Mark Zuckerberg posts his first Reel, Instagram’s TikTok competitor

When in doubt, feature a dog.

Mark Zuckerberg posted his first Reel Wednesday, and well, it’s fine.

Reels are Facebook-owned Instagram’s answer to TikTok: Looping, easily editable, maximum 15 second videos featuring a wide catalogue of music and visual overlays. Instagram users post Reels to their feed (not their Stories), and popular Reels will get surfaced in Instagram’s Explore tab. 

Reels launches as TikTok continues to navigate the uncertain waters of a potential ‘ban’ by President Trump due to supposed national security concerns about the app’s Chinese ownerships. 

The new content format made its Instagram debut Wednesday, and Zuckerberg posted his first Reel the same day. 

How to describe Zuck’s looping creation? It’s either the kind of thing someone posted after thinking about it for two seconds, or something brewed up by corporate flaks over hundreds of emails to seem “approachable” and “nice” and “playful” and “totally devoid of personality and details whatsoever.”

The star is Beast, Zuckerberg’s 9-year-old Puli (a type of Hungarian sheepdog), who resembles a mop  (in a cute way). Beast is sitting behind a desk at a computer, and Zuckerberg’s disembodied voice asks, “Beast, are you working from home?” The camera then flips to show Beast looking at a screen full of sheep. The joke is… that he is a sheep dog? And so he’s herding sheep digitally? We get it. Relatable!

Listen, there is no one to blame here. Certainly not Beast, who is undoubtedly a good boy. Not even Zuck, or the team he employs to mediate the image he allows the world to see. TikToks — or, Reels, ugh is this a thing now — are a medium of creativity and silliness. There is no real point, and therefore, the only good ones are those born of genuine inspiration, mad skillz, deep obsession, and/or youthful stupidity.

We do get a glimpse of what is ostensibly Zuckerberg’s home office, and what we see (and don’t see) adds credence to the feeling that, yeah, this is not just an organic Zuck creation. There are zero (0) details or personal touches in the room. The only item on the desk is vote by mail information, because, ya know, voting is super important to Facebook.

Congratulations, Zuck. The latest product your company ripped off from a competitor is just as mediocre in your hands as anything else would be. Cute dog though.