This has real demand, I ended up in the Gitlab secondary youtube channel one day, ordering by most views, and I found a video [0] of a seemingly normal uninteresting meeting with millions of views. Turns out people were using this as an excuse for looking like they were busy. They disabled comments now but I saved some of them because I thought it was hilarious:
I play this when I need my family to leave me alone - so helpful
4.5K
I play this when I pretend to be busy. This meeting is literally about anything you want it to be about lol
1.5K
I love that we all arrived at this video for the same reason
2.6K
Every now and then I'll pause it at a good point in between them talking to make my own voice heard contributing to the "meeting" lol. Gets the full effect in! And the beautiful thing is their conversation just flows with it like they heard me lol.
562
I was one of those people skeptical that ad-free YouTube was worth the high price, but now firmly a convert.
Get it! The best deal in streaming content. Unlocks such a better experience you’ll find a dozen whole new areas of valuable & enjoyable content to explore.
If you can. A lot of subscription TV channels have ads even though you have to pay to get them. Does paying for youtube block all ads, and if so will it continue to, or will they change as so many others have and just make your payment remove some ads? I'm not even counting sponsored content in a lot of videos as ads, but they are annoying too.
The scripts are hilarious, yet not inaccurate. I can't stop chuckling.
'Are you happy with that?'
'Happy is a strong word'
'OK' moves on to the next topic
Reminds me of the "boss mode" / "boss key" in old games, like MS-DOS days, which would switch the screen to some spreadsheet mockup or suchlike, updated for the current century.
Do people in offices typically just blast meetings out of their computer speakers? Everyone I work with uses headphones so we're not disturbing other people in the office...
Unless you have good ANC headphones, or find something like pink noise that fits you, you're still dealing with all the talking to microphone of your colleagues.
Only the British audio works for me, though - if I try American or International, the relevant meetings are silent with a "Join Audio" button which doesn't appear to do anything. (Firefox on MacOS, if that's useful)
What are all the names for the category of such software... "Self-defense Software", "Busy Simulation Software", "Faux Work Software", "Fake Meeting Software"[0], "Virtual Meeting Simulator"[1], "Prank Screens"[2], ...? Are there many others?
Trying to access this site on my corporate Windows laptop and it was blocked "by your IT admin" (in Windows itself, not the browser/proxy). So it's already on some kind of list.
I am missing something about how this could hypothetically be useful. If I played this in the background it would be far too distracting to get any actual work done.
Simple solution for focus time. If it stops people from setting up an actual meeting for something that fits in an email, it is already doing critical infrastructure work.
This has real demand, I ended up in the Gitlab secondary youtube channel one day, ordering by most views, and I found a video [0] of a seemingly normal uninteresting meeting with millions of views. Turns out people were using this as an excuse for looking like they were busy. They disabled comments now but I saved some of them because I thought it was hilarious:
I play this when I need my family to leave me alone - so helpful 4.5K I play this when I pretend to be busy. This meeting is literally about anything you want it to be about lol 1.5K I love that we all arrived at this video for the same reason 2.6K Every now and then I'll pause it at a good point in between them talking to make my own voice heard contributing to the "meeting" lol. Gets the full effect in! And the beautiful thing is their conversation just flows with it like they heard me lol. 562
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBVtvOpU80Q
Are they monetizing it? If not they are missing out!
For people without adblocker the trick will be ruined at some point by something like loud enthusiastic ClickUp ad.
I was one of those people skeptical that ad-free YouTube was worth the high price, but now firmly a convert.
Get it! The best deal in streaming content. Unlocks such a better experience you’ll find a dozen whole new areas of valuable & enjoyable content to explore.
Why not just block ads?
At some point, paying for something and knowing it will work is worth it. In particular, ad blocking YouTube on mobile is frustrating.
If you can. A lot of subscription TV channels have ads even though you have to pay to get them. Does paying for youtube block all ads, and if so will it continue to, or will they change as so many others have and just make your payment remove some ads? I'm not even counting sponsored content in a lot of videos as ads, but they are annoying too.
Not getting sucked into YouTube on mobile is a feature, not a bug
NewPipe is the way to do that on android...
They could raise the price or start having ads even if you pay. You're a renter. You have no rights.
Why don't you just decline calls with text messages, or just ignore them, or simply mute your phone?
