⚠️ Satire Disclaimer:

This is political and technological satire in the style of George Carlin. The following is a fictional comedy routine. If you think I’m personally insulting your favorite video chat platform, your CEO, or your grandma’s Zoom skills — you’re correct, but it’s still a joke.

You know, I’ve been watching “human communication” evolve for over a century.

First we had the telegraph — short, snappy, and expensive. “Stop.” You didn’t ramble over a telegraph. You sent, “War’s over. Stop.” None of this “Can you hear me now?” crap. You knew exactly when it was over because the damn thing STOPPED.

Then we got the telephone. And suddenly… people could call you from anywhere! Which sounded great until you realized that meant they could call you from anywhere. You think your boss at home is bad? Imagine him drunk at the bowling alley at 11 PM in 1962.

Then came pagers. Ah, the little vibrating bricks of doom. Nothing says “urgent” like a tiny screen that flashes “911” so you can find the nearest payphone to hear someone say, “Hey, what’s up?”

Then — the cell phone. Freedom! Portability! And about five minutes of battery life. The size of a brick, the weight of a baby, and if you were lucky, you could call someone before the thing burst into flames in your pocket.

And then… the dream. The sci-fi prophecy. Video phones! They promised us this in The Jetsons. We were gonna sit in our pajamas and call the moon base. We got holograms in Star Wars, Captain Kirk calling Spock across the galaxy… and what did WE get?

Zoom.

Teams.

Google Meet.

Webex.

Slack Huddles.

And GoToMeeting, which sounds like a command, not a product.

They said, “It’s reliable! It’s easy! You’ll love it!” Yeah — if by “reliable” you mean frozen faces, by “easy” you mean six login screens, and by “love it” you mean longing for death.

Zoom — everybody uses it because it’s the least broken. That’s the gold medal now. Least broken. Still got that 40-minute limit, though. Because nothing says “productive” like your meeting exploding in the middle of your sentence.

Microsoft Teams — a product designed by… Microsoft. Which means you have to click a button that says “Join” that doesn’t actually join the meeting, but opens another page with another “Join” button. It’s like a bad escape room.

Google Meet — lightweight, simple, and missing half the features you need. Breakout rooms? Sure! …if you pay them extra. Otherwise just “break out” your own damn laptop and run a separate call.

Webex — the corporate dinosaur. Solid if you’ve got a Fortune 500 budget, but the interface feels like it’s been preserved in amber. “Oh, you wanted to find the mute button? Sorry, that’s under ‘Ancient Artifacts.’”

Slack Huddles — great for a quick chat… if you enjoy choppy audio, pixelated video, and a battery drain that could light a small city.

And GoToMeeting? It’s still around. I don’t know who uses it, but somewhere there’s a guy in a suit in 1998 saying, “This is the future!”

And the best part? These are supposed to be the serious, business-grade solutions. The ones for real work. Which is why half your meeting is spent staring at a frozen face while someone says, “I think you’re on mute.” The other half is spent on someone’s toddler running into the background and pulling their pants down.

We took 150 years of progress, the dreams of science fiction, the miracles of global communication… and turned it into a daily hostage situation where we all sit around and pray the Wi-Fi holds.

And when it does? We don’t get Star Trek. We don’t get holograms. We get Gary from accounting frozen mid-sneeze for twelve goddamn minutes while everyone pretends this is “the future of work.”