(I don't think they're getting pizza)

September 10, 2020 9:14 AM

There is screaming and babbling and someone is leaning really close and singing into their microphone and someone else keeps saying, "Who wants to see a diamond? Who wants to see a diamond? Who wants to see a diamond? Who wants to see a diamond?"

#ZoomOftheFlies [twitter thread; threadreader]

By Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic.

posted by Halloween Jack (26 comments total)

The school day is over.

2nd grader: "The sky looks like CHEETOS!"
6th grader: "DON'T ruin Cheetos for me!"
posted by clavdivs at 9:29 AM on September 10, 2020

I read this thread when I woke up, and it was a lovely way to start the day. Unfiltered tiny humans can be so great.
posted by gemmy at 9:33 AM on September 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

I was a bit confused by the start, but "what are discrete emotions" spoke straight to my soul
posted by solotoro at 9:34 AM on September 10, 2020 [15 favorites]

I probably shouldn't have sent this to the co-worker who has a first grader: last week he heard that the town schools are planning 5 hours of instruction per day, with a maximum of 90 minutes of screen time. It's left to the listener to calculate (with growing horror) who handles the remaining three and a half hours of instruction while also trying to do their own job...

(My own question was: after you use up all your persuasive leverage on a six year-old during the school day, what do you do to get them to eat their vegetables and take a bath and go to bed on time? I only ever had so much I could bring to bear in a given day.)
posted by wenestvedt at 9:42 AM on September 10, 2020 [5 favorites]

You're the first king we haven't eaten.
posted by scruss at 10:13 AM on September 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

Does "diamond" maybe refer to some kind of toy or game?

This is hilarious and horrific at the same time. Who knew the apocalypse would be so annoying?
posted by Countess Elena at 10:16 AM on September 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

I laughed aloud, hard, at BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH!. Any hypotheses on why the author's child treated that renaming as so shocking?
posted by brainwane at 10:19 AM on September 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

"(we got a very stringent email from the vice p today telling us NOT TO RECORD SESSIONS)"

Schools seem to take student privacy pretty seriously -- as they should.
posted by Slothrup at 10:21 AM on September 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

Any hypotheses on why the author's child treated that renaming as so shocking?

"Blah blah blah" is the kind of thing a parent might sternly tell their kid to never say, placing it on the level of a curse word, along the lines of how my sister and I were forbidden from calling each other stupid.
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:24 AM on September 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

Any hypotheses on why the author's child treated that renaming as so shocking?

Because names are supposed to be names, not pretend made-up nonsense! This is school and we're supposed to be serious!

I was a serious goody-two-shoes as a kid and I feel this kid
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:26 AM on September 10, 2020 [13 favorites]

I think that the reason "blah blah blah" was so funny is that the parent was expecting something shocking, and the kid was milking the attention for all they could get and so treated it as shocking. But of course it was not shocking but delightfully innocent.
posted by emjaybee at 10:27 AM on September 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

I sent that Twitter thread to a friend whose 1st grader was in the middle of a school Zoom session at that moment. Her response...

"OMG. [Xyz] keeps being put into 'small groups.' For the past 15 minutes I've heard one kid asking all the others who their favorite TMNTurtle is, and also chanting over and over 'NO MORE SUPER HEROES.'

This is a whole new level of the heat being turned up on the frog's boiling pot of water. The teacher is ridiculously patient and positive, which is wonderful. But omg it is insane.

So yes, I can relate. :)"
posted by ClingClang at 10:42 AM on September 10, 2020 [4 favorites]

One of my kids' classes, which are all via Zoom, was canceled yesterday because the teacher's dog ate her computer charger. The teacher held it up for them all to see in the few minutes of power her computer had left.

Legally, I'm pretty certain that means my kid gets to use that excuse at least once this year (even though we don't have a dog).
posted by The corpse in the library at 10:50 AM on September 10, 2020 [10 favorites]

Last spring, after schools went suddenly remote, my 3rd grader's teacher (who was amazing) spent a lot of time during their online class meetings at the beginning of the day talking with them about resilience, responsibility, and connection. They did little show-and-tell from a different student every day, since everyone was at home and could show pets or backyards or parents or favorite toys or whatever, just to build some connection into the day.

So I'm sitting there at my dining room table supervising distance learning one day, and the 3rd grader, who is sitting next to me, is in his Zoom and another kid is doing his show and tell, and he said, "Look at this funny thing my smart speaker can do! Alexa, tell a joke."

