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Hello? Is this Jennifer Love Hewitt on 9-1-1? I just saw a photo of Representative Maxine Waters deconstructing Mark Zuckerberg at a molecular level using only an imperious gaze and, like Peter Parker in Infinity War, I’m not feeling so well. Please send help!
The Facebook founder testified in front of the House Financial Services Committee today, being grilled by Waters and superstars Rep. Katie Porter and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, among others, on the befuddling plan to not fact-check political ads on the platform. You really must watch Rep. Ocasio-Cortez run circles around him like Rooney Mara in the beginning of The Social Network.
But what I have gathered you all here to talk about is the miraculous fact that Mark Zuckerberg was on the receiving end not only of a battery of questions, but also one of the most probing series of looks I have ever seen from Rep. Waters.
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If Rep. Maxine Waters ever peered at me the way she is peering at Mark Zuckerberg my SOUL would leave my BODY.
Do not pass Go; do not collect $200; proceed directly to the big, unregulated message board in the sky.
Pictured here: truth climbing out of her well to delete your account.
What have I done? Logged. Off. Permanently. Why have I done it? A deep conviction of my own unworthiness.
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Agh!
That tightly balled fist?! LORD! She is making a point and that point is “Absolutely not.” I look at that photo and I have actual heart palpitations. Jennifer Love Hewitt, please tell paramedic Angela Bassett to hurry.
Rep. Maxine Waters is known for her extraordinary way with words, her ability to deliver mellifluous strings of terse takedowns with the precision of a preacher and acidity of an assistant principal who is not here for your nonsense today, Ferris. And sometimes those words come in the form of an expression that stops times completely.
This is the kind of look that you can feel your mother giving you from across the room through the back of your head after she calls your name and you say “What!” You don’t even have to turn around. You already know. You’re considering just never turning around. Just walking out the door, changing your name, riding the rails like an old-timey roustabout. Not looking left, not looking right. Just going. But you know that look will always follow you. The whole world is this look now.
This is a look that says “I have heard about what you are doing on the ‘internet’ and I do not like it.” We have to have a national conversation about shutting the whole thing down. Just calling Al Gore and asking him to unplug the internet. When he asks why, we just text him a picture of Rep. Waters looking over her glasses and he spills the glass of milk he’s drinking. (Al Gore is always drinking milk when the phone rings.)
This look says “I’m not mad; I’m just disappointed” and you’re like “No! Be mad! Please. Is it too late for mad? WHY HAVE YOU CURSED ME LIKE THIS?”
Whew. If I, ever, in my entire life, am on the receiving end of this look, you will never see me again. I will go back in time and prevent my parents from meeting like a reverse Marty McFly. I will erase my existence faster than a high schooler erases the browser history on the family room computer. I will Self-Rapture.
To think, all this could have been avoided. The only reason we’re in this situation is because the president wants to place ads on Facebook saying Ted Cruz is the Zodiac Killer or something (I don’t know; I have him blocked). That seems like an easy fix. But no. And now look, the founder of Facebook being dismantled and sold for parts in the middle of Congress. Sorry to this man.