Video chat and incoming relatives have given me a bad case of pandemic nostalgia – Vladimir McTavish

Virtual chat is bad enough but coming to visit? It’s enough to drive you to Zoom
Online comedy didn't quite take off during the Covid pandemic (Picture: Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images)Online comedy didn't quite take off during the Covid pandemic (Picture: Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images)
Online comedy didn't quite take off during the Covid pandemic (Picture: Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images)

I found myself travelling back in time this week with my first experience of ‘pandemic nostalgia’, as if I were suddenly back to 2020. Let me explain. I was asked to do a podcast by some New York comedians, which they recorded over Zoom.

I can’t remember the last time I took part in a video call. Something that was such a cornerstone of my work and social life a mere two years ago seemed weird. I’d forgotten how every conversation seemed slightly out of sync, how one person was always talking from a badly lit room, and about that awkward ten seconds of waving goodbye, waiting for the host to end the meeting.

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From March 2020 through to May 2021, when live entertainment was not permitted, comedians and musicians were forced to work online. Suddenly, we were all doing shows on platforms like Streamyard and Twitch. Did any of you watch online comedy during lockdown? No? That confirms the market research, I carried out over a 15-month period, sitting up in the attic broadcasting to a handful of people.

All of us, regardless of our occupation, became used to workplace meetings being hosted on Zoom or Microsoft Teams. You couldn’t meet up with friends for a drink, but you get drunk together online. You could hook up with relations for a family quiz. Oh dear, the full horror is beginning to come back to me. I was quite happy that many members of my family lived far away. I was less happy when they could suddenly pop up on my computer screen.

My own personal Zoom account is the basic free one where calls are limited to 40 minutes, which was easily long enough to listen to my sister wittering on from her home in France. Of course, if her chat became too dull, I could always disappear off screen, blaming a dodgy wifi connection. Now she has decided to visit Scotland and stay with us for two weeks. Oh hell, I suspect at the end of that fortnight, I shall be suffering extreme pandemic nostalgia. Or I could spend all 14 days in the attic, pretending to be on a Zoom call.

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