Klaus Brinkbäumer was most recently editor-in-chief of “Spiegel” and now works as an author for “Die Zeit”, among others. You can reach him at [email protected] or on Twitter at @Brinkbaeumer
I can do that now, I have understood which two lamps I have to switch on so that I can be illuminated in the same studio, I know which camera angle I need so that the bookcase on my right appears in the background, but not the clothes horse and ironing board in the depths of the room. I got dressed properly, all over my body, because I know the story of that famous colleague who conferred with his editors in a shirt and jacket via zoom, had not clicked out his camera and got up in underpants (more on “zooming” later).
Only 60 seconds before the start do I move to the desk, put on the earphones, and on time I am ready to talk – if not, a minute before the most important conference of the year, when the cutest of all sons switched off the WiFi for all the remaining minutes of the day .
A year ago I didn’t know what zoom was. Today I live my old life with Zoom in the new times, because everything remains possible: readings, interviews, filming, family reunions and Christmas parties, theater and opera, beer with friends. Obvious disadvantage: “I haven’t touched anyone for six months,” said a good friend via Zoom.
Darauf einen Quarantini
Words of this year, snapped up with a zoom: “Maskne” (pimples under the covering of the mouth nose); “Happy Blursday” (“blur” are days that are unmistakably blurred because, in “lockdown”, they are all identical to one another); the “Quanrantini” that we drink in the “Virtual Happy Hour”; “Doomscrolling”, scrolling down the screen in search of the next end of the world. I learned “panic shopping”, even through the delivery service, which I consider to be “systemically relevant” – all “frontline workers” and not Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are my People of the Year.
Oh, hundreds of new words have entered our lives: “Super-Spreader”, “Social Distancing”, “R-Value”, “Contact-Tracer” and so on. The zoom words have long since been added via Zoom: “Zoom Fatigue “is exhaustion,” Zoom Town “is the new community,” Zoom Mom “takes care of the children intimately,” Zoom Dating “is touchless, but at least a flirtation, while” Zumping “is derived from” Dumping ” , means to break up, desolate and discouraged
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After all, “zoom bombing” is what we all fear: the naked person scurrying through the picture, by the way: Do you know the story of the slow ascent of Jeffrey Toobin over decades and the crash of Jeffrey Toobin in 60 seconds? The man is a lawyer and has written books on the Supreme Court, he has three children and a wife, he was the author of “New Yorker” and chief commentator on CNN. Toobin sat with other famous “New Yorkers” people in a Zoom event for the American election, eloquently as always. Then came the most harmless of all moments, the break.
The disturbing case of Jeffrey Toobin
And Toobin tilted his computer screen so the camera would film his crotch and began masturbating. He had forgotten or overlooked that he was still the main actor of the event live. CNN suspended Toobin. The “New Yorker” fired him. Editor-in-chief David Remnick, who has been friends with Toobin for decades, has not spoken to him since the crash. That self-fondling is embarrassing, shameful that it will never be forgotten again: Do I realize everything, how stupid can you be?
But is the Toobin case a crime? Does Toobin’s behavior have anything to do with rape or sexual harassment? That is how the Toobin case is viewed in the United States. Do we already have the appropriate rules and norms for the zoom era?
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