Earlier this week I broke into the apartment of Mark Zuckerberg, creator of Facebook. I found Mark passed out on the floor, an empty bottle of Bacardi Limón lying nearby. I stopped to draw a Hitler mustache on him, then searched his desk and discovered the following letter. It is, apparently, an earlier version of the “Open Letter” he posted on Facebook a week ago.

Hello, America! Okay, I really screwed this one up. The “News Feed” feature has been a complete failure.

I started Facebook for one reason: to make myself rich. And boy, did it ever work! I am a rich little Harvard grad, and probably the most successful student of our entire generation. I drink the best vodka, smoke the finest green and rub shoulders with the elite of the business world.

I knew from the start that Facebook would be popular, for three reasons.

The first reason was that it allowed losers to have social lives. At Harvard, there were plenty of losers who were completely lacking in social skills, losers who spent all their free time staring at their computer screens. I created Facebook to give these losers the illusion that they had friends.

Before I came along, if you had no friends, you had no friends, and that was the end of it. With the advent of Facebook, however, you could make “friends” without leaving your computer. Also, you could show off your newfound “friendships” to the entire campus community, and thus give the false impression that you were popular.

What was more, you could make “friends” with people who would not come within twenty feet of you in real life. Three-hundred-pound Linux fans could send friend requests to gorgeous blondes, and these gorgeous blondes would, out of courtesy or pity, accept. Thus, Facebook gave unpopular people a chance to establish connections, however meaningless or trivial, with the social elite.

The second reason I knew Facebook would be successful was that it made stalking twice as easy as it had ever been before. Before Facebook, stalkers had to be content with looking at their victims from afar, occasionally catching their eyes and making them uneasy, and searching their names on Google. But with Facebook, a whole new world of information became available! Stalkers could learn all about the likes and dislikes of their targets. They could determine if they were single and most importantly, they could send intimate private messages to their poor victims, which these victims were powerless to avoid.

I knew that every college is full of guys who are computer savvy, but about as charming and attractive as three-month-old corpses. Facebook gave these hapless fellows a means of pursuing women; and though I do not know of a single instance in which a woman has replied to an unsolicited Facebook message, Facebook nevertheless gave these hapless dweebs a ray of hope.

The final reason why I knew Facebook would be successful was that it gave various pranksters a wide outlet for their comedic abilities. Pranksters could set up alternate accounts under the names “Rush Limbaugh,” “Kenny McCormick” or “The Abominable Snowman.” They could also, if they cared to, set up relationships with these fictitious people, so that their own profiles reported them to be “In a Relationship with Andre the Giant” or “It’s Complicated with Severus Snape.” Finally, students could form humorous groups whose sole purpose was the degradation and ridicule of their enemies.

Yes, I may say, ladies and gentlemen, that Facebook was a true masterpiece, and I fully deserve all the fame and riches I have won by it. The only problem was that by adding the new News Feed feature, I overstepped myself.

The News Feed made stalking TOO easy. Various women, who had often accepted friend requests from ugly guys out of simple courtesy, were now mortified when their acceptance of these requests was made immediately known to the entire campus community. In addition, many people, even guys, were embarrassed when they saw records of their own Facebook activity, and realized that their Facebook lives were almost as active as their real ones. A personal record of one’s own Facebook activity was sobering, and made everyone feel like a nerd.

So I am sorry. The News Feed feature will be removed, and a new privacy setting, “For God’s sake leave me the hell alone, you freaks!” will be available for females.

-Mark Zuckerberg

If you wonder why I, Jeff Gaither, am not on Facebook, read this column again.

E-mail Jeff at [email protected]