With the mass-adoption of video meeting for the desk jockeys of the world, it seems there’s no place on Earth where a calendar invite cannot find you.
While plenty of work-from-homers have presumably logged into Zoom meetings from beaches, parks, and bars, we’re not sure that anyone has been so daring as to log in from a roller coaster — until now.
In a roughly minute-long clip uploaded to YouTube, a municipal office worker in South Korea named Nam Young-sik is shown blasting off on a roller coaster with a MacBook in his lap and a cardboard green screen behind him projecting a tidy home office.
His coworkers try to keep a straight face as the rider flails madly, his green screen struggling not to betray his location through high-speed twists and bends that buffet his hair and constantly change his lighting.
“Hey, Nam, do you have a fan blowing right in front of your face or something?” the worker’s boss asks.
“Oh, I just left the window open,” Nam replies. “It’s pretty windy.”
“What is wrong with Nam today?” the boss later probes as the worker’s screen freezes, apparently mid-plunge.
Nam’s excuse: “My laptop almost fell.”
On that point, he’s probably technically telling the truth.
Near the end of the clip, the video cuts to a brief promo for a new whale-themed roller coaster, revealing the whole thing was a stunt. Still, the setup is genuine: there’s really no way to spoof the fact that Nam really was recording his portion from a roller coaster.
According to the South Korean publication Yonhap News TV, the now-viral video was part of a viral marketing campaign produced by the Ulsan Nam-gu Gorae Broadcasting Station, a municipal agency promoting local tourist attractions.
This particular bit was an advert for the Jangsaengpo Whale Culture Special Zone, a new amusement park featuring the whale ride on display. Sure it’s a cheesy ad, but at least somebody finally had a little fun at an all-hands meeting.
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