The Background: A shelf of books with suspiciously un-creased spines.
What They’re Trying to Say: “I read books. And I will prove to you I read books by displaying all of these books. Which I have totally read.”
What it Actually Says: “I want to be smart. Or at least feel smart. But most important: I want you to think I’m smart.”
What We Think: “There’s no chance they’ve read all those books. And wait, is that Fifty Shades of Grey?”
The Sports Guy (It’s Always a Guy)
The Background: His favourite team’s colours, pictures, logos, bobbleheads…
What They’re Trying to Say: “Sports!”
What it Actually Says: “In place of an interesting personality, I have an ever-growing and ever-useless knowledge of this specific sports team. Please ask me about it.”
What we Think: “He definitely has a stats page open and is dying for this meeting to end so he can argue on a sports message board.”
The “I Know How to Use the Zoom Background Feature”
The Background: An obviously fake image that blurs the edges of the person like a bad green screen.
What They’re Trying to Say: Am I quarantining on a tropical island or did I just blow your mind?
What it Actually Says: “My idea of being spontaneous is picking a preset background image while raising one eyebrow and giving a knowing smirk until everyone comments on my spontaneity.”
What We Think: “Oh god, they’re going to keep that up for the entire meeting, aren’t they?”
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Illustration by Pete Ryan
"The Sports Guy"
Illustration by Pete Ryan
"The "I Know How to Use the Zoom Background Feature""
This article appears in the December 2020 issue of Edify.
