You're Muted

Video calls have made some things easier, some things harder, and pretty much everything weirder. This week we’re talking about that sweet Zoom life we’re all living: how moving our social and work lives into gallery mode has affected us, the murky waters of Zoom etiquette, navigating co-working from home with our partners, and how “business casual” has gotten a little more...casual. Colin tells us about his existential crisis over drinking OJ on camera and argues that the deck of the Starship Enterprise is an appropriate background for all occasions. Anna lays down the one Zoom rule you should NEVER break, and shares her struggles with keeping NSFW art out of her background. In our Troubleshooting segment, we give you tips on how to manage Zoom fatigue, make your home look good for video, and some hidden tech features you will want to take advantage of. Then, of course, it’s Internet Gold time!

Connect with us at @themoreuscroll on Instagram & Twitter,  and check out our webpage. Have any internet sanity tips? Any topics you want us to cover? Email us at whatsup@themoreyouscroll.com. Access the transcript for this episode here.

Tips and Tricks from our Troubleshooting segment:
Check out these Zoom Video Enhancement features.
Here is a link to Amazon Ring Lights to better your lighting on Zoom calls!

Internet Gold of the week:
Anna: A Black Lady Sketch Show on HBO 
Colin: Slack Channels for everyday use

Transcript

ANNA 00:00 
Hey Scrollies! It’s Anna, and before we get started I wanted to let you know about my other podcast, Every Day is a Food Day. It’s a comedy food podcast where my cohost Lia and I tell you about the most amazing stories, scandals, and heroes behind your favorite foods. Ever heard of the Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist? The World War I Donut Lassies? How about the Iowa Porkettes? You’ll hear about all of that and more on Every Day is a Food Day. Listen to Season 1 now wherever you get your podcasts. Alright, let’s get scrolling….

ANNA 00:51 
Welcome to THE MORE YOU SCROLL, a podcast about trying to stay sane on the internet. I’m your host, Anna Van Valin. 

COLIN 00:58 
And I’m your other host, Colin Foy.

ANNA 01:00   
In today’s episode we’re going to talk about...video calls. 

COLIN 01:05 
That sweet sweet Zoom life we’re all living. 

ANNA 01:09 
Video calls have made some things easier, some things harder, but across the board, they’ve made things weirder.

COLIN 01:16 
We’re going to talk about when it’s ok to turn off your camera, the trials, and tribulations of co-working from home with your partner, and why you need an MC for those Zoom Happy Hours. 

ANNA 01:27
Then we’re going to Troubleshoot ways to combat Zoom Fatigue, how to master your lighting and backgrounds, and some hidden video settings so you can show up to that team meeting looking like you just left Glamor Shots. And as always, we end with some delightful Internet Gold. 

COLIN 01:42
Help other listeners find the show by leaving a 5-star rating and review. Connect with us on Instagram and Twitter @themoreuscroll (that’s the letter U), and topics you want us to cover via email at whatsup@themoreyouscroll.com or our website. All those links are in the show notes, folks. Alright, you know what time it is?

ANNA 02:01 
What time is it, Colin?

COLIN 02:03 
Time to stop, drop, and scroll.

ANNA 02:06     
Applause. 

MUSIC 02:07

ANNA 02:24 
Video calls have been around for a long time, but this year because of the pandemic, I was looking at the Zoom traffic and it went from 803 million visits to the US site in March, 803 million to 1.9 billion in April.

COLIN 02:40 
Man, way to go, zoom and just skimp all that Skype money. /You know?

ANNA 02:45 
/If I had a time machine, I would go to February and buy some Zoom stock. Cause it's made a lot of things better, a lot of things easier, a lot of things weirder, but one thing that I think across the board, we experience, is It's exhausting.

COLIN 02:58 
For me, the most exhausting thing is knowing that I'm on camera, the self-view, checking in with myself all the time about how I look, how I'm sitting, like how my clothes are sitting on me, I find myself constantly re-adjusting my shirt on my shoulders.

ANNA 03:16 
Oh yeah, I'm like, do I normally mess with my hair this much? With the Zoom gallery, it's just your face... Everyone's looking at your face the entire time, and that self-consciousness is so, so, so draining.

COLIN 03:28  
But I want gallery view on so I don't miss something, in case the automatic switcher doesn't switch fast enough...

ANNA 03:36 
Right.

COLIN 03:37 
Push and pull.

