Zoom adds facial effects to make you look stranger during meetings

Although Zoom was originally created as a serious meeting app for businesses, it has become one of the most used services during the pandemic for anyone looking to have a face-to-face virtual conversation. As a result, the company has added more fun stuff, like weird origins, to use for online family gatherings, chats with friends and, well, for business meetings. And now, it comes with a feature called Studio Effects that gives you the ability to add a variety of eyebrows, facial hair and lip color to your video image during zoom sessions.

The feature, still in beta, is not really new – Zoom announced in September 2020 – but this is the first time many Zoom users are discovering for the first time. Either way, it’s easy to find. Start a zoom session and go to Video settings (which can be found by pressing the arrow next to “Stop video” at the bottom of the screen). From there, select “Background & Filters” and look for “Studio Effects (Beta)” in the lower right corner. (You may need to download the effects package first – go ahead, it will only take a minute).

After that, you can change any appearance you want. Ever wanted Groucho Marx eyebrows or a vile goatee or bright green lipstick? He’s there to try. And you can define your facial effects just for that meeting or for each meeting you attend (which may not be a good idea if you think you might have a last minute job interview coming up).

We contacted Zoom to find out how widespread this new feature is (so far, several employees here at The Verge reported seeing it in their Zoom apps). Personally, while it’s a lot of fun, I hope Zoom will add hair styles to its studio effects – those of us who still suffer from a hair pandemic (in other words, who haven’t visited a hairdresser in about a year) would be extremely grateful .