After a year and a half of virtual schooling – with maybe more to come – most kids (and adults) have had at least some experience with Zoom, cameras, and what can happen when you forget about one while doing the other.

If there’s one good thing to come out of this whole mess it’s these stories, so let’s have a laugh at these 16 people’s expense!

16. Cats, am I right?

When I forgot to turn off my video and my cat attacked me.

I was sitting by a window while petting my cat and taking notes on the lecture. My entire class is well-acquainted with my cat because he likes to climb over my keyboard during class, so they all knew he was there. Well, my cat decided that he didn’t like me taking notes instead of petting him so he went for it, biting, scratching, kicking, etc.

I was wearing a sweatshirt, so it wasn’t that big of a deal, but I was cracking up. I glanced back at my screen and my whole class is laughing. My teacher was just like, “Hey, gnoble22, are you okay?” while trying to keep a straight face.

15. That’s so uncomfortable.

During orientation on zoom, some guy said “man this class so f**kin dummmmb.”

I felt really bad for the teacher.

14. That’s awkward.

My sister was in a Zoom lecture for her university course (all were required to turn on cameras for this specific lecture) and some guy obviously forgot and lit a joint on camera to 30+ other students and his lecturer.

13. Free entertainment.

I joined the class on my phone and thought I had my mic muted.

I put my phone on my music stand and did some piano practice since the lesson hadn’t really started and after I finished playing the first piece my history teacher said “that was some lovely piano playing but can we get to the lesson now?”

12. When the kids are cool.

I’m a music professor, and one day I was playing an example for my class that was about a minute and a half long. Afterwards I realized that I never turned on audio sharing.

I apologized to the students and laughed, and one of them said, “it’s cool Prof. Plug_5, it’s fun to sit and watch you vibe to music.”

11. These are both amazing stories.

5th grade student’s mom in the background, at full volume: “Well you tell that mother FUCKER that the next time I see him I’m cutting his fucking BALLS OFF” as I try desperately to figure out which one is unmuted and mute them. Poor girl was totally un-phased so she likely hears similar all the time. Everyone else just stared in shock for a couple of seconds until one kid just unmutes and goes “That’s not school appropriate language at all”

Another student, different time, had Nanna wander through the background, completely nude. Using a walker so she’s just

slowly

limping

through

frame

Either I’m the only one who noticed, or these 10 year olds have amazing poker faces, but I have no idea how I would have dealt with the fall out of that if they’d said anything. I just took to loudly reminding students that anything we can see in the camera counts as part of school and needs to be dressed, or seated appropriately, in the hopes that families hear.

10. You never know what you’re gonna hear.

I’m a professor running Zoom classes right now. Just the other day I had a student shout “piece of s*%t!” in the middle of one of my lectures.

I asked him if my lecture on research credibility was really making him that angry, and then heard “oh shit my mic is -“

9. A moment of levity.

We had a guy in his car, unmutes his mic during a presentation to answer a question, and forgot to mute. Presentation carries on and then we abruptly hear him start ordering his lunch from Burger King through the drive through. Presentation stops, everyone listens to this poor kid order his whole lunch.

Another kid unmutes “can I get an order of mozza sticks?” About 5 mins of laughter before the presentation restarted

8. They were probably impressed.

I took a live proctored exam on Wednesday. In a room that abuts my horse’s run outside. In the middle of the test, my 31 year old horse let out the longest loudest flatulence I’ve heard. 15 seconds plus.

Yes, the window was open. No, the proctor couldn’t see the window or the horse. For all they know, it was me.

7. The hero they needed.

We were in band, playing our instruments and doing our stuff.

As usual nobody wanted to have their camera on. So he is completely fine with that.

All of a sudden, I get an earful Of loud music blaring through the speakers.

Some kid forgot his mic was on after asking a question, and he was playing “first place” by Larray.

Those who did have their camera on were dying laughing, and the teacher couldn’t figure out who it was, because the google meet band class was so big.

About 2 minutes later it finally stops, and everyone is rioting in the chat, and I was laughing myself.

We all bless the kid, because he actually saved us from the last few minutes of class, and the hardest measures.

Yeah google meets suck but this was one epic moment.

6. Ground rules are great.

I was meeting with my project group for the first time when my boyfriend busts through the door holding my cat with the cat butt aimed at me making machine gun noises.

Had to keep my mic/video off for like 10 min after due to uncontrollable bouts of laughter.

We established the ground rule “door closed = in meeting” after that.

5. Just like in real life.

Maybe not quite the same thing, but yesterday a girl fell asleep with her camera on, and she was just lying there with her eyes closed and mouth open.

For the rest of the lecture.

4. Pertinent information.

I was in a discord server chatting with friends. Somehow, the discord conversation started talking about velociraptor body pillows. Now I was smart enough not to be in class when the conversation started to unfold. One of my friends however… was in class, and left his mic on.

The teacher ended up muting him, and talking to him after class. Never did found out about his class’ reaction to velociraptor body pillows…

3. A learning curve.

I had an early elective class (so about 200 people) last semester where half of us showed up in person and half of us were on zoom.

I guess the professor set the meeting setting for everyone to be unmuted by default when joining because every. single. day. we would have to hear someone on zoom who didn’t mute have breakfast with what would sound like their whole frat/sorority.

Presumably their phone was on the meeting in their pocket, while the technologically inept professor struggled to figure out how to mute the for the first 10 minutes of class.

2. Happens to the best of us.

I’ll sum it up, I had wireless headphones with a mic and left to go to the bathroom….

Now

1. Tests are stressful.

Kid screamed “F**K” loudly when we were starting a test.

Probably saw the first question then just died inside.

 

I’m so glad I didn’t have to deal with this, because I definitely would have had a story to add.

What’s your horror story? Share it with us in the comments!