ANNA 03:38
Right. And you lose the ability to communicate naturally. Because usually we communicate with our whole bodies, with our movements looking around, and we have to consciously force it all through our faces.

COLIN 03:50 
And make it big enough to read on-screen too. I find myself just physically being bigger and moving in bigger movements and nodding a lot. I'll see Megan nodding a ton on her Zoom calls too.

ANNA 04:05
Lou has a very powerful Zoom voice, I learned when this started, and I think he is trying to trigger the microphone to come to him, like when he's in these chaotic meetings. And so just imagining that each person on these meetings, whichever disparate kitchen table they're at across the world is also trying to top the volume to try to get the same speaker to listen to them. But that's part of it, right. If I'm in a room with people, I don't need to be worried about any technical mishaps. All that kind of diligence to make the thing work is work in and of itself.

COLIN 04:40 
It's a second job that we have not been trained for. It's so clear to me that we don't know much about this because everybody's ideas about it are so different. It's messy.

ANNA 04:53  
Yeah, this hasn't been around enough, or I don't know, as mainstream and as big a part of our lives enough for us to have developed a cultural language about it...

COLIN 05:03 
Yeah, where the culture is slowly developing around this, which is kind of fun to see... What about like your background? Do you /use your position?

ANNA 05:13 
/ I put a lot of thought into my background, actually, It's really weird because you used to have a whole office or you used to have a whole outfit or all these ways, a really nice briefcase, all these ways to sort of communicate what you wanna communicate, and now you have a three-foot square behind you.

COLIN 05:28 
True, I didn't think about all the professional accessories that you would just walk around with... Yeah, now it's about your background. Oh yeah, I love your bookshelf.

ANNA 05:39 
Thank you.

COLIN 05:40 
Like, that... That's great. It's got personality, but it's also aesthetically really great.

ANNA 05:46 
Thank you. I put an embarrassing amount of thought into it.

COLIN 05:52 
What about virtual backgrounds? You ever use them?

ANNA 05:54  
I've never used them. I know that it's easier for some people to just use that than to cover up the chaos that's in their home. But you gotta be careful. You have to know how they work. They can get easily confused. I think for patterns, I was on a call once where a guy chose a background of the Kentucky Derby, which in and of itself is a questionable choice, but it didn't work with the shirt he had on, so it looked like the horses were just running through him like ghost horses were running through his torso. Right. So I have put some thought into what's behind me in terms of my bookshelf and artwork around me, although I have had to censor some things, I have this poster behind me that I love, and it says Carpe that f****** Diem, which to me is like all you need to know about me, but then I was like, How do people feel about the word f*** in their face while they're talking to me? Yeah, so I made myself a little censorship square that I taped over the U, I'm gonna paint an asterisk on it, but the other thing is downstairs, so our first floor is all open and it's not rectangular, right, it's got all kinds of weird angles, and we decided to put up one of my favorite things, which is this beautiful, huge poster, of Marina Abromovich, if you don't know her, she's the mother of performance art, and it's a poster that I brought all the way home from Stockholm and had beautifully framed, and it's still from one of her performance art pieces where she is naked and you mostly just see her face and shoulders. But right at the bottom, there's some boobie... There's some nips. Right at the bottom. But depending on the wideness of the angle of the camera, there is nowhere to sit on my first floor where you cannot see her nipples, and for some reason, the further away you get, the more prominent the nipples seem. So we were making a video to send to my grandmother and we set up the frame and we're like, Okay, it looks really tight, there's nothing in there, but then when we played back the video, the frame was bigger than what we could see through the camera and so her nipples were like... One was on either side of Lou's head. Like horns. We can't send this to grandma. This will make her feel worse. So I think I'm gonna make pasties for her. Yeah, yeah.

COLIN 08:29  
That's so great. I wonder if this would be incorporated into office design and home design of, like, will people think of backdrops when they're thinking of their offices and, like, Zoom meetings and things like that. Will, that be like, Oh yeah, and here's my office with this wall, like our wall, is gonna be a thing, are walls coming back in 2021?

ANNA 08:50 
I think probably, yeah, if I was going into a space. Now, a new space, I would definitely be like, Where's my Zoom corner? Like, where's my spot I'm gonna do the video calls. I wonder, yeah, if every desk is gonna come with a screen to pull down behind them, like when you get a passport photo done and they pull the screen down behind you.

