An app developer has created a nifty and devious solution to aid people in getting out of the long official Zoom calls.
The new Zoom Escaper is a free web widget that helps users add fake audio effects to Zoom calls. The effects the application creates are so disturbing that other participants are left with no other option than to end the call.
The new widget offers a range of effects, including choppy connection, broken-up words, unclear gibberish sounds, noise of crying baby, a yelling man, a continuous dog bark, and sounds of construction.
An article posted on The Guardian’s website states, “the widget was created by an artist named Sam Lavigne, who thought that the Zoom Escaper would help workers to bunk from work and do less.”
“I’ve been thinking about how sabotage might work in a digital context, especially one where the means of production are also personal devices that mediate your social life,” he continued.
As per The Verge, Zoom Escaper’s developer said that he had been involved in relevant projects earlier, such as deliberate slowdown, reducing productivity, output self-sabotage, and others.
The same developer in 2017 created ‘The Good Life,’ which allowed people to clog their inboxes. A year earlier, the guy developed a website called ‘slow Hot Computer,’ and as the name suggests, it made the computer run slow and hot.
Lavigne told The Verge, “use Zoom Escaper to decrease productivity at work.” He released a Youtube video tutorial to explain how to set up Zoom Escaper and show some of the available sound effects.