Bad Zoom etiquette (and what to do about it)

Can we start respecting each other on Zoom calls again?

I want to bring back mutual respect and good manners on Zoom calls, and I’m willing to do the work to get us there.

To be clear, I am in the same boat as most people I know. I show up 2 minutes late consistently, already 20 tabs deep into my workday, whizzing from one app to another, and spending the first 5 minutes of the call finishing up whatever I was working on while the presenter is doing their intro.

Those are all normal things and you probably do them too. All of this is normal, in 2026. But another part of me is screaming, “None of this is normal and we need to seriously course correct!”

One of the hardest things about facilitating the live calls for The Girlboss Apology Tour was not knowing who was actually in the room, who was testing the waters, and who had tuned out completely. We’ve normalized attending calls with video turned off (which I understand the need for), but, other than the chat, we haven’t built in any other indicators of people’s presence. 

At first I was mad: Who are these silent interlopers?

But when I got curious about it, the problem became obvious. 

The bar is very low for virtual gatherings, nowhere more so than in the world of webinars and sales funnels. People are used to thin presentations that could’ve been a 6-point listicle, followed by a long and hard-to-resist sales pitch. It makes sense if you rebel against that by showing up twenty minutes after it started, keeping your video off, and sort of half-listening while also doom-scrolling, trimming your cuticles and browsing the New York Times cooking app for a dinner recipe. 

If the presenter doesn’t respect your time, why should you respect theirs?

I really feel the truth of that. It makes sense a person would attend something called The Girlboss Apology Tour with their mouse hovering over the “leave meeting” button! I’m sympathetic to all the latecomers and people who gingerly admitted in the breakout room they had no idea what instructions I’d given. 

It’s going to take time and intentionality, but we can all take responsibility for fixing what’s broken about online meetings, starting by opt-outing of the whole “live listicle to $1997 sales pitch” style of marketing. Lots of virtual spaces aren’t like that, but we take our habits with us wherever we go, so we have to be intentional about how we’re showing up. 

I really believe it’s possible we can build a different kind of culture on Zoom. 

Another day maybe I’ll tell you about the behind-the-scenes strategies I’m using as a facilitator and teacher (enrolling people in the experience, inviting them to turn cameras on, telling them what to expect, etc.) but I want to start in the place where all of us can start, by showing up for others the way we want them to show up for us. 

So here are some of the things I’ve been experimenting with.

🫶 I keep both hands visible.

Visible hands show people that I’m not secretly working on something else. When someone's hands are off-screen there's an unspoken ambiguity. Are they typing? Scrolling? Doing something else entirely? You might not register this on the level of consciousness, but your body does. I want to make sure I’m signalling to everyone else that I am present, on both the conscious and unconscious level. 

📷  If I’m going off camera, I share that in the chat. 

It’s perfectly okay to not want to be on camera. I’m not condoning anyone overriding their body’s needs. It’s enough to just say, “Hey everyone! I’m attending audio-only today, giving myself some sensory rest.” Great, now we know you’re with us. 

🙈  I set my phone face down on a table behind my desk. 

As a facilitator, sometimes I wait until people are in the room so they can see me doing this. But this is equally important as a participant. My body does not want me to be still and listen (at least not at first) and it will do almost anything to avoid it. And the easiest and fastest way to check out is by picking up my phone. So I put it away. 

🤳  I turn off self-view. 

You know this one, amirite? It takes so much bandwidth to be looking at your own face all day, even if you are as beautiful as Tarzan 😉. You have to manage what's being said and how you're coming across. Hello, cognitive overload! 

😇  I look for the most present person in the room, and try to match them. 

You don’t have to go it alone! A relaxed nervous system is contagious. If you see someone unusually present, you can tune into their regulated state and let it pull you up. We’re all just walking tuning forks. I do this by observing that person’s posture, meeting their gaze, doing with my hands whatever they’re doing with theirs. 

🚪  I leave if I’m not able to be present. 

No one is holding you hostage! I’m not recommending you perform perfect presence on a poorly-facilitated Zoom call, or sit through an entire call that doesn’t match what you thought you signed up for. Often people stick around because they feel it’s the polite thing to do, but sometimes you have to do the uncomfortable thing and just log off, knowing someone might notice and/or the presenter might feel hurt. 

But your one-foot-in, one-foot-out presence isn’t helping anyone, least of all yourself.

Those are my Zoom etiquette goals. 

I’m curious about yours. 

What makes you feel safe enough to participate? What makes you pull away? What does your full participation look like? How would someone like me ever earn it? 

I would love the answer to one, or preferably all, of those questions. 

‘Till next week,

Tarzan

P.S. 

Hope you enjoyed my 6-part listicle 😉

Tarzan Kalryzian [she/they]
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