10 Funny Activities To Spice Up Your Zoom Meetings
Everything is done through Zoom nowadays, so it’ll be nice to have some funny activities to make those Zoom meetings more interesting. It can be challenging to do so much interacting through a screen, so here are some ways to brighten the tone and bring a little bit of color to what might otherwise be a dull meeting. Check out these funny activities you can do make your Zoom meetings funny and engaging!
1) Background Photos
Thanks to the many technological features on Zoom, it can be quite simple to change up your background. You can start small, just changing your background to some other unrecognized room, and see if anyone notices the difference. Or you could go father and change your scenery entirely, placing yourself in front of a sunset, forest, ocean, or wherever else you can find. You can find backgrounds with references to your favorite movies or TV shows. Certain “mockumentary” shows, like the Office, have standard backgrounds for interviews, which you can use yourself. See who notices your change in scenery or pretend to be one of your favorite characters!
2) Background Videos
Changing your background to a photo is a simple, easy change, but if you want to go to the next level of creatively pranking your Zoom peers, try making your background into a video. One particularly viral video circulating online is of a guy who filmed himself entering his room, then closing the door and leaving. He used this video as his own background, making the visual experience of him walking in on himself. There are plenty of amusing tricks you can do with this function. You can move around furniture subtly or add in highly noticable changes like people or pets entering the shot. There are a lot of creative ways to use this function to see who is really paying attention to you and your surroundings!
3) Filters
Thanks to SnapChat, there are many amusing activities you can do with filters over Zoom. You can turn yourself into a potato, a vampire or monster, an animal, or just about every filter that SnapChat already has. This will definitely be noticeable, so this might not be the trick to use in one-on-one Zoom meetings, but this could go unnoticed in larger groups. Have fun with the filters, maybe even change them up throughout the meeting. Give yourself a challenge and try to time how long it takes before someone notices!
4) Tops and Bottoms
Due to the nature of video chatting, most people will only see you from shoulders up. Even that might be a stretch depending on your set up. But it’s very unlikely anyone will see you below your torso, which gives you a great opportunity to experiment with your clothes. You can easily wear a professional shirt while wearing swim trunks below. You can get creative with how you dress, and if you play your cards right, no one else will know. If you are feeling more daring, you can give yourself one or two moments to get up, like to grab a drink or something similar. Give people a brief flash of your clashing styles, and act like nothing is out of the normal. This is a great amusing activity that has a high chance of going completely unnoticed.
5) Having Your Pet Fill In
If you have a cooperative pet, you can situate them in front of your screen and have them do the talking. You could leave some treats near your laptop, step away, and just let your pet do what is natural, and pretend like they’re just curious. Or you could go a step further and have your pet sit still and be the focus of your screen, while you talk into your microphone. This is one of the sillier things you can do, and depending on how you play it, it might not be believable, but it can be entertaining and give everyone a good laugh. Be sure to give your pet a treat for their contribution!
6) Playing With Mute
These funny activities are all based on your acting abilities. You might pretend you’re experiencing lag and that your words are cutting in and out. Or you could even play with the audio settings on your microphone. Improvise your best garbled speech patterns or your lip-synching ability. Bonuses for those who are the hosts of their Zoom meeting, since you could “accidentally” mute other people, and wait to see their reaction. You might cut someone off mid-sentence, or target someone who is quiet and have your prank go unnoticed for as long as it takes for them to realize no one can hear them. Just don’t take it too far, and make sure the prank is all in good fun. Not being heard could get frustrating, after all.
7) Coordinate With A Roommate
Anyone living with you is likely aware of your Zoom meeting schedules, since you probably don’t want any interruptions during an important meeting or interview. But you can use their knowledge of your schedule to coordinate an interruption of your own design and on your own terms. You could have embarrassing music suddenly blast out of the background when you have five minutes left in a meeting, and say you need to leave early. They could pop up in your background, with a sign or joke of some kind, then quickly hide away. Or maybe they could interrupt with some important news that you just need to hear, that turns out to be a joke or something potentially embarrassing to overhear. If you’re working with more joke-accepting audience, you could even have them yelling and cursing from the other room. It depends on how relaxed your Zoom meetings are, but there are tons of ways to simulate embarrassing events that are all in your control.
