Here's why Facebook's predecessor, Facemash plays an essential role in Mark Zuckerberg's life

Before Facebook came Facemash, a prank website created by Mark Zuckerberg as a student at Harvard University. It was an online spin on the hot or not game. Anyone who’s seen The Social Network is familiar with this story, and under the impression that Facemash played a critical part in the founding of Facebook. Apparently not. Zuckerberg cleared that one up during his commencement speech at Harvard last month.

“...that movie [The Social Network)] made it seem like Facemash was so important to creating Facebook. It wasn’t. But without Facemash I wouldn’t have met Priscilla, and she’s the most important person in my life, so you could say it was the most important thing I built in my time here,” he said, sharing more on the role played by Facemash in bringing the two together.

After the prank website debuted, Zuckerberg was called in for a disciplinary hearing. Everyone assumed he was about to be kicked out. So his friends threw him a going-away party. Priscilla and he met while standing in the queue for the bathroom. “In what must be one of the all time romantic lines, I said: ‘I’m going to get kicked out in three days, so we need to go on a date quickly,’” he said. That is how Zuckerberg met his future wife.