You don’t get to 500 million friends – or donate $100 million – without making a few enemies

 If you were Facebook friends with the social network site’s founder Mark Zuckerberg, your “newsfeed” would inform you that the world’s youngest billionaire has recently pledged to donate $100 million to a public school system in the troubled and crime-ridden area of Newark, New Jersey.

Zuckerberg’s “About me” section would be pretty impressive. The 26-year-old has been listed as the 35^th wealthiest American on the recently-revealed Forbes’ list, surpassing Apple CEO Steve Jobs (ranked 42^nd). He also has a movie (“The Social Network”) about his life, featuring superstar Justin Timberlake, premiering in theaters October 1.

However, the tagline of the movie is “You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies,” which seems to ring true for Zuckerberg’s real life, as he is facing some harsh criticism for the timing of the announcement of his tremendous donation.

Zuckerberg is scheduled to officially announce the donation on The Oprah Winfrey Show on September 24 – the same day as the New York Film Festival’s premiere of “The Social Network.” Some critics also believe the donation is an attempt to counterbalance Zuckerberg’s new position on Forbes’ list.

Regardless of his motives, the important thing is that Zuckerberg is donating 100 MILLION DOLLARS out of his own money to improve one of America’s worst school systems. Every movie tries to receive as much publicity as possible before its premiere…at least Zuckerberg’s so-called publicity stunt will do a lot of good for a lot of people.   

See Mark Zuckerberg on The Oprah Winfrey Show: Part 1, Part 2

Mark Zuckerberg

Celebrity smack down: Kanye West vs. Taylor Swift at the VMAs

Kanye West and Taylor Swift performing at the 2010 VMAs.

Last year’s Video Music Awards made history when Kanye West jumped on stage, interrupting Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech for Best Female Video in support of Beyonce. Many wondered how the two stars would interact a year after the incident at the next VMAs. MTV increased the anticipation, airing and re-airing footage and commentary about the infamous stage crashing during the weeks leading up to the show.

So how did it all go down?

Swift showed a short montage of last year’s interruption before starting her song
 Innocent which includes lyrics “32, and still growin' up now/ Who you are is not what you did/ You're still an innocent” and “Every one of us has messed up too/…Today is never to late to be brand new.”

West, undeservingly, was granted the show’s finale, in which he performed a strange, electronic song “Runaway” literally admitting that he a “scumbag.” His satanic red getup didn’t help.

To be honest, I am not a fan of either artist’s passive aggressiveness (neither will admit their song is about last year’s event). However, if I had to choose a winner of this smack down, I’d choose Taylor. She looked classy and flawless, while forgiving the man who ruined what should have been one of the best moments of her life, while Kanye’s performance was simply bizarre and only served to reinforce what many already thought – he is a jerk.

I hope both artists can put this behind them and get on with the music.