COLIN 09:13 
I've started noticing, at least in my work culture, there's definitely... It's just like if you are eating, it's totally okay to mute yourself and turn off your video...

ANNA 09:24 
 Yes, please. Beverages are okay.

COLIN 09:26 
We have people... We have a lot of glasses at my house, and sometimes sometimes I feel silly like drinking orange juice instead of water 'cause it's so apparently orange juice and I just think, Is this weird? Is it weird to drink orange juice doing this business meeting? I don't know.

ANNA 09:41  
We're like even self-conscious about our beverages now.

COLIN 09:46  
I know, and now I wanna drink it out of a mug so nobody can see. You know? I don't know.

ANNA 09:51 
Yeah, what would you do if you... If somebody just pulled out a Capri Sun.

COLIN 09:56 
That would be so good. I should start drinking Capri Sun. That's so great.

ANNA 10:00 
What's your preferred method for joining and leaving.

COLIN 10:04  
I mean, I got this from Megan, leaving a meeting through the chat instead of interrupting the conversation to say goodbye, but just...

ANNA 10:12 
That's a great one.

COLIN 10:13 
Just chatting gotta go or I'm gonna hop off, but B-R-B-L-O-L. Um...

ANNA 10:21 
Yeah, I think if you're late to joining a meeting too, you can just say, "Hi everyone, sorry I'm late" in the chat and not interrupt the flow, and then you don't get quite as much embarrassment to focus on you.

COLIN 10:31 
Or you can chat somebody privately and say, "Hey, I just got here. What did I miss", you know? Yeah, yeah, and they can catch /you up.

ANNA 10:38 
/But, the chat is a danger zone, so you have to be really, really careful. Because it's super easy to chat the wrong person or to chat everyone instead of an individual. And you can't delete that s***...

COLIN 10:48 
No. Which is nerve-wracking. I don't know why they don't just make it so you can edit your comments and or delete them. We run into this a lot because we're doing a serious XM show at work via Zoom, so our guests come on the Zoom call and they can see all of our directions for the host, but we have to be careful to only message certain people. “Oh, do we wanna keep the guest on for another segment?”

ANNA 11:16 
I've also heard horror stories about screen shares, so someone else share their screen, but they'll have the chat open.

COLIN 11:23 
Ohhh. Very fun.

ANNA 11:24 
So all their private chats are now being beamed directly into people's eyes through their screen share, so just be aware people.

COLIN 11:32 
Screen share is so nerve-racking, shoot me in the face if I have the screen share during work.

ANNA 11:38 
I close so many tabs so fast.

COLIN 11:41 
How are you with video? Do you just keep your video on all the time?

ANNA 11:44  
Here's what I think, I think that a one-on-one Zoom is fine, and then for every person, you add to a video call, it becomes exponentially more complicated and exhausting. Right, yeah, so if there's several people on the call, I think I'm okay with turning my video off, especially if I have an excuse, like “I'm sorry, I'm having an allergy flare-up, nobody wants to watch me wipe my nose” or something if it's something collaborative where it's helpful to see people's faces and expressions. I like to keep that on.

COLIN 12:17 
I'm really getting into just turning my video off whenever. If I check in with myself and I'm feeling that social drain or just video fatigue, or I'm just not in the mood, I'll just turn my video off. 

ANNA 12:31 
Probably the biggest impact that the video calls and then working from home has had on me in terms of a work-to-life boundary is honestly, all of a sudden being inserted into my partner's workday. That is so bizarre. I mean, it's like if you were in a regular office and your spouse just went and sat in the corner just watched you all day. 

COLIN 12:52  
Oh man, Megan and I have had to deal with that so much at home... 'cause our house is so small, she's in the dining room, and we finally figured out if she uses a virtual background, and I make sure that none of my skin passes, passes behind her. So basically, I walked behind her with my arms up and she's sitting at a desk, so it's just my clothes going by, then the Virtual background doesn't pick it up, but if I keep an arm down, then all of a sudden just a random arm will float through her virtual background as I passed through to get a snack or whatever...

ANNA 13:33 
That's so weird.

COLIN 13:35 
Yeah. Our spouses and partners and entire families are gonna have to sign NDAs now because they can hear everything on this Zoom call...

ANNA 13:42 
Yeah, and roommates and everybody... A privacy is gonna be a real issue and everybody's on their own s***** Wi-Fi with their s***** encryption and their password is one, two, three, four, five...

COLIN 13:55 
Oh yeah.

