I'm in a Meeting

(iminafleeting.com)

149 points | by splintersio 4 hours ago

30 comments

  • frangonf 1 hour ago
    This has real demand, I ended up in the Gitlab secondary youtube channel one day, ordering by most views, and I found a video [0] of a seemingly normal uninteresting meeting with millions of views. Turns out people were using this as an excuse for looking like they were busy. They disabled comments now but I saved some of them because I thought it was hilarious:

    I play this when I need my family to leave me alone - so helpful 4.5K I play this when I pretend to be busy. This meeting is literally about anything you want it to be about lol 1.5K I love that we all arrived at this video for the same reason 2.6K Every now and then I'll pause it at a good point in between them talking to make my own voice heard contributing to the "meeting" lol. Gets the full effect in! And the beautiful thing is their conversation just flows with it like they heard me lol. 562

    [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBVtvOpU80Q

    • prmoustache 6 minutes ago
      Are they monetizing it? If not they are missing out!
    • broken-kebab 1 hour ago
      For people without adblocker the trick will be ruined at some point by something like loud enthusiastic ClickUp ad.
      • twoodfin 1 hour ago
        I was one of those people skeptical that ad-free YouTube was worth the high price, but now firmly a convert.

        Get it! The best deal in streaming content. Unlocks such a better experience you’ll find a dozen whole new areas of valuable & enjoyable content to explore.

        • tyromaniac 58 minutes ago
          Why not just block ads?
          • stackskipton 40 minutes ago
            At some point, paying for something and knowing it will work is worth it. In particular, ad blocking YouTube on mobile is frustrating.
            • prmoustache 4 minutes ago
              Had they done that from day 1 you woulf have a point but it sounds like extorsion to me given youtube got rid of most of its competition and established its casi monopolistic position being adfree.
            • bluGill 13 minutes ago
              If you can. A lot of subscription TV channels have ads even though you have to pay to get them. Does paying for youtube block all ads, and if so will it continue to, or will they change as so many others have and just make your payment remove some ads? I'm not even counting sponsored content in a lot of videos as ads, but they are annoying too.
            • pimlottc 12 minutes ago
              Not getting sucked into YouTube on mobile is a feature, not a bug
            • busssard 10 minutes ago
              NewPipe is the way to do that on android...
            • globular-toast 9 minutes ago
              They could raise the price or start having ads even if you pay. You're a renter. You have no rights.
        • Taurenking 1 hour ago
          [dead]
    • ruszki 1 hour ago
      Why don't you just decline calls with text messages, or just ignore them, or simply mute your phone?
      • bonoboTP 58 minutes ago
        People take offense.
        • ubermonkey 52 minutes ago
          So?
        • seb1204 33 minutes ago
          You would not know as you declined?
        • cheonic4040 20 minutes ago
          > People take offense.

          Sounds like something a W-2 wage slave would say

  • filcuk 24 minutes ago
    The scripts are hilarious, yet not inaccurate. I can't stop chuckling. 'Are you happy with that?' 'Happy is a strong word' 'OK' moves on to the next topic
  • tacostakohashi 1 hour ago
    Reminds me of the "boss mode" / "boss key" in old games, like MS-DOS days, which would switch the screen to some spreadsheet mockup or suchlike, updated for the current century.
    • jnovek 30 minutes ago
      This was tickling something in my brain and this was it! Thank you.
  • voidUpdate 1 hour ago
    Do people in offices typically just blast meetings out of their computer speakers? Everyone I work with uses headphones so we're not disturbing other people in the office...
    • p_l 1 hour ago
      Unless you have good ANC headphones, or find something like pink noise that fits you, you're still dealing with all the talking to microphone of your colleagues.
      • Tajnymag 54 minutes ago
        It's less noisy when you hear 5 people talk in 5 meetings than when you hear 50 people talk in those 5 remote meetings.
      • voidUpdate 56 minutes ago
        I have reasonably good headphones and nice music
  • roryirvine 3 hours ago
    Truly uncanny!

    Only the British audio works for me, though - if I try American or International, the relevant meetings are silent with a "Join Audio" button which doesn't appear to do anything. (Firefox on MacOS, if that's useful)

    • moritzwarhier 46 minutes ago
      Same, console says something about missing or "unsuitable" audio resources.

