Absurdist Morally Corrupt Zoomscapes

Gianni Infantino's FIFA

Who cares about votes when you can just applaud World Cup hosts?🤪 pic.twitter.com/uf7AbjKfpU

— DW Sports (@dw_sports) December 12, 2024

Maybe it's because I'm not part of the global Davos elite. I've seen a total absence of any praise whatsoever for this week's rubber stamping venue award for the football World Cup 2034.

Opinion, both published and personal, entirely bemoaning their latest brazen outrageous sham. No totalitarian regime has ever fulfilled the promise of greater openness after thievery of any worldwide sporting event. Rinse and repeat. Including matching (at least) the tally of enslaved migrant worker deaths Qatar's most recent white elephant construction bore. Volunteers to join those 6,500 souls or more?

Supposed 'for the good of the game' umbrella admin body FIFA still corrupt? Who knew?

Of all the imagery used to frame online op-eds, the one above proved popular.

Showing the moment Saudi Arabia anointed as Host a decade off.

There's practically a hundred virtual cells visible behind the captured organisation's puppet leader.

Each person the nominal head of their nation's governing football association. The majority of them you wonder, crony trough-guzzling grifters appointed by an undemocratic, unmeritocratic political tyrant?

Fifa has potentially 211 overall 'members'.

If you were representing one of them, knowing you'd be likely to be broadcast as part of such collage up top, how would you like to present yourself and your country?

My initial impression was that this was a scene that could've been from 2020. So little has the mainstream put thought into video call projection since.

So many still sitting deadset centre, gun-barrel straight on. Too close or too far from their webcam. Which is positioned too low. Often in dull light. Face obscured by name label. Tops of heads chopped.

There's the odd few that buck the lazy, misguided trend.

Virtual or blurred backgrounds, branded backdrops and (national) identities on show can all work. But without care can easily distract.

I note too the half-dozen that catch the eye as luminous blue.

Also interesting as that happened to be the default choice of the convener.

Which when seen as by participants shows who's spending money behind the scenes by way of this fuzzy screengrab.

Not quite the typical tv newsreader framing but compare his presentation of the boss to the acolytes.

I tend to gravitate towards either of two poles. The fully functional or the hostage.

That is, either with all my visuals, boards and props ready to go or as plain bare neutral as possible.

In these thumbnail galleries, it's always worth considering how you want to be seen. If indeed you want to be seen at all. To blend in, going unnoticed, stay innocuous, could be your aim. Or to stand-out, unavoidably spotted and truly be memorable more your goal.

Also, bear in mind what the speaker was seeing from his gilded plinth.

Can he really pick anyone out?

[Tricky, in what Anthony Jay writing in a 1976 Harvard Business Review termed any such size of 'the assembly', filled by what columnist Martin Samuel in this context added, "Schaufensterpuppen — what we call showroom dummies, but the German contains just the right amount of guttural contempt".]

But also note, how he led his stooges the audience.

When announcing his decision, he sought the tacit approval of those in-the-room.

Ostentatiously raising his hands, clapping vigorously, as he waved them around.

Like cult members, most obediently followed suit.

Applauding right down their webcam.

Yet the use of this prompted engagement is textbook.

Asking for physical gestures and movements does bring valuable energy. Let's hope though we use said technique for actual good.