ANNA 13:57 
And they're doing all your work stuff to all your IP. Yeah, that's gonna be a real issue. But I think that there's two sides to this breaking network life boundary, having people see into your home seeing into their homes, which is on the one hand, it's very humanizing to see their dog run through or to see what their living room looks like. I think that we get to know our co-workers in this one specific area, and then we go through those motions and we know them in that way, and that this is sort of like injected fresh blood into those relationships and how people get to know each other, in other ways, and it has to break down that formality because if some of these kids gonna run in the room, they're gonna run in the room and you can't freak out. I love seeing a cat on a video. You know what I'm saying? Nothing better.

COLIN 14:41 
Yeah, I love seeing what art people have up and what things people have on their shelves, it's so great, and it's also a nice way to break the ice with someone if you don't know them very well, and you can just say, Oh, I love your place, it's so cute.

ANNA 14:56 
I am always disappointed if somebody shows up and it's just a blank wall behind them... I'm like, give you something. C'mon. But the flip side, I think, is it also can highlight inequality when you see how other people live. 'Cause, you can see that one douchebag who doesn't do any work and you're looking at his palatial estate as opposed to your other co-worker who's working their a** off and is in a closet...

COLIN 15:23 
Yeah, it's weird because you get a window into people's economic state that the office was built to kind of hide.

ANNA 15:30 
Right, it's something we don't talk about. We're obsessed with money. We're a capitalist society, but we're so embarrassed to talk about it, and now you're just seeing it on display.

COLIN 15:42  
Yeah. What do you think about the ubiquity of video calls, like every meeting automatically being dubbed a video call?

ANNA 15:52 
It's weird because there were some things that were already calls, but now because we're doing it remotely, it's now a video call. 

COLIN 16:00 
Yeah, I love audio calls. Oh man, it's great. You can hear their voice, you're getting pretty much most of the info you would get over video, but you don't have that exhaustion, and you don't have to worry about visual aesthetics. 

ANNA 16:19 
I think that there's a time and a place for both. If you are trying to do something really collaborative. I think that being able to see each other and see what you're doing is really helpful. But I definitely think that there's a place for just doing just audio calls if that's not necessary and giving people a break. My one thing is though if it was going to be a video call and you don't wanna have your video on and it's a one-to-one, you have to give the person notice, and I'll tell you why, because as a woman... If I know there's gonna be a video call, even if it's one-on-one, I'm gonna put some makeup on, I'm gonna pay attention to my hair, I'm gonna pay attention to my clothes, probably put on a real bra, so if I get on to a one-on-one... And I've done all that, and you're like, You know what, I don't really wanna have my video on... I will curse you. I will curse your family. I will hate you. Cuz I put on a bra and make up for nothing, like I'm not gonna go out and do other things today, so talk about etiquette. 

MUSIC
 
COLIN 17:21 
How about Zoom calls not for work.

ANNA 17:24 
The social zooming...

COLIN 17:25 
Social zooming, Yeah.

ANNA 17:28
I mean it's not a substitute for being with people, but it helps. I had a birthday party where I had people, I told everybody to get their favorite cake or baked good of choice. And then we all got on Zoom and ate it.

COLIN 17:43 
It was so fun.

ANNA 17:44 
It was fun.

COLIN 17:46  
And we got to meet new people, which was really fun.

ANNA 17:48  
It was great. You know what's funny is that was the first time that I celebrated my birthday with some of those people, because if I have a friend from high school who lives in Louisiana, when was the last time that we were in the same place on my birthday right? But now all of a sudden... She's a little square. Yeah, and I was celebrating my birthday with her and it was pretty lovely.

COLIN 18:05 
Yeah, I did a birthday party too, I had everybody show up with top 10 list of their... Making of their choosing did top 10 worst frozen pizzas.

ANNA 18:17 
That is amazing that you are aware of 10 frozen pizza brands. I'm not. I got Red Baron, Digornio. That's it.

COLIN 18:27 
Yeah, there are a lot worse ones out there... 

ANNA 18:33 
You need kind of a leader...

COLIN 18:35 
Yes.   

ANNA 18:36 
In these social things. I really think you need a leader to, sort of, guide the conversation, because awkward pauses, sometimes more awkward on Zoom, and then you wanna avoid people all talking over each other and cutting each other out, so if there's like one leader, the organizer or whatever, who's like, let's go around and ask about this, let's go around and ask about this and that kinda helps make it a little smoother.

