Narratives and Online Decorum: The Rhetoric of Mark Zuckerberg's Personal Storytelling on Facebook

The article ties in with and attempts to further interests in the rhetorical aspects of personal storytelling by examining what is taken to be a pervasive yet understudied form of purposeful storytelling. The overall aim is to investigate how the narration of intimate biographical events may be used to influence or mold matters of decorum or appropriate behavior. Through close reading of the use of narratives in a Facebook post by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the article argues for the potential meta-decorous nature of such posts; in addition to their private content, they are about what posting is or should be, and therefore also about what it may be, or should mean, to be someone posting on Facebook. Consequently, these personal stories are read as peculiar amalgamations of the personal, the strategic, and the moral.