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title = "Zoom Escaper"
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*First heard on the net, 2021. Retold in Rijeka, in 2022. Brought to the bonfires in Berlin and Orléans in 2024.*

When I’m on my third Zoom meeting of the day and I’ve had enough, I use Zoom Escaper. Especially when it’s one of those meetings that could easily have been an email. Zoom Escaper is a free web widget developed by New York-based artist Sam Lavigne. The tool helps you escape Zoom meetings by allowing you to self-sabotage your audio stream, making your presence unbearable to others. You can choose from barking dogs, construction noises, crying babies, or even subtler effects like choppy audio and unwanted echoes. Zoom Escaper is fantastically simple to use. All you need to do is download a free audio software that then re-routes your audio through Lavigne’s website. You are then free to play with the effects. I just add the disruption that most fits my setting and the audio is so unbearable to everyone that they’ll be relieved when you disconnect. If I need a few minutes break to make some coffee, I can add construction site noises and tell the people on the call that I am going to reconnect from a quieter location. Choppy audio or an echo credibly signals a bad connection. I apologize and my meeting partners are usually happy to just write me an email.