COLIN 18:58 
If there's no agenda and there's more than three people on a call, that call is gonna be weird. The weirdest thing I went to, not in the negative sense, but in the true sense of weirdness, I went to a funeral on Zoom, which is really wild.

ANNA 19:19 
What was that like?

COLIN 19:22 
It was weird because there was no going to it. I just clicked a link and all of a sudden I was at a funeral and it was like there was no... There's no getting dressed up and having a quiet drive over to wherever the funeral services were held, there's none of that.

ANNA 19:40 
Right, and going into a sort of a sacred space that's holding that somberness or that... Whatever that is, it's designated for that.

COLIN 19:48 
Yeah, I was never gonna turn my video on, so I was in my PJs, and it was really nice once I was in the funeral mindset, then it was fine, but it was pretty jarring just because it didn't have that natural flow into it, where I got to... prepare myself mentally, but that's also on me... I should have thought about that before.

ANNA 20:14 
I mean, it's a huge adjustment. We've never done it before. Did you have the same sense of kind of closure or... mourning, probably not the same.

COLIN 20:22 
It wasn't the same. I wish we could have all talked afterwards, I wish I could have gone around and talked to different people who were there, and the service was nice, but I think the best thing about a funeral is the gathering of the people and all the different people you see and talk to... And can check in with. I really missed that aspect of it.

ANNA 20:49 
Yeah, and it's just so weird to have it... Everything happen in the same space, your work calls, your family calls, your funerals, your events, everything is happening in the same space. It's so weird.

COLIN 21:01 
In the same space. I'm wearing the same clothes like I'm sitting on the same /chair for all of it.

ANNA 21:06 
/Do you have like the same five Zoom tops? I have five zoom tops and I rotate.

COLIN 21:11 
Absolutely. Yeah, and two of them are black t-shirts. I find myself in a predicament a lot where all I care about is my shirt... Right. What shirt am I wearing? But the problem with that is I can never get up during a meeting and I have.

ANNA 21:27 
Can you stand up right now, Colin? This is truth talk. It's the big reveal?

COLIN 21:32 
I've just been getting real into shorts. Covid has been a comfy shorts time. Where do you think this is headed? In the future.

ANNA 21:41
I think that everything is gonna be a hybrid going forward, I don't think “there's a going back to normal” both because we are aware of new problems that could arise from everybody being in one place, everybody being in one city. Everybody being in one room. Right. And also because some things are more effective and honestly cheaper, more cost-efficient, and video calls are a big, big part of that. Like if you think about flying across the country for a business meeting, you are paying for one of your employees to take a cab to the airport, for their food, to take a business class flight from LA to Boston, you're putting them up in a hotel for a two-hour meeting that now you know you can do remotely. So I think people are gonna start looking at what makes sense. When things ease back, which I have faith that they will at some point, God, I hope... I think that people are gonna wanna rush back to be in the office, they're gonna wanna capture that old feeling, and then they're gonna remember everything they f***** hated about being in an office. And so it's gonna move back into being some kind of hybrid.

COLIN 22:47 
I'm also excited for just the tech to get better, I think video calls will be less exhausting if they're higher definition, 'cause then people can pick up on more subtleties of movement. 

ANNA 22:59 
The other thing is doctor's appointments, I think this is gonna be revolutionary for medicine because. You know I had a doctor's appointment the other day that normally would have taken half a day from the like you know driving, parking, spending $15 on parking. Then waiting in a waiting room, then doing the intake with a nurse, the waiting for the doctor than having a 10-minute conversation, then do the checkout and the rescheduling. I did it all online. The same result. When you think about somebody not being able to get child care to go to a doctor's appointment or get off work to go to a doctor's appointment. And just being able to do that, it's just like, earth-shattering.

COLIN 23:42 
Yeah, I tore my ACL towards the beginning of quarantine and I went into the hospital once and then did video visits after that, including physical therapy, and it's just awesome.

ANNA 23:59 
And it was effective?

COLIN 24:00 
Yeah, didn't have to leave my house. It took 20 minutes instead of three hours. Hopefully, we keep doing that even after covid 'cause man. 

ANNA 24:10 
That's another thing is if you can go to the doctor or you can have your meetings from home, you're not in your car, that will limit our dependency on oil and all of the s*** we're putting out into the environment 'cause we broke this planet... She is not playing with us anymore...