Immediately the Alexas in everyone ELSE'S houses started announcing jokes, and a dozen third graders were all shouting, "ALEXA, STOP!" and then there was a very brief pause, as they all simultaneously realized they could trigger each other's Alexas and suddenly the whole class was shouting, "ALEXA, MAKE A FART NOISE!" "ALEXA, BEAM ME UP!" "ALEXA CRAZY FACT!"

It was utterly glorious chaos. The teacher had to mute everyone to regain control but every time someone was unmuted they immediately started up again. It was one of the most hilarious things I've ever seen.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:05 AM on September 10, 2020 [86 favorites]

This just happened to me! I'm a teacher, and 15 minutes ago in the middle of class my screen froze, went black... and my computer rebooted. When I got back to the Meet... everyone was still working quietly on the pre-assessment I had assigned them. Ah, AP Physics students. Classroom management on 'easy' mode.
posted by kikaider01 at 11:44 AM on September 10, 2020 [15 favorites]

My coworker's power is out from the recent windstorms so his kids were in the office doing their online school and frankly, it was a nice treat. There was a bit of yelling from the breakroom, but it was pretty joyful/excited/fun shouting unlike the usual adult yelling in the office.
posted by vespabelle at 12:31 PM on September 10, 2020 [3 favorites]

I have been, recently, kind of tired of the twitter live tweet thing but this was lovely.
posted by jessamyn at 12:57 PM on September 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

Immediately the Alexas in everyone ELSE'S houses started announcing jokes, and a dozen third graders were all shouting,

Sounds exactly like my nephew's Zoom birthday party, except we adults were getting into it as much or more than the nine-year-olds. What good is technology if you can't have a little fun?
posted by traveler_ at 1:19 PM on September 10, 2020

You, a naive second-grader: names are supposed to be names, not pretend made-up nonsense!

Me, a sophisticated adult: All names are pretend made-up nonsense.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 1:44 PM on September 10, 2020 [5 favorites]

*breathes into a paper bag*
I have two kids at home full time remote (K and 3rd grade) - Zoom calls each multiple times a day for varies classes. That is when two school Zoom calls and two work Zoom calls all can squeeze into the intertubes at our house successfully

ZoomOfTheFlies indeed. Not sure anyone in the class needed our youngest to take his school iPad into the bathroom with him with his Zoom video still on...... And I probably shouldn't have shown my third grader how to use GarageBand last night. I'm guessing our (righteous!) drum mix was not supposed to be playing during the iReady Math assessment.....
posted by inflatablekiwi at 1:50 PM on September 10, 2020 [4 favorites]

I didn't realize this was Stephanie until I saw her post about in on Facebook. I met her back in the day when we were both recapping for TWoP, and she is a lovely person.
posted by See you tomorrow, saguaro at 2:04 PM on September 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

The ending (thread reader version, anyway) is perfect.
posted by soundguy99 at 2:33 PM on September 10, 2020

This happened to me at work today when I was "leading" a meeting on teams. By the time I'd logged out and logged back in, the other meeting participants had found the "stickers" option in the meeting comment box and were delighting one another by posting pictures of purple cartoon broccoli combing its crown with an afro pick and so on. We are in our fourth, fifth, and sixth decades of life, and our imaginations have nearly completely atrophied, thus nobody had the sense to turn the screen toward the window to reveal the Cheeto sky. The rest of the meeting was devoted to the stickers.
posted by Don Pepino at 3:15 PM on September 10, 2020 [9 favorites]

showbiz_liz: ""Blah blah blah" is the kind of thing a parent might sternly tell their kid to never say, placing it on the level of a curse word, along the lines of how my sister and I were forbidden from calling each other stupid."

I said the word "stupid" in front of my niece once and she gave me a very shocked look and whispered "You're not supposed to say the S-word".
posted by Secret Sparrow at 3:47 PM on September 10, 2020 [6 favorites]

My kid was a second grader fairly recently, and I recall quite a few instances when she, too, used to find "Blah Blah Blah" when used in place of a real word or answer to be outrageously funny. Kids that age get a lot out of shock-humor out of 'You're Not Supposed To Do That!'

One time when she was in kindergarten I pretended to accidentally put salt in my coffee but then proceeded to drink the 'salty' coffee -- the kid still talks about how crazy mom was that day.
posted by MiraK at 10:34 AM on September 11, 2020 [2 favorites]

When someone says they want to see a diamond, you make a diamond shape with your fingers.

-former second grader who remembers being told to stop telling that joke
posted by Former Congressional Representative Lenny Lemming at 7:47 AM on September 12, 2020 [3 favorites]