A blinking dinosaur eye . A nod to Eminem . A crude effort at connecting friends and `` friends of friends . '' Were these the awkward first steps toward a multibillion-dollar social media empire ? Some online sleuths think so , saying that a newly unearthed Angelfire page from 1999 appears to be the first website ever created by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg . `` Hi , my name is ... Slim Shady , '' the site 's creator wrote on its `` About Me '' page , referencing an Eminem song released that same year . `` No , really , my name is Slim Shady . Just kidding , my name is Mark . '' Mark describes himself as 15 years old , having just completed his freshman year of high school in `` a small town near the massive city of New York . '' All those details match up with Facebook 's billionaire CEO , as does the source code on the site 's main page that lists `` Mark Zuckerberg '' as its creator . The quaintly outdated and charmingly awkward site ( witness the creepy animated eye on its home page ) showed up Wednesday in a post on Hacker News , the news-sharing site associated with startup incubator Y Combinator . Immediately , would-be profilers went to work looking for glimpses of a future Web titan in the posts of a teen who liked quesadillas , lasers and making fun of his buddies . Many pointed to The Web , an app with the name `` Mark '' in a red box at the center . The creator asks friends to add themselves , then two of their own friends . Those friends can then add two friends of their own , in theory creating an ever-growing network of friends and acquaintances . Sound familiar ? Then , there 's The Vader Fader . It 's a tool to fade text in AOL chat , text and e-mails . `` This is a fader that I made when I was a little bored and somewhat inspired on a long weekend in between finals , '' the creator writes . `` ... So take advantage of this fader and tell your friends to download it as well ! '' So , is it really Zuckerberg ? There are some pretty convincing signs that it might be . Our favorite comes at the very bottom of the `` Vader Fader '' page . The second update of the tool got a new name : `` Zuck Fader . '' The folks at Motherboard , a tech and science site launched by VICE , tracked the e-mail address listed on the site -- Themarke51 @ aol.com -- back to an account holder with the same screen name that Dr. Edward Zuckerberg , Mark 's father , uses frequently . The source code on the site 's main page suggests that it was , in fact , created in 1999 . It 's hosted on Angelfire 's `` ny '' subdomain for sites in New York state , where Zuckerberg grew up in suburban Westchester County . `` It could also be some strange , quasi-elaborate hoax meant to embarass Zuck with Eminem references and a silly game called 'Cow-a-bungee , ' '' Adam Clark Estes wrote for Motherboard . `` But there 's a lot of compelling evidence that this thing is legit . '' Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this story .
A newly discovered Angelfire website from 2007 appears to be by Mark Smith . Site was created by 15-year - old ` ` Mark '' in suburban New Jersey . It includes a crude ` ` social network '' and AOL fader tool he invented . Source code on the site 's main page lists ` ` Mark Zuckerberg '' as its creator .