COLIN 24:27 
Yeah, although the server is required for doing these video calls also are bad for the environment, but we'll figure that out

MUSIC

COLIN 24:55
Well, let's get into some troubleshooting.

ANNA 24:58 
This is the part of the show where we offer some suggestions and solutions for you to try out in your own Internet life to stay a little more sane. So let's talk about what we need for optimal video calling. What do you think about your space?

COLIN 25:14  
Yeah, for me, it's about simplicity. When in doubt, just use a wall, just blank wall. 

ANNA 25:20 
Yeah, so using backgrounds is an option if you wanna cover up your space or if it just makes more sense for you, but take a look at the requirements, take a look at how it works first, test out some images and make sure they're appropriate for whatever kind of meeting or interaction that you're about to have, I don't know, as a board meeting, do you need to put yourself on the deck of the Starship Enterprise?

COLIN 25:42 
Yes, yes you do. That's a clear answer for me.

ANNA 25:47 
That's a straight yes from Colin, everyone. The Starship Enterprise is always appropriate.

COLIN 25:54
But we wanna hear from you what are your favorite virtual backgrounds at us. @themoreuscroll with the letter U.

ANNA 26:00  
That's right. So in terms of appearance, here are some guidelines that you can use, first of all, just figure out what's best for your set up, right, the lights can make some fabric see through, or if you're low light and you have a really dark fabric can make you kinda disappear. It can either mute or highlight your make-up and hair, so make it look really different than it does just in the mirror, and also, I'm big on this, the angle of your camera, okay, because depending on the angle, people are gonna see right down your s***, and I don't know if you want everyone to see your cleavage and or chest hair, but make it informed choice. Obviously know your audience for the level of dressy, and then in terms of clothes, solid bright or neutral colors with classic silhouettes are a really good look and they'll look uniform across monitors and cameras because everybody's gonna have slightly different tech, it's gonna show up slightly differently. 

COLIN 26:51 
Related to this is lighting. Zoom has a few modes on lighting, you can do a low light optimized for low light mode. My other big thing with this is use natural light as much as possible...

ANNA 27:03 
Natural light is the best, if you can sit near a window, the best is facing a window. If your space is limited or you can't just designate one spot in your house, get a ring light, they're super cheap, you can get small ones that just clip on to your laptop or clip on to your monitor, or you can get big ones on a stand. I mean, I got one that I've been using and it was like less than 40 bucks.

COLIN 27:23
Man, I should do that.

ANNA 27:26  
Yeah, they're great. And they make you feel fancy like a YouTube star. You get the little catch lights in your eyeballs.

COLIN 27:33 
Do you have any opinions on... Touch up my appearance.

ANNA 27:38 
Yeah, why not?

COLIN 27:40 
Yeah, I'm all about i. 

ANNA 27:41 
And then in terms of sound, try to find a non-echoey spot without a lot of background noise, so things that help with echo are cushions, couch, blankets, like those kinds of soft things that can absorb noise. And then if you can get away from background noise and other people in your home try... Yeah, Lou and I have uh a schedule on our fridge of who's gonna be on calls when, and we try to stay out of each other's spaces during that time or not like, you know, vacuum.

COLIN 28:10 
That's so nice.

ANNA 28:12 
But we also don't have little kids running around.

COLIN 28:14 
Get rid of your kids listeners.

ANNA 28:19 
Troubleshooting number one, leave those kids by the side of the road and never look back...

COLIN 28:24 
It'll make the sound on your Zoom calls so much better.

ANNA 28:27 
So much clearer. And if you can't find a really quiet space, muting and unmuting, just be vigilant. That's kind of across the board, mic management. Just be vigilant.

COLIN 28:37 
Learn the hot key. Shift Command A is mute and unmute. Just pay attention a little bit to your surroundings in your home on your own while you're on Zoom. But especially if you aren't talking and somebody at your house is doing dishes. It is the worst. And everybody will know it's you because the yellow square will keep showing up every time there's a clash or a bang.

ANNA 29:01 
The yellow square never lies. If you're having a lot of technical difficulties or lag or latency, or your audio is better when your video is off or things like that, it means you're probably skimping on bandwidth, so check out zoom system requirements page to get a better idea of what amount of bandwidth you're gonna need for what you need to get done. 

COLIN 29:20 
We mentioned this before, but I am a huge fan of car mode, which shows up on Zoom on the mobile app. Car mode gives you a blank screen with one big button on it, and whenever you wanna talk, you press that button, and it's so nice. 

