4479

They both seem like aliens or robots the are doing a poor job of emulating human behavior. Zuck was being Zuck, but the woman’s hand gestures looked like she was following programming or being controlled like a marionette.

4480

It’s her insane hand gestures that made me have to flee.

Zuck is bad enough, but you can kind of prep for it. Zuck + whatever is happening in the leather jacket is just too much.
I can’t handle cringe very well though. It gives me anxiety most of the time.

Edit: The responses are gold. Gold, Jerry!

4481

What’s most hilarious (or saddest, depending on your outlook) is that the number one criticism/response/meme about Zuckerberg’s demeanor for YEARS is that he’s a robot or a lizard person or whatever. To see that year after year and not have any plan to change the image is amazing. They have to be leaning into it intentionally.

4482

It’s so cute you think the opinions of the human product stock could matter.

4483

You just don’t understand how to connect with the fellow kids like Zuck does.

4484

Marky is so off the mark with this whole thing it’s almost amusing. The idea that people want to live in a metaverse or whatever goes against basic logic, common sense and pretty much every recent trend. VR was supposed to blow-up post 2014, with investments of billions and every tech site raving. Where is it now? Adopted by neckbeards and tech gadgets enthusiasts. The whole damn world went into lockdown last year and still noone cared about it because, news flash, noone wants a helmet that cuts them off the rest of the world.

4485

Most of that is my personal response and I’m still doubtful that meaningful numbers of people are going to be working/having meetings in the Metaverse or whatever in the next decade, but then again I have a similar reaction to things like Fortnite which isn’t that different a concept, but for kids, and it’s obviously huge. So I’m conscious my extreme skepticism may be a generational thing.

4486

Is a VR meeting really all that much better than a Zoom meeting? I can see neat applications for real estate and architecture plan walkthroughs, but I’d rather see someone’s real face, even on a screen, for a meeting.

I do think it could be a big deal in gaming. It’s just not there yet and may not be for a long time.

4487

It’s called Discord, and it is a big deal already. You can do this in discord.

4488

Way too rich to acknowledge such petty concerns. By law, influence and economy, Mark Zuckerberg has become god. Why would he care what any mortal thinks.

That is how these people see themselves, and the world.

It belongs to them, and they’ll never have to share it with any of us. We’re just scrappy fleas amusing ourselves somewhere in the fibers of the carpets they walk on. We should be grateful they still allow us to breathe the air.

They’re basically The Judge from Blood Meridian.

4489

The difference is Fortnite was a huge hit from the get-go. It didn’t need “computing power to catch up”. It didn’t even need marketing… the devs originally marketed a shitty left for dead clone with buildings. Just like all other true tech leaps - Windows, the touch screen smartphone, the Internet etc. These things were never “5-10 years away”, like VR or whatever Marky is proposing, they were a success right away.

4490

Fortnite was not a huge hit from the get go. It was a mediocre, some would say failed, co-op PvE survival/base defence crafter before it pivoted to Battle Royale off the back of PUBG’s success and steamrolled to the front of the pack. From there is has never looked back. Marvelous bit of pivot from Epic and the devs, but it was around and nobody really cared until PUBG paved the way for them.

4491

The reality is that Meta is going to need to figure out something more than cartoon avatars to make buying and putting on headgear worth it for a work meeting. Most people don’t even turn on their cameras. And I don’t think this is a young people vs. old people thing.

It seems pretty clear that this is a an ego project for Zuck. No employee could ever get a company to invest the resources he has in this boondoggle.

4492

I have seen you make this claim about cameras being universally off before, and it just doesn’t match my experience. Basically nobody turns off their camera, except if:

  • They have a bad enough connection that people are explicitly telling them that it is chopping out.
  • It is a huge one direction meeting, and they are on the passive side of it. Like an all hands meeting where all the content is created in advance, and you know exactly who will be presenting what. But these are rare meetings, since they are such expensive meetings anyway. Like once per quarter for the 100 employee org where I work at.

This pattern goes for both people in my team, people across the rest of the company, as well as external people. To me it seems crazy that anyone would either attend meetings that are not relevant enough to contribute to, or be willing to cut out the huge amount of side channel expressivity that the face has in meetings that they are interested in.

4493

Fair enough. It’s maybe 60/40 off/on at my company. Likely you get majority on if it’s a company culture thing that managers reinforce.

Still, it’s a huge leap to go from cameras to putting on a special piece of hardware just for a meeting.

4494

Counterpoint: I’m in sales so I have meetings with dozens of different customers, vendors, etc. and I’d say that 95% don’t turn on their cameras. All of our younger staff prefer not to have theirs on, even in internal meetings where it’s expected.

4495

I can chime in on this one since I think I’m well positioned to do so. As a consultant I have online Teams/Zoom/Webex meetings constantly with a lot of different organizations. There are a few organizations with a strong “camera on” culture but it’s a rarity. There are a few organizations I deal with where nobody uses the camera, often because the laptops that corporate IT bulk ordered have crappy webcams or the nostril-cams right at the base of the laptop screen.

Most organizations have a mix of behaviors. Leaders are more likely to be on camera, individual contributors less so. The larger the meeting, the more likely more people choose not to be on camera. Meetings for negotiations/sales are more likely to have people on camera, meetings on dry technical or procedural topics are less likely to have people on camera. Overall I’d say that about it averages about 60/40 camera-off/camera-on but as mentioned that varies a lot by meeting type and a persons role.

That’s just my experience, but I thought it worth sharing.

4496

It’s not coming by management edict either. I’ve never seen any such guidance, or even a request to an individual to turn on the camera in the rare cases it is off. If somebody has the camera off, they are assumed to have a good reason that would not be questioned.

Clearly it must be cultural somehow, but it was like that basically from day one of the pandemic.

Interesting to hear how different this is across companies.

The thing that confuses me is that literally all of my external calls have the video on, and nobody has ever said they’d like to turn it off. These are universally job interviews (around 100 in the last 18 months), but I am sure our recruiters are not saying that the video is mandatory.

Oh, absolutely. I don’t see anyone wanting to do VR meetings. It sounds like hell. The Starline thing Google demoed at IO would be different, but seems unlikely to ever be something you’d install at home.

4497

We have cameras on mostly, although I turn it off in meetings when I am not expecting to speak. I think maybe because we had frequent zoom meetings before COVID, so we are used to video meetings as a way of doing things.

4498

Of course job candidates are going to keep their cameras on. That’s what you’re basing your anecdotal evidence on?