It Is I, Your Coworker With A Wacky Zoom Background
By: Emily Blaire
Tags: Zoom, Video Conferencing, Satire, Meetings, Humor

It Is I, Your Coworker With A Wacky Zoom Background

Image by Mary Markevich at Freepik

Hello, coworkers. It’s me, your coworker. It is time, once more, for our weekly sync. I look forward to exchanging bland pleasantries, derailing the conversation with an irrelevant anecdote about my 2015 vacation in Cincinnati, and forgetting to put myself on mute while my prized cockatiel screams in the background. But before we go any further, I feel I must address the elephant in the room: my hilarious Zoom background that makes it look like I’m an astronaut on the moon.

Unlike Trish, whose backdrop is a respectable (albeit uninspired) landscape of the Golden Gate Bridge at sunset, or Mark, who has inexplicably chosen a photo of him and his ex-wife on their honeymoon despite their divorce being finalized in May, my choice of scenery serves as a small window into my quirky, capricious personality. Rather than sitting on my living room couch, I appear to be nestled in a lunar impact crater on Earth’s best (and only) natural satellite. This is called absurdist humor, and it is very, very funny.

Upon further inspection, you will notice even more enchantingly puckish details. For instance, if you look to the lower left-hand corner, you will see the phrase “Neil was here” carved into a crater. This is in reference to the famous American astronaut Neil Armstrong, who was the first person to walk on the moon during NASA’s 1969 Apollo 11 mission. While it is highly unlikely that Neil Armstrong actually defaced the moon in such a manner, it is nonetheless amusing to imagine that he did. Although Armstrong died in 2012, his legacy lives on in the annals of history, popular books, and films, and, of course, my zany video conference background.

Above my right shoulder, you will also find a small, green alien making a peace sign with two of its fingers, an apparent reflection of its goodwill toward man, despite the fact that astrophysicists largely believe any extraterrestrials that visit earth would do so with the intention of harvesting our resources and destroying our civilization. But until that fateful day arrives, let us laugh and rejoice at my singularly amusing virtual background.

I know what you’re thinking: How droll! If only there were more where that came from. Well, fear not, esteemed workmates. This is but one of several different backgrounds you can look forward to in the months to come, each more chuckle-worthy than the last. Here is a brief sampling of the whimsical settings ahead:

The iconic Brady Bunch grid, with me appearing in one of the squares among the titular bunch

A filter that places a pair of Groucho Marx glasses upon my face

Grant Wood’s “American Gothic,” with the farmer’s face cut out so that mine is displayed instead

A large stockpile of toilet paper rolls, based upon a humorous observation I made re: people buying a good deal more toilet paper than usual at the beginning of the pandemic

A banner above my head that reads “You don’t have to be crazy to work here, but it helps”

And my favorite Dilbert strip, in which the pointy-haired boss accidentally spills coffee on Dilbert’s computer, much to his discontent.

Please feel free to compliment me on my choice of mise en scène, drop a “Face with Tears of Joy” emoji on Slack, or simply refer me to any talent agents you might know. In times of crisis like this, we must laugh, because we will cry if we don’t. But if millions of deaths and economic devastation is the price we must pay in order for the world to appreciate my unparalleled sense of humor, it will all have been worth it.