Did you have enough Zoom meetings? Can’t stand another stupefying day of making video calls, the only distraction on your face aging quickly, stuck in a corner of the screen like an agonizing insect? Well, if so, then we have the app for you. Meet Zoom Escaper: a free web widget that allows you to add a variety of fake audio effects to your next Zoom call, giving you a variety of reasons to end the meeting and escape, while you can still.
You can choose between barking dogs, construction noises, babies crying or even more subtle effects, such as choppy audio and unwanted echoes. Created by artist Sam Lavigne, the Zoom Escaper is fantastically simple to use. All you need to do is download a free audio software called VB-Audio that routes your audio through the website, then switch your Zoom audio input from your microphone to VB-Audio and play the effects.
You can watch a video tutorial on how to set up the Zoom Escaper and hear a sample of the various sound effects here:
If you are running Zoom Escaper, you will not be able to hear the sound effects alone. But I was able to test the functionality of the site with the help of my colleague, Border news editor Chaim Gartenberg. Here was his take on the various effects that Zoom Escaper had to offer:
- Urination: “This looks very fake. Also, I’m not sure what the plan is to sell this as a reason to leave a call? “
- Construction: “It looks like you literally stopped in the middle of a building. I think the sounds need to be a little more muffled to sell it, but it is very good. “
- Crying man: “These are the sobs of a dejected man. But who’s crying – is it your roommate, your partner? “
- Bad connection: “This one works very well. Your audio is interrupted and interrupted. Get out of the call. “
- Eco: “Extremely boring and very convincing. This sounds like a broken Zoom connection. If someone I was talking to had this, I would say to fix it. It would not be feasible to have a meeting with that. “
- Wind: “If you were trying to escape from work, I’m not sure how you would sell high winds in your own office.”
- Dog: “This looks very real. It looks like a dog barking outside, but maybe it’s not the kind of thing you need to take care of? “
- Upset baby: “This baby looks decently upset! This is definitely something you should check out! Go take care of your baby! “
Our view was that Upset Baby provided the most excusable reason for hanging up, but it also requires people to believe you to have a baby. And if you are prepared to pretend a child exists to escape Zoom’s meetings with your co-workers, then you may have bigger problems with work than some boring video conferences.
The Zoom Escaper is not the first of Lavigne’s projects to self-inflict on the computer. Their 2017 work, The Good Life, allowed users to sign up to receive 225,000 emails confiscated from Enron during their implosion in 2001, while the 2016 Slow Hot Computer is a website that … makes your computer slow and hot. “Use it at work to decrease your productivity,” says Lavigne.
If the Zoom Escaper is not straightforward enough for you, there is also the Zoom Deleter, another creation by Lavigne. As he writes on his website, it is just a small program that runs on the menu bar or in the system tray: “He continuously checks the computer for Zoom and, if found, immediately deletes it”.
Speaking for The Verge, Lavigne describes the underlying ethos of his art as: “Deliberate deceleration, reduced productivity and production, self-sabotage, etc.” When asked by The Verge why these values were important to him, Lavigne did not reply.