5 ms·

I write off anyone who video conferences with a bookshelf behind them as a fool trying to pass off as more intelligent than they actually are. It’s so cringey b

by xwdv 5y ago

I write off anyone who video conferences with a bookshelf behind them as a fool trying to pass off as more intelligent than they actually are. It’s so cringey because of how blatantly manipulative it is.

crazygringo 5y ago
That's ridiculous. Lots of people don't live in huge houses where they have lots of options. They're videoconferencing from their home office desk, which guess what -- it's extremely common to have bookshelves behind your desk. Has been for many decades, it's not a Zoom thing. If anything is cringey, it's your tremendously unsympathetic comment, unfortunately.
sva_ 5y ago
So living in a small space is being manipulative now?
- maeln 5y ago
  Yeah, I live in a one bedroom, one kitchen-office-living room. I don't have a choice but to have most of my flat "on display". This made me realize, that I have some book by some prominent anarchist author on my book shelves in clear view of my webcam. I guess my employer know where I stand now haha.
TheMagicHorsey 5y ago
Some people have only one workspace, and also actually happen to have some books they don't want to stack on the floor.
- ghaff 5y ago
  When I was getting my office video properly set up I thought about more deliberately putting some other objects there and so forth. But the thing is that it's my office bookcase and I'd have ended up having to pile a bunch of books in the floor in another room. So I decided it wasn't worth it.
prepend 5y ago
This is funny. I sit in front of a bookshelf to work so that’s where I video from. I’m not (consciously) manipulating, I’m just dropping the video feed into wherever I am. Perhaps it’s not manipulative and different people do things for different reasons. I don’t turn on blur or backgrounds because I find the edge detection not matching offsetting and seems cheesy to me.
ZoomZoomZoom 5y ago
Writing people off in general might be not the best life strategy. From the point of view of a sound engineer: book shelves are probably the best background surface one could have in a typical living environment due to good sound diffusion characteristics.
handrous 5y ago
The best position for filming in my office gives me a blank wall as a backdrop. Looks great, helps the lighting, end up with a wonderful, natural backdrop gradient around me in kind of a "halo". People've commented on it, unprompted. It's nice. However, the most functional and useful layout of my room fills my whole camera backdrop with bookcases, edge-to-edge. Here I was, right this moment, trying to decide between moving my desk back to a spot that lets me re-claim half the room for other purposes, or keeping the better-looking backdrop but having a shit room layout, and now I guess I have to worry that some people will judge me an asshole if I have books behind me. WTF.
- ghaff 5y ago
  Personally, I think bookcases look fine as a backdrop. I tidied mine up a little bit but otherwise it's just what's in the background from the external webcam on my desktop system. The only "stage management" I've done is that I draped a fabric print wall hanging over some ugly metal file cabinets. I thought of getting a background Japanese screen sort of thing early on but it would be perpetually in the way.
MattGaiser 5y ago
1. Plenty of desks are normally in front of shelves anyway. 2. I have an empty bookshelf as my background as a joke about this.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

by xwdv 5y ago

crazygringo 5y ago

That's ridiculous. Lots of people don't live in huge houses where they have lots of options. They're videoconferencing from their home office desk, which guess what -- it's extremely common to have bookshelves behind your desk. Has been for many decades, it's not a Zoom thing. If anything is cringey, it's your tremendously unsympathetic comment, unfortunately.

sva_ 5y ago

So living in a small space is being manipulative now?

maeln 5y ago
Yeah, I live in a one bedroom, one kitchen-office-living room. I don't have a choice but to have most of my flat "on display". This made me realize, that I have some book by some prominent anarchist author on my book shelves in clear view of my webcam. I guess my employer know where I stand now haha.

TheMagicHorsey 5y ago

Some people have only one workspace, and also actually happen to have some books they don't want to stack on the floor.

ghaff 5y ago
When I was getting my office video properly set up I thought about more deliberately putting some other objects there and so forth. But the thing is that it's my office bookcase and I'd have ended up having to pile a bunch of books in the floor in another room. So I decided it wasn't worth it.

prepend 5y ago

This is funny. I sit in front of a bookshelf to work so that’s where I video from. I’m not (consciously) manipulating, I’m just dropping the video feed into wherever I am. Perhaps it’s not manipulative and different people do things for different reasons. I don’t turn on blur or backgrounds because I find the edge detection not matching offsetting and seems cheesy to me.

ZoomZoomZoom 5y ago

Writing people off in general might be not the best life strategy. From the point of view of a sound engineer: book shelves are probably the best background surface one could have in a typical living environment due to good sound diffusion characteristics.

handrous 5y ago

The best position for filming in my office gives me a blank wall as a backdrop. Looks great, helps the lighting, end up with a wonderful, natural backdrop gradient around me in kind of a "halo". People've commented on it, unprompted. It's nice. However, the most functional and useful layout of my room fills my whole camera backdrop with bookcases, edge-to-edge. Here I was, right this moment, trying to decide between moving my desk back to a spot that lets me re-claim half the room for other purposes, or keeping the better-looking backdrop but having a shit room layout, and now I guess I have to worry that some people will judge me an asshole if I have books behind me. WTF.

ghaff 5y ago
Personally, I think bookcases look fine as a backdrop. I tidied mine up a little bit but otherwise it's just what's in the background from the external webcam on my desktop system. The only "stage management" I've done is that I draped a fabric print wall hanging over some ugly metal file cabinets. I thought of getting a background Japanese screen sort of thing early on but it would be perpetually in the way.

MattGaiser 5y ago

1. Plenty of desks are normally in front of shelves anyway. 2. I have an empty bookshelf as my background as a joke about this.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]