Students find comedy relief through Zoom classes

In the time of COVID-19 and social distancing, people are finding creative ways to boost their serotonin. For instance, people have taken to various social media platforms to share some of their experiences laughing during online classes. 

Stories have trended across the internet on sites like Twitter and TikTok, showing students coordinating whole classes to prank a professor, changing zoom backgrounds to photos from “The Office” and accidentally singing songs to their whole class when they thought they were on mute.

At Lewis & Clark, students are finding ways to entertain themselves during Zoom classes. In some cases, students have forgotten to turn off their cameras or microphones. Genevieve Basile ’23 was one of these students. 

“I had started my five step Indian head/scalp massage when I thought my camera was off,” Basile said. “I don’t really mind that they saw. I just thought it was funny and then turned off the camera.” 

International students face the added pressure of dealing with time changes with online classes. Krishna Sumanth ’19 has now returned home to India and is waking up in the middle of the night for classes, although he still finds these classes entertaining.

“In one of my classes, there was one guy who was on a Zoom call with his friends and, as a joke, had changed his background to a shirtless picture of one of his friends,” Sumanth said. “He forgot to change it back before he joined our class and sat for a solid 30 seconds before realizing that he had a shirtless white guy posing in his background.” 

And of course, as students navigate staying motivated and focused while in quarantine, a few naps are bound to happen. For some students, it has become more difficult to stay awake in class when they are not actually in a classroom anymore. Fabi Araya ’23 described how this happened to her during one of her Zoom classes.

“If you’re feeling bad, remember that I fell asleep and my teacher kept calling my name until the end of class,” Araya said. “I was soundly asleep, having a nightmare, while my professor was calling out ‘Okay, see you Fabi!’”  

While we sit in our respective spaces all over the world, Zoom offers comfort and acts as a form of comedic relief for students and faculty as they quarantine and self-isolate. With students adjusting to the challenges of online learning during COVID-19, Zoom has become a part of today’s college culture.