If Matthew McConaughey looks like this in a zoom call, imagine what we look like

[kpete]

[redstateblues]

1. Post of the day so far!!

[bubbazero]

2. Really,

Did you have to do this. I'm not even half-way thru morning chores--and only had ONE cup of coffee, and it's Saturday! Seriously; for some of us--life goes on--this "shelter in place" order hasn't changed life one bit--only made chores worse (as in no escape) And then you, you of all people--the one with gift for intellectual entertainment--have to remind me "DON'T FORGET HOW TRULY, FUCKING. UGLY YOU REALLY ARE!"............Thank you for your incredibly firm grasp of that which is FUCKING OBVIOUS even to me. Hell I don't even look at a mirror till at least noon.

[Sunriser13]

38. ...

[Cirque du So-What]

3. So often I hear, 'OMG, is that really how I look?'

I always reply, ‘Looks just like ya!’

[Demovictory9]

39. Lol

[Brainfodder]

4. People age don't ya know, and sun worshiping folks, I have bad news....

Welcome to Earth, home of Superficial Assholes, a dime a dozen in some places?



I don't scare children, unless I make the effort, that's all I know.

[forgotmylogin]

20. Webcam, minus lighting, makeup, color-correcting, and editing.

People are often surprised at how "average" many celebrities look without professional photography lenses and being groomed beforehand and possibly photoshopped after.

[Brainfodder]

23. A search away from enlightenment.... before and afters...

Porn stars before and afters, some are hotter to me with basic fresh faces, some need it...

[Baitball Blogger]

5. I so want to see him playing a role in a movie looking that ordinary.

I'm serious.

[tavernier]

19. I've seen him in a few roles where he doesn't look so hot.

[misanthrope]

43. Did you miss "Dallas Buyers Club"?

Maybe you dig the emaciated look, though.

[Grammy23]

6. I never quite understood the fascination with Matthew anyway.

Maybe it has something to do with his voice. But by looks alone?? Uhm, no. Not a heart throb.
Major nerd perhaps!?

[BusyBeingBest]

7. Those glasses don't do him any favors.

[TexasBushwhacker]

12. Yeah, the glasses are hideous

and I recall that he doesn't wear deodorant.

[BusyBeingBest]

15. Well, that's unfortunate.

Now I'll be imagining invisible wavy stink lines coming off him whenever I see him in movies.

[Ilsa]

9. I don't care for the voice much, either.

Does he ever speak without sounding like he's from Tx? Is he capable?

[MrsCoffee]

10. Always had a thing for nerds.

Sometimes they clean up nice.





Sometimes....

[keithbvadu2]

11. Pat Boone wannabe?

[dewsgirl]

28. 😍

[forgotmylogin]

21. Well...

He's 50 now.


Actors work out and groom for parts beyond what they'd do in everyday life...

[Tink41]

8. Minus the glasses

Looks fine to me.

[HarlanPepper]

13. Starting to look like Michael Caine with those glasses.

[Laffy Kat]

14. Awl..right, awl..right, awl..right.

[shockey80]

16. He never looked the same after he starved himself making Dallas Buyers Club.

Great movie by the way.

[dewsgirl]

27. It was a great movie, you are right though.

[smirkymonkey]

17. I have never understood why anyone would want to do Zoom or Face Time.

Almost everyone looks very bad and I find it creepy for some reason. I don't know why, but I just don't want anyone viewing me through a camera. It just freaks me out. I'm very camera shy.

[2naSalit]

24. Same here

though it may become an important tool for communication. My mother is in a nursing facility right now and nobody can go see her so face time is the way to go, at least my sisters do it. I don't but I am glad to talk on the phone.

A really bad thong is that if she gets this virus, it will kill her, and she will have to die alone, something we have been trying to avoid for years. It sucks that it has come to this.

[smirkymonkey]

25. I know, I guess in that situation it would be a different thing entirely.

I hope she stays well through all of this. It would be very tragic if you couldn't be with her in person if things got serious.

[2naSalit]

30. I won't be there

anyway since she's in San Diego and I'm 1800 miles away. The idea that my sisters can't be there is the hard part as they intended to be with her when she passes, which we are anticipating at any time. She's not well so anything like this virus is going to be the end for her. Knowing that could be what takes her is really hard. We've been hoping she would pass in her sleep, maybe that will happen, maybe not. It's just really hard.

It might get me. I have always tried to outlive my mom and plan to. It will be hard on my sisters when I do go since I'm their last, of three, elder sisters. Time will tell.

Have a great day and enjoy what you have 'cause just never know how much time you have left.

[smirkymonkey]

33. Hope you stay well 2naSalit!

Enjoy every day! I always worry about my parents as well, even though they are healthy (77 & 80) and my siblings and their families are healthy as well, but you never know. My biggest fear is never seeing any of them again.

Take care of yourself!

[underpants]

26. We have conference calls daily for work. Not Zoom just voice

Twice we've had people (management) tell us precautionary tales about people not muting their phone and going to the bathroom OR on Zoom calls taking their phone in to the bathroom or changing clothes during the call.

All of those have happened since last Wednesday

[smirkymonkey]

29. We have a number of conf. calls during the week and use WebEx through Outlook.

Our manager tells us that we can use our camera if we feel comfortable and I would say about 40% of the team uses it and the rest of us keep our cameras off. I make my calls through my PC and have my camera blocked through a label w/ a number to the "Help Desk" on it.

I don't know why I am so paranoid about the camera. It just feels very invasive to me. Your workplace sounds pretty interesting.

I'm sure you have some good stories to tell!