People take offense.
So?
You would not know as you declined?
> People take offense.
Sounds like something a W-2 wage slave would say
The scripts are hilarious, yet not inaccurate. I can't stop chuckling. 'Are you happy with that?' 'Happy is a strong word' 'OK' moves on to the next topic
Reminds me of the "boss mode" / "boss key" in old games, like MS-DOS days, which would switch the screen to some spreadsheet mockup or suchlike, updated for the current century.
This was tickling something in my brain and this was it! Thank you.
Do people in offices typically just blast meetings out of their computer speakers? Everyone I work with uses headphones so we're not disturbing other people in the office...
Unless you have good ANC headphones, or find something like pink noise that fits you, you're still dealing with all the talking to microphone of your colleagues.
It's less noisy when you hear 5 people talk in 5 meetings than when you hear 50 people talk in those 5 remote meetings.
I have reasonably good headphones and nice music
If you can't tell people you want to concentrate on your work, there's either something very wrong with where you work, or you.
Where's the HR-faced "Can everyone turn on their cameras please?" one with 200 people in the call.
Truly uncanny!
Only the British audio works for me, though - if I try American or International, the relevant meetings are silent with a "Join Audio" button which doesn't appear to do anything. (Firefox on MacOS, if that's useful)
Same, console says something about missing or "unsuitable" audio resources.
Sad, I wanted the international broken Zoom call
Same here - Brave browser. Only British works
We need a fake teams / zoom UI with faces talking. You know, for those working in open plan.
Audio seems broken now, maybe hugged to death. Console:
Reminds me of the fake Windows Update page.
Fantastic product! Needs people talking over each other for greater authenticity, I reckon.
What are all the names for the category of such software... "Self-defense Software", "Busy Simulation Software", "Faux Work Software", "Fake Meeting Software"[0], "Virtual Meeting Simulator"[1], "Prank Screens"[2], ...? Are there many others?
[0]: https://fakemeeting.app/
[1]: https://z.tools/t/fake-meeting
[2]: https://www.whitescreen.online/
I'd say a quintessentially British, tactical-yet-polite social interaction deterrent
Computer-Aided Boundaries? Social Assistive Software?
Minor but when I took myself off mute, my box didn't reflect that. Not sure if bug or a feature.
Brilliant, this website is blocked at my work: "This content is blocked by your organization".
It's because it's a new domain. Very common in corporate IT.
I didn't know that was a thing, but that makes sense. Thanks!
Maybe a silly question, but without video isn't this obviously fake? Or is it normal for all participants on a call to be audio only?
Pretty normal. Camera's usually stay off unless it's a 1-1, presentation, or maybe a VP level call.
If you find use for this tool, chances are good that you're in an place where all the participants would be audio only
You get it.
Depends on the company, the team, the agenda etc
It's normal in many places for the only video to be shared screen
Trying to access this site on my corporate Windows laptop and it was blocked "by your IT admin" (in Windows itself, not the browser/proxy). So it's already on some kind of list.
New domain registrations typically aren't on a list yet, which, in itself gets blocked.
I retired a few months ago. These calls have taken me back to the horror of working in tech. It must be what PTSD is like.
I'm not getting any audio, bunch of 404s on loop.m4a... anyone else?
EDIT: seems like British audio does work
This is fun. The audio isn’t particularly believable. Not that it matters for this project.
I’ve used a few tts providers and although a technical marvel they are all still easily identifiable as ai. Humans are very good at spotting fakes.
This project might work better with mostly canned audio clips of real humans.
I am missing something about how this could hypothetically be useful. If I played this in the background it would be far too distracting to get any actual work done.
Nice, it's got real Interdimensional Cable vibes.
Simple solution for focus time. If it stops people from setting up an actual meeting for something that fits in an email, it is already doing critical infrastructure work.
Please add other language versions! Should be easy to do, and would help us from non-English speaking countries.
Or just follow Alberta Tech’s lead: https://youtube.com/shorts/FLz04Wr14AM?is=T1UpCpKLJPwd5PuS
Can we just be honest?
I'm gonna ironically make a Claude theme and use that if I ever hand write a site again. :)
Awesome, if I worked in the UK.
haha, now I can always use this website if I don't want to be interrupted lol