is no mention of the positive potential this chart offers. I wonder how the interpretation would be if the chart was blindly presented without knowing to whom it belonged? I find you are so condescending here that I wonder if you are trying to make the shoe fit the foot.
Now don’t make [it] wrong, I’m not a Zuck fan and I rarely post or follow FB. In fact, I’ve frequently jested that I don’t need to see a picture of your dinner plate.
Curiously, I checked for other notables both 5/14/84, and only found 2 soccer players. I thought to do so because my daughter was born nearly the same day and time as Beyoncé, but other than being modestly successful by comparison, she has no musical nor performance characteristics. However, that doesn’t mean the astrology is invalid.
Michael, K.
Hi Michael
Thank you for your metered and noteworthy comment. You present some intriguing points. I’ll address some of them.
We are on the same page regarding a chart’s contents being neither negative nor positive. And for this reason, I avoid traditional astrology and its nutty array of techniques for interpretation. All of those erstwhile rules and laws, many of them tainted with patriarchal toxicity.
Having followed Zuckerberg’s meteoric rise to becoming one of the most powerful individuals on the planet, I’ve weighed, during the past 16 years, carefully, the ‘fruits of his labors’—and they’ve always come up wanting. Or rotten.
Here was a young man bestowed with a tremendous amount of influence and capital, with the potential to do fantastic creative works for the culture, and instead, he treated the denizens of his newfangled network as chattel and chumps.
When asked, some years back, how he was able to start acquiring so much personal data from his users, his response was: “They trust me—dumb fucks.”
His mercenary drive for the top—mirrored uncannily in the components I’ve highlighted in his chart, is both freakishly impressive and grotesque.
Impressive in how the network effect occurred almost overnight on FB, and grotesque in the myriad ways it was instantly, almost gleefully, abused and monetized—but with the zeal that a sociopath feels when pulling one over on another ‘mark’.
Zuckerberg fetishizes the most personal components of people’s lives—their births and deaths—breakups and breakdowns—and then hoards all of those confessions, billions and billions of them, in some underground salt mine in Utah (again, weird, Edgar Allan Poe-ish distortions of the Taurus/Scorpio polarity). As a shrink friend of mine said recently, “That is so ill.”
He is our generation’s Charles Foster Kane. And most likely on his way to becoming our next Howard Hughes. He’s also the incubus who whispered in George Orwell’s ear and made him a prophet. I see very little ‘positivity’ in any of this. Only bleakness. And through that prejudice, I unpacked his horoscope.
So as regards all of the above, a deep dive—to locate and study those freakish underpinnings—was unavoidable. I couldn’t not explore the shady mercenary behavior. And help articulate the markers for the reader.
I believe I did this in a generous way by attempting to understand the psychodynamic aspects of his childhood that fostered such a tragic expression of his personal power. I believe I called them “heartbreaking.”
You note: “There is no mention of the positive potential this chart offers.”
I agree, but not for want of trying.
I’ve only experienced Zuckerberg, again, by his actions—and I’ve yet to see any of his business decisions and endowments to the culture in a positive light.
Even his ‘non-profit foundation’ is another business bauble that’s used as a crowbar to crack and dodge his corporation’s tax obligations.
Too, he (and his wife) are the last persons I’d want overseeing my health care, given that that sort of care would involve robots, Oculus headgear, and nanoparticles injected into my bloodstream as another way of monitoring my every move (and the purchases I make online).
This is not a soul who understands generosity. Nor the beauty of the social contract. Every undulation within his Taurus/Scorpio teeter-totter is some rendition of a quid pro quo.
You ask: “I wonder how the interpretation would be if the chart was blindly presented without knowing to whom it belonged?”
Yes, of course. But then it could be the chart of a chicken. I never ever work with horoscopes that are disconnected from their owners.
I’m sure this is done and it’s an intriguing exercise for some astrologers, but I’m too lazy and don’t have the time.
As I tell my students, you learn astrology not from horoscopes but from observing, studying, and receiving impressions from the living being to whom the chart mirrors—is part and parcel of.
Ultimately they are inseparable and once this is understood, miles of terrain (and learning) is covered in a short amount of distance and time.
Love,
The most interesting thing to me is how people did not want to be publicly identified with their opinions about MZ. I doubt he cares...super wealthy and powerful people just don't care.
The analogy with interpreting a chart and an artist is a fitting one. Hans Holbein's portraits of Elizabethans are amazing. Forget about the Henry VIII painting, though that is revealing. Take a look at his portrait of Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII's "fixer". If you don't know anything about Tudor history, see if you can come to some conclusions before you Wikipedia him.
I don't think there's a problem with "being mean to Mark" but there can be an issue of implying things about other regular humans who might share the same planetary aspects. To me, that's where it can get tricky and maybe call for a bit more balance when interpreting. Not that I care, I'm just flipping this on its side.