Zoom adds facial effects so you can look the strangest during meetings

While Zoom was originally created as a serious meeting app for businesses, it has since grown into one of the most used services during the pandemic for anyone who wants to have a face-to-face virtual conversation. As a result, the company has added more fun elements, such as weird backgrounds, to be used for online family reunions, chat with friends, and well, for business meetings. And now he has come up with a feature called Effects Studio that lets you add a variety of eyebrows, facial hair, and lip color to your video frame during zoom sessions.

The feature, still in beta, isn’t really new – Zoom announced in September 2020 – but it’s the first time many Zoom users are discovering it for the first time. In any case, it’s easy to find. Start a Zoom session and go to Video Settings (found by tapping the arrow next to “Stop Video” at the bottom of the screen). From there, select “Background and Filters” and search for “Studio Effects (Beta)” in the lower right corner. (You may need to download the effects package first – go ahead, it will only take a minute.)

After that, you can change the look you want. Ever wanted Groucho Marx eyebrows or a mean goatee or bright green lipstick? It’s here to try. And you can set your facial effects just for that meeting, or for each meeting you attend (which may not be a good idea if you think you have a last minute job interview coming up).

We reached out to Zoom to find out just how prevalent this new feature is (so far, several staff here at The edge reported seeing it in their Zoom apps). Personally, while this is a lot of fun, I hope Zoom will add some hairstyles to its Studio Effects – those of us who still suffer from pandemic hair (in other words, who haven’t visited a hair salon). for about a year year) would be extremely grateful.