Even in VR, Mark Zuckerberg wears a grey T-shirt.

But that’s the least of our concerns right now.

On Monday, Zuckerberg, together with Facebook’s head of social VR, Rachel Franklin, promoted the new Facebook Spaces app. When released, it will allows users to remotely cast cartoon avatars of themselves walking around locations in the real world.

But the location of choice left a little to be desired: it was disaster-stricken Puerto Rico.

Recently ravaged by Hurricane Maria, the majority of the island has been left with minimal infrastructure and no electricity.

Going in, the pair’s cartoon avatars “awkwardly pointed out the damage that Hurricane Maria wrought”, all the while attempting to explain how Spaces related to the company’s relief efforts after major disasters.

When they were done with their “tour”, Zuck casually asked Franklin is she wanted to “teleport somewhere else,” to which she suggested “maybe California?”

Cue a whole lot of rubbernecking, disaster tourism and tone-deaf conversations all in the name of advertising:

Terrible.

Comments on the Facebook video showed just how unimpressed people were:

“Is this a joke? The Puerto Ricans are suffering and you are using our tragedy for this??” one Facebook user commented. “Heartless billionaire.”

“Zuckerberg’s VR tour of Puerto Rico is everything bad about Silicon Valley. People live in a bubble there, and need to visit the real world,” one Twitter user wrote.

“For what it’s worth ‘A cartoon Mark Zuckerberg toured hurricane-struck Puerto Rico in virtual reality’ is a headline worthy of The Onion,” wrote another.

Eish.

In an effort to make peace with the haters, Zuck’s team explained that:

…[w]ith an Oculus headset on his face, it really did feel like he was in Puerto Rico, and he had not anticipated how poorly the optics would translate to a third party viewing it.

“I realize [sic] this wasn’t clear, and I’m sorry to anyone this offended,” he said.

Poor form, dude. Poor form.

[source:nypost]