Mark Zuckerberg took a sip of Guinness the other day, and the internet noticed.

Specifically, a clip from the Meta founder’s appearance on a podcast called The Cheeky Pint—which involves talking tech over a beer with host (and Stripe cofounder) John Collison—caught his notably unenthusiastic facial expression in response to the Irish stout. He looks, as one observer put it, as if he has just “accidentally swallowed the little paper cup of fluoride at the dentist’s office.”

Safe to say Mark Zuckerberg isn’t a fan of a pint of Guinness then pic.twitter.com/HeriiOnpgA

Funny. But what’s the big deal? Zuckerberg isn’t the first to discover that Guinness isn’t for everybody. Why did the Guinness Wince morph into a viral roasting?

Probably because, you know, he’s Mark Zuckerberg. Surreally rich and powerful, he’s a figure who remains effectively cloistered and out of reach from most of the routine frictions of everyday life. Like his billionaire peers, he inhabits spaces he controls (mansions, yachts, private jets) or where his appearance is carefully choreographed (congressional hearings, product unveils, whatever this is), while other people literally make movies speculating about various phases of his career. Seeing a master of the corporate universe do something as human as wince at an unfamiliar brew is just . . . weird.

And in a way, these rare incidents function as a litmus test for authenticity, maybe even normality. The last similarly high-profile example was the promo clip of McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski gingerly biting into the chain’s then-new Big Arch burger.

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