One of the worst scandals that Wall Street had occurred on May 7, 2012. More serious than a bankruptcy or initiate affair, the emergence in the temple of finance of the hoodie by Mark Zuckerberg. Think! A young man who arrives in T-shirts, sneakers and hooded sweatshirts to promote the IPO of Facebook for a record value of $ 100 billion.
the financial analyst Michael Pachter goes up on his Large horses. He denounces “the lack of maturity” of this Freluquet who should rather “show investors the respect they deserve, because he asks them for their money”. What these gentlemen in three -piece suit and silk tie did not understand – who, ten years later, will also be indignant to see the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky expressed in Kaki T -shirt in front of the Congress – C ‘ is that the wearing of this hoodie, derived from “hood” (“hood”), is not a simple posture.
He announces a reality with which they will have to deal with. By adopting this Dress Code at the antipodes of the traditional cloakroom of bosses and financiers, the one who is already a billionaire marks the emergence of the new economy and economic upheavals induced by the rampant digitization of society. It is a wink supported by the generation of social networks whose influence will become preponderant.
aesthetics of normality
Mark Zuckerberg knows that the new stars of Silicon Valley must be immediately identifiable, so it is simple and effective. No black turtleneck sweater like Steve Jobs but a hoodie. Introduced in the 1930s to protect workers on construction sites of the East Coast, the hooded sweatshirt was then adopted by sports enthusiasts before becoming the uniform of the counter-culture of the west coast, that of rappers , surfers, skaters but also geeks.
You can be dressed as a high school student and manage a business that brews billions. “I want to simplify my life in order to have the least decisions to take outside of my service to the community,” said Mark Zuckerberg in all immodesty when questioning his non-clothing non-choices. Fashion talks about “normcore” style, an aesthetic of normality that marks belonging to a young social group, paid in innovation, preferably disruptive.
The aura of “Tech Culture” which imbues the Hoodie also has its limits. It does not exempt the boss of Facebook from growing grievances addressed to social networks, their opaque functioning, their intrusions by data interposed in privacy or their responsibility in the face of extremist drifts and conspiracies of all hair. This is perhaps why Mark Zuckerberg, regularly summoned before the commissions of inquiry or the institutions that try to regulate social networks, now adopts the costume-cratate more often than the Hoodie during his public appearances.
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