Five Iconic Video Fails from the Pandemic

Last year will be remembered as, among other things, the year the world successfully moved to a remote working set-up overnight.

But that’s not to say the transition was completed without a hiccup or two.

We’ve picked out five high-profile fails that tickled us as the world got to grips with constant video conferencing.

‘You need to unmute’

All around the world meeting participants were reminded of the need to unmute themselves more than once.

Perhaps the most common example has been in the government’s daily press conferences, where journalists consistently failed to get a grip with mute functions.

Even when the daily press conferences had stopped and we moved onto Brexit, ITV was still struggling.

Robert Peston on mute? A Christmas miracle pic.twitter.com/fNLiPvKfhM

— Salman (@_SalmanAnwar) December 24, 2020

**Slams laptop lid shut**

The end of video calls are a little awkward. What do you do? An awkward wave? A thumbs up?

Next time, try this mic drop-equivalent from Gordon Brown…

This is how all interviews on TV should end. pic.twitter.com/flq8H3BC4O

— Scott Bryan (@scottygb) September 11, 2020

For context, it was a Friday morning and Brown had been invited onto BBC Breakfast to discuss the latest development in the UK-EU trade deal. Can anyone blame him for logging off ASAP?

‘This free meeting has now ended’

We’re all guilty of blagging a free Zoom meeting here and there, or using the allocated 40 minutes and then restarting the meeting straight after.

Well, that’s not so easy to do when you’re live on TV, as the BBC found out during an interview with the managing director of Westfield.

Viewers were given a shot of a monitor displaying the message “this free Zoom meeting has ended”.

Perhaps someone forgot to pay the invoice.

Oh how annoying. We’ve all been there @BBCNews. Interesting that zoom has been adopted instead of the usual Skype. #zoomfail pic.twitter.com/Z2y6xacFBz

— Luke Dudley (@LukeDudley1) May 26, 2020

“These poor people live in these tiny apartments”

Many of us will have been forced to show bosses and colleagues more of our home lives than we’re comfortable with – but do we expect them to pass judgement?

Actor Lukas Gage certainly didn’t while he was preparing to audition for a role via video link.

Director Tristram Shapeero said he was “mortified” when he was told (by Gage himself) that he wasn’t muted.

Shapeero later tried to claim he was expressing genuine sympathy, but we’re not convinced.

Does the apartment even look that bad?

PS. Gage sadly did not get the role.

psa if youre a shit talking director make sure to mute ur shit on zoom mtgings pic.twitter.com/PTgMZcRhEw

— lukas gage (@lukasgage) November 20, 2020

“You all just disappeared… all of you”

We’ve all experienced a glitch here and there while video conferencing – and it would appear the Queen is no exception.

During a chat with employees from KMPG the Queen experienced a brief outage, much to her surprise.

Perhaps Her Majesty could do with some Wi-Fi extenders over at Windsor Castle.