[Greybnk48]

18. When I see myself on facetime I want to hurl.

I hold my head so that I have a double chin.

I think Matthew looks just fine.

[MineralMan]

22. Most people pay no attention to lighting or backgrounds

when they use computer video on Skype, Zoom, or other video conferencing.

My wife complained about how she looked on screen, so I got in there and set up some better lighting for her, hung an old Persian rug on the wall behind her to kill room echos to make her voice sound better and to provide a better background. Then, I had her sit down with the camera showing how she looked, and made some camera angle changes to improve things even further.

Now, she's not so upset about doing video-conferencing. If you're going to be facing a camera, you might as well take some time to make yourself look your best on screen.

I've noticed that stay-at-home TV people, like our local weatherman, are not paying attention to any of that. I'm surprised the producers of their programming haven't come in and done what I did for my wife. Maybe they'll get around to it. Looks like amateur hour on the local news right now.

[csziggy]

35. Those are great suggestions!

I've noticed that too often even professionals don't consider the background. In this video, just a slight change of angle would have provided a less cluttered and more professional background. And closing (maybe locking) the door would not have given the world this adorable interruption:

Heck, most of the amateur YouTubers do more prep than the pros that do TV interviews at normal times! The intro is porr but the actual craft part has a neutral background and decent lighting.

[MineralMan]

36. Exactly. The pros depend on the studio people to

handle lighting, makeup, etc. The amateurs on YouTube and elsewhere have to figure it out for themselves, and some do a pretty good job.

I've been surprised at how little prep TV personalities have done when working at home. I'm more surprised that the producers of the programs they're on haven't sent people to those home studios to do a little setup and sound-deadening.

It's funny to see kids on YouTube creating better video than the pros. They understand the limitations of their medium and work to maximize what they have.

There's no excuse for the washed-out face and clutter in your top video. It's not difficult to make it work better. Of course, I did a lot of photography when i was writing how-to articles on woodworking, etc. The magazines had high standards for photos, so I had to invest in equipment for lighting, backdrops and other stuff. I did it on a tight budget, but got the results I needed. So, that's why I could set my wife up to look good on Zoom.

The BBC guy appears to be using a desk lamp that is turned to shine on his face to light him up. Ugh! It probably has a halogen bulb in it, which produces that flat, washed out face. That's sort of what my wife was using. So, I switched it out for a soft full-spectrum LED bulb that had no glaring effect. Then, I positioned it where it would produce some gradations in her facial lighting. Then, I moved her camera so it didn't aim directly at her face straight on and from a high angle. I picked out a top for her that had a color than enhanced her skin color, and simplified the background, using a rug on the wall to also deaden the echos in the room. Finally, I killed the mic in her web cam and plugged in a better mic and positioned it out of the camera's view and adjusted the volume to get a good sound that didn't overdrive the audio and cause distortion.

We had to check everything by recording video and playing it back. Then I made further adjustments. It all took about half an hour, but the difference was remarkable. Most people just don't take the time to check things before going live. They should think about it and optimize their setup.

[csziggy]

37. True, and I think the amateurs have more incentive

AS you say, usually the pros have their own experts in the studio to set things up for them. Even under the current circumstances, those experts could work with the pros to improve things even without visiting their homes.

They could have a video conference and make suggestions as the pros are implementing their ideas. Using their own lights and different locations in their houses, I'm sure the quality could be improved very quickly. As you said, it took you only a half hour to make your wife's sessions much better.

[MineralMan]

40. Right now, a lot of people are scrambling just to make

the technology work. Getting your web cam set up and actually functioning is harder than most people think. And then, you've never used Zoom or Skype before, so figuring out how to do that take some time. Only then can you think about lighting and sound quality.

For example, in Windows 10, few people even know how to find out how to see if their web cam and mic is even working.

Hint: Click Start and then Apps and then click Camera. Once that Windows 10 app starts, look for the video camera icon and click it. And there you are, looking at yourself on the monitor. Click the red button and say a few words, click the button again to stop recording and you've recorded a video, which you can play back to see how it looks and sounds. Go from there. You can adjust your mic levels in the Control Panel Sounds app in Windows 10.

Once your setup is working in Windows Camera app, it will work with all applications that are looking for a web camera. But, people don't know that, so they fire up Zoom and then scramble to get everything working there, five minutes before their time to go on is.

[csziggy]

42. Yeah - I am glad I don't have to try any of that

Though years ago someone wanted me to set up Skype. I don't even have a web cam for my desk computer, though I assume my laptops do have built in web cams that I have never accessed. In fact after some of the stories of laptop cameras being hijacked, I've thought about putting electrical tape over them - but I don't use those computers very often so haven't seen a need.

[brush]

31. One thing about skping and such, you're on camera so you may not want to do it in your at-home-lay-

about-gear.

[Bluethroughu]

32. I'm dying over here

My daughter said he looks confused, like maybe he put the wrong code in and is in the middle of the wrong chat.

[not_the_one]

34. My one complaint with Matthew is that if he accepts any type of award

he MUST share his belief in his own personal flying spaghetti monster.

Religion IS supposed to be personal, you know, between you and the god entity. As a matter of fact, doing it OPENLY, for others to hear about how pious you are, IS in fact, a no-no. But what good is it if you can't "lord" it over someone....

It is just one more instance of believers cramming it down my throat. Which is why I make a point to profess my atheism when ever facing a cramming....

Now, if Matthew MUST cram something....

[DavidDvorkin]

41. He always looks like a lounge lizard.

[Totally Tunsie]

44. He's beginning to look like McTURTLE!