      Sad, I wanted the international broken Zoom call

    • fliglr 1 hour ago
      Same here - Brave browser. Only British works
  • ghusto 13 minutes ago
    If you can't tell people you want to concentrate on your work, there's either something very wrong with where you work, or you.
    • elonfboy 3 minutes ago
      You must be a hoot at parties
  • TrackerFF 35 minutes ago
    We need a fake teams / zoom UI with faces talking. You know, for those working in open plan.
  • jvanderbot 10 minutes ago
    Where's the HR-faced "Can everyone turn on their cameras please?" one with 200 people in the call.
  • ninkendo 1 hour ago
    Audio seems broken now, maybe hugged to death. Console:

      HTTP load failed with status 404. Load of media resource https://iminafleeting.com/media/people/standup-a.mp4 failed
  • mystifyingpoi 13 minutes ago
    Reminds me of the fake Windows Update page.
    • yabones 1 minute ago
      Takes me back. I remember there was a version of the fake Windows 8 update sequence that had it infinitely loop between "Working on updates..." and the frowny-face :( BSOD
  • tome 44 minutes ago
    Maybe a silly question, but without video isn't this obviously fake? Or is it normal for all participants on a call to be audio only?
    • mcbuilder 9 minutes ago
      Pretty normal. Camera's usually stay off unless it's a 1-1, presentation, or maybe a VP level call.
    • dirkc 37 minutes ago
      If you find use for this tool, chances are good that you're in an place where all the participants would be audio only
      • ghusto 12 minutes ago
        You get it.
    • seb1204 31 minutes ago
      Depends on the company, the team, the agenda etc
    • p_l 41 minutes ago
      It's normal in many places for the only video to be shared screen
  • karim79 20 minutes ago
    Fantastic product! Needs people talking over each other for greater authenticity, I reckon.
  • whilenot-dev 1 hour ago
    What are all the names for the category of such software... "Self-defense Software", "Busy Simulation Software", "Faux Work Software", "Fake Meeting Software"[0], "Virtual Meeting Simulator"[1], "Prank Screens"[2], ...? Are there many others?

    [0]: https://fakemeeting.app/

    [1]: https://z.tools/t/fake-meeting

    [2]: https://www.whitescreen.online/

    • whh 1 hour ago
      I'd say a quintessentially British, tactical-yet-polite social interaction deterrent
    • TeMPOraL 1 hour ago
      Computer-Aided Boundaries? Social Assistive Software?
  • arjonagelhout 1 hour ago
    Brilliant, this website is blocked at my work: "This content is blocked by your organization".
    • esikich 46 minutes ago
      It's because it's a new domain. Very common in corporate IT.
      • arjonagelhout 8 minutes ago
        I didn't know that was a thing, but that makes sense. Thanks!
  • aronhegedus 31 minutes ago
    Minor but when I took myself off mute, my box didn't reflect that. Not sure if bug or a feature.
  • DharmaPolice 1 hour ago
    Trying to access this site on my corporate Windows laptop and it was blocked "by your IT admin" (in Windows itself, not the browser/proxy). So it's already on some kind of list.
    • whh 1 hour ago
      New domain registrations typically aren't on a list yet, which, in itself gets blocked.
  • jonwinstanley 1 hour ago
    This is fun. The audio isn’t particularly believable. Not that it matters for this project.

    I’ve used a few tts providers and although a technical marvel they are all still easily identifiable as ai. Humans are very good at spotting fakes.

    This project might work better with mostly canned audio clips of real humans.

  • vermooten 54 minutes ago
    I retired a few months ago. These calls have taken me back to the horror of working in tech. It must be what PTSD is like.
  • niek_pas 47 minutes ago
    I'm not getting any audio, bunch of 404s on loop.m4a... anyone else?

    EDIT: seems like British audio does work

  • spuz 1 hour ago
    I am missing something about how this could hypothetically be useful. If I played this in the background it would be far too distracting to get any actual work done.
  • soltanov 1 hour ago
    Simple solution for focus time. If it stops people from setting up an actual meeting for something that fits in an email, it is already doing critical infrastructure work.
  • wkumfer 1 hour ago
    Please add other language versions! Should be easy to do, and would help us from non-English speaking countries.
  • martythemaniak 25 minutes ago
    Nice, it's got real Interdimensional Cable vibes.
  • ButlerianJihad 1 hour ago
  • dizhn 32 minutes ago
    I'm gonna ironically make a Claude theme and use that if I ever hand write a site again. :)
  • mchav 16 minutes ago
    Can we just be honest?
  • 7174n6 3 hours ago
    Awesome, if I worked in the UK.
  • kirugan 1 hour ago
    haha, now I can always use this website if I don't want to be interrupted lol