ANNA 29:36 
Cool. I love “hide self view.” It's just to go to the three dots by your head, and you can hide self view, because we are naturally just gonna look at our own faces and it's exhausting. 

COLIN 29:46
It's so great, it's easier to forget that you're on a call, and honestly, I think a lot of the Zoom fatigue I get is from looking at self view on Zoom.

ANNA 29:56 
Yeah, and I stop messing with my hair and my shirt and adjusting and stuff because I can't see myself, so I forget that I'm on camera.

COLIN 30:05 
Which honestly, it doesn't matter, nobody is critical about your appearance as you are, so... Yeah, yeah, yeah.

ANNA 30:12  
Let's talk about some ways to counteract zoom fatigue. Well, number one, don't be on zoom all the time, take breaks when you can, between meetings, if it's a long group meeting, turn camera for five minutes, stretch, refocus your eyes, and don't over-commit to social video calls if it's required of you all day at work. You know what I mean? It's a hard thing 'cause we wanna have a balance, we can't go out and do stuff with your friends, so you wanna have the social visits, but if you've been on Zoom for eight hours, doing a Zoom happy hours, just gonna kill you. 

COLIN 30:46 
Yeah, mmhmm

ANNA 30:47 
Colin, should we give the people some internet gold? 

COLIN 30:49 
Let's do Internet gold. 

MUSIC

ANNA 31:01 
Alright, Colin, what's your internet gold?

COLIN 31:05 
My internet gold is... And I think we may have mentioned this on the show before, but I did just wanna highlight it. Megan and I have our own Foy Family Slack channel, and it's the best.

ANNA 31:21 
You have not mentioned this. 

COLIN 31:24 
Well, this is just me and Megan. There's nobody else on this. So we have our own Slack space and there's four different channels, work and plans and random and general, and we use them all. We switch between them depending on what we're messaging about, but it is so nice because we are already on Slack for work anyway. It's really fun and really /nerdy and dumb.

ANNA 31:54 
/Now I'm thinking of all the possible channels. You could put household. You could put a shopping list...

COLIN 32:00 
Oh yeah, yeah. All the things.

ANNA 32:02 
Viewing list. All the things you wanna watch together. I'm gonna try it, I'm gonna see if I can get Lou on board.

COLIN 32:08 
It's great, it's really fun. How about you, what's your internet gold?

ANNA 32:13 
My internet gold is a TV show, and I'm calling it “internet” because I watched it on streaming... A Black Lady Sketch Show, if you have not seen a Black lady sketch show, you have to check it out. It's a show on HBO max, and it's exactly what it sounds like. It's Black Ladies doing sketch comedy, and it is the smartest, freshest thing I have seen in years, you guys, it's the funniest thing. It's the funniest thing I've seen in years. And it's so refreshing to see a point of view that's different from what we've gotten for decades, from the writer's rooms made up of 99% white dudes.

COLIN 32:51 
For me, that's a big part of it, is that it's just so different.

ANNA 32:57  
And is so well done. It was created by Robin Thede. It has this core cast of Black female comedians and just these incredible guest stars, like Angela Basset just got an Emmy nomination for playing the leader of a support group for bad b******. It's glorious. The whole show was just nominated for an Emmy for best variety sketch show, so I would absolutely drop what you're doing. Go watch black lady sketch show. Season 1 is on HBO. Season two was about to go into production before Corona hit, so we're gonna have to wait to watch that one, but the first season is just phenomenal.

COLIN 33:29 
Awesome. Those are today's internet nuggets.

ANNA 33:34 
That's right. We've gone panning in the Internet for you, and that's the nuggets that we've pulled out for you people. Check those out and let us know what you think.

OUTRO MUSIC

COLIN 33:46 
Well, we gotta sign out. Thanks for scrolling with us today.

ANNA 33:49 
Help us get the word out by sharing the show, please leave us a 5-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Connect with us online @themoreuscroll and themoreyouscroll.com. That last one is the word YOU, the one before is the letter U. You get it. Let us know what you thought of this episode. 

COLIN 34:06 
The More You Scroll is a production of Van Valin Productions and Lindenfield Studio. Our production intern is Emma Massey, our marketing intern is Elaine Oh. I’m Colin Foy.

ANNA 34:17 
I’m Anna Van Valin. Scroll you next time…