108 years later, where are the pyrotechnic video effects for Zoom calls?

Plus: the return of the video-conference drinking game

Photo © 2024 Mohamed Nohassi | https://unsplash.com/fr/@coopery

I am out of my head. I am playing the Zoom Drinking Game.

This is the game where you have to down a shot of brandy every time someone says “Sorry, was I on mute”? Except this time it is nearly Christmas and I thought I would try doing it with Flaming Sambucas.

This is not the only variation I have made to the rules, either. Today I am taking additional blasts from the bottle whenever a participant says (and the wording must be exact): “It’s lovely to see all your faces.”

Oh and I thought I’d extend the rules to cover the following…

• A drink when a participant picks up their device and takes it into the kitchen; two drinks if it’s the bathroom.

• A drink when a participant says they can’t find the ‘raise a hand’ button.

• A drink when that same participant says they don’t know how to lower their hand again.

The concluding swigs of any virtual meeting are the toughest. This involves picking any onscreen communicant at random at the close of the meeting, and at the very moment they say their final “goodbye”, I slowly pour whatever’s left in the bottle into a tall tumbler. I only stop pouring when they have eventually found the “Quit meeting” button and left. This can be up to a minute later.

My choice of Flaming Sambucas is achieving mixed results. Everyone is complimenting me on the “random fire special effect” they can see on my video feed. On the other hand, I think my eyebrows have gone.

No worries, there’s a real-time filter effect in Zoom to add eyebrows, isn’t here? Let’s see… Is this it?

Bugger, no, that’s not right. How about this…?