I remember once reading some advice from a fashion photographer in a magazine, who said: “No one looks good sitting down.” This struck me as harsh at the time, but in the Zoom era, there we all are, anxiously leaning in like a cat peering into a food bowl. And what we are seeing staring back at us on the Zoom grid of doom isn’t pretty.
The enormous teeth, the wan cheeks and lashless eyes, the bulbous chins and domed, probing noses. The slumped shoulders, low boobs and fleshy arms. In its low resolution inertia, every scheduled meeting is like the blooper reel from Paranormal Activity. As a result of us all seeing ourselves in the unforgiving grey fish-eye of the laptop’s lens, there has been a global boom in demands for cosmetic surgery.
We could buy some reflective powder, a better camera and vlogger-style ring light. Or get really creative and fashion some grotesque papier-mache carnival masks. But, nope, such is the self-flagellation of the human species that we would rather be paid to be cut up and have our eye bags, neck folds and excess chins sliced off by hand.
Given that we’re all going off-piste lifestyle wise, and that Zoom and working from home may become the long-term norm, I suggest we lean into it. Instead of struggling to maintain traditional beauty standards – sharp bone structure, full lips, big eyes, clear brows, radiant skin – we should simply shave off any protuberances before the evil fish-eye lens of the laptop camera can pick them up and warp them. Yep. Cut off the ears, plier out the teeth, lop off the noses and smooth it all over. We should reshape ourselves into featureless spheres of different colours, like snooker balls, all the better to be absorbed frictionlessly into the matrix.
• Bidisha is a broadcaster, critic and journalist
