Mark Zuckerberg has a new look

Angle down iconAn icon in the shape of an angle pointing down. The telltale tail of the mullet. Anna Moneymaker

• Mark Zuckerberg showed up to a Senate hearing this week with a noticeably longer haircut. 
• While the Meta CEO seemed to keep business in the front, it appeared there was a party in the back.
• Could it be... a mullet?

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When the CEOs of Meta, X, Tiktok, Snap, and Discord sat in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee for a hearing on child exploitation on social media, there were many odd moments. Mark Zuckerberg was forced to stand up and apologize to the parents of dead children in the room. Linda Yaccarino admitted that there are hardly any teens who still use X. Sen. Tom Cotton kept asking Tiktok's CEO, who is Singaporean, if he was, in fact, a Chinese citizen.

But the oddest sight to behold was a fluffy blond development, about the size of a Pillsbury crescent roll, near the nape of Zuckerberg's neck.

It appears… he has grown a mullet.

Zuckerberg has kept his hair short over the last decade. He's known for his Caesar-like trim that's tight and short across his forehead. In the last year, he's gone through a physical transformation (getting swole).

Let's investigate:

Mark Zuckerberg walks into the Senate with a new growth. Alex Wong

Computer, enhance:

The duality of the business/party chimera. Alex Wong

From another angle, indeed, it looks suspiciously mullet-like:

The telltale tail of the mullet. Anna Moneymaker

But from the back, it appears to have its own distinct shape:

Could it be? Kevin Dietsch

And yet here, the hair doesn't look long at all; it's barely touching the top of his collar:

Here, the hair is just slightly down his neck. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI

[It is not lost on me that these photos are from a moment where he turned around and spoke to a group of parents holding up photos of their children who died from suicide after exploitation through social media. That is horrible and serious stuff; this isn't.]

The photos were inconclusive: I wasn't sure if this was a case of hockey hair, a bad hair day, a mullet, a shadow, or what.

So, I reached out to the experts at USA Mullet Champ, an organization that runs live mullet judging competitions at state fairs as well as online. After examining the photo evidence, their spokeswoman, Brittany Stevens, said, "A true mullet should be longer in the back and shorter in the front and sides. …While this isn't quite a mullet yet, it's well on its journey!"