We’re 12 months into a global pandemic and the video call mishaps are still going strong. Last week we were (unfortunately) treated to a Candian politician who was caught naked on a Zoom call. This week we have the invisible man.
Video calls have become a necessary part of work from home life. As everyone quickly got used to Zoom there came the discovery of ‘virtual backgrounds‘ which were sure to liven up any boring work meeting.
Now, in what can only be described as peak boredom, one man decided to document his attempt to appear invisible on his partner’s video meetings.
The not-so invisible man
The TikTok user, @tailoredbits’, logic was that wearing a green morph suit while his fiancee uses a computer-generated background on Zoom would render him invisible thanks to its green-screen recognition.
“I bought this green morph suit so I’d stop showing up in the back of my fiancée’s Zoom meetings,” he wrote.
Well, this was the result.
@tailoredbits Flawless execution. #fyp #foryou #wfh #zoom #workfromhome
“Flawless execution” is how @tailoredbits describes this. He really should’ve tested his theory before walking right on through that call.
As the video shows, Zoom manages to recognise some parts of the morph suit, but it’s incredibly patchy and his movement is easily noticeable. Points have to go to his fiancee who clocked her partner and managed to continue her conversation with a straight face.
As this video proves, covering yourself in green isn’t quite enough to miraculously make you an invisible man.
For starters, the morph suit doesn’t cover the guy’s face so, even if this technique did work, everyone on the meeting would probably still be alarmed at the floating head in the background. A face-covering morph suit might be more effective.
Second, we all know how fickle Zoom’s green screen technology can be. Sure, it can turn you into a cat but it’s still no Hollywood-grade production.
All that being said, we’ve seen the many problems that can arise in the background of video calls. So props to this guy for trying to find a way to be less disruptive at home.