Zoom Escapers has been introduced by artist Sam Lavigne. The app lets users choose from a variety of fake audio effects to sabotage their zoom meeting.
Users can choose the sound of a dog barking incessantly, construction noises, a child crying his eyes out, or any other chaotic audio. The year 2020 has been all about virtual meetings, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. Things haven’t gotten any better in 2021 as well and the zoom meetings continue to remain a thing. However, now that we are all so done with sitting in front of the screens for long hours for video calls, a kind soul has launched a new application to help users escape the meetings without using false excuses. Telling that you have network issues every time is passed, you could now use excuses that are more realistic.
A new web widget that goes by the name Zoom Escapers has been introduced by artist Sam Lavigne, which lets users choose from a variety of fake audio effects to sabotage their zoom meeting. If you add the widget, you could choose the sound of a dog barking incessantly, construction noises, a child crying his eyes out, or any other chaotic audio that may not sound to pleasant to people who are a part of the meeting. “Zoom Escaper is a tool to help you escape Zoom meetings and other video conferencing scenarios. It allows you to self-sabotage your audio stream, making your presence unbearable to others,” the website description read
In order to get the Zoom escapers, you will have to download software called VB-Audio, this can then change you audio input in Zoom using your microphone. However, the interesting bit about this application is that you yourself would not hear the sound effects that will be playing in the background. The other participates in the video call will be able to tell you about the annoying sound.
Some of the editors at The Verge were able to test the sound effects and found the crying baby sound to be the most authentic and effective one. However, the bigger challenge would be for the user to convince the other people in the video call that you have a baby in your home. So if your folks know that you live alone, you might not use this sound effect every time because it would be silly to imagine that your colleagues would believe you every time you tell them there is a baby at home. There is another application created by Lavigne called Zoom Deleter, this widget is a little less subtle than the Zoom Escaper. This checks for the presence of Zoom on your computer and immediately deletes the app the moment it discovers it. Well, we can do with the Zoom Escaper, for now, the deleter is too direct and we still want to be part of the official meetings to secure our job!
