Reviews, Yapping & Funny Stuff!

You ever been on one of those remote conference calls, watching some guy present a slide deck about some dumb shit nobody really cares about, and suddenly, out of nowhere almost, you start thinking to yourself, “Gee, I wonder what would happen if I just pulled my pants down and started masturbating on camera in front of all these people?”

I know it's crazy, but for some sick twisted reason, when I'm sitting there in my office, in front of my webcam, mindlessly nodding here and there while pretending to pay attention to some man in a suit taking his job way too fucking seriously, practically drooling from boredom, this heinous what-if-I-masturbate thing just randomly pops into my brain, as if there's some chaos demon up there pitchforking my most odious synapses, not only to relieve the boredom but also to satisfy some wicked primal curiosity, to answer the question of what exactly might happen if I just started doing the most shocking shit possible on this very serious executive conference call.

And, I swear, it's not like a sexual thing, there's no arousal going on, it's more like an anarchistic urge from millennia gone by, atavistic almost. I don’t even want to do it, I really don't, yet I still think about it like five times a day, because I’m on a lot of these boring-ass conference calls. I can't help it.

I imagine the presenter, upon my starting to masturbate, may not even notice at first, since the video usually focuses on the person talking, so he might just keep presenting his boring slides totally unaware of the fucked up shit going on in my little window, or maybe, if the video is up on a physical conference-room screen or something, he may notice but not say anything about it, he may just start acting all awkward and weird, pacing around or fidgeting or slurring his words or involuntarily adding a bunch of “uuuhs” to his talk track, unable to fully process the masturbatory madness unfolding before his very eyes in my little square up there, having never thought that this would ever happen to him, the very idea of it so absurd he’s never even considered it as a possibility. It really makes me wonder how many of these outwardly self-confident, super adult C-level executives, or any of us really, would be able to truly keep it together in the face of such senseless depravity. Masturbating on a Zoom call is almost like a great equalizer of sorts. I like to imagine that one of the participants might say something like, “uh, Forrest, you know your camera is on, right?”, and I would just ignore the question as if maybe I’m not aware that my camera is on, maybe I have no idea, maybe I’m totally oblivious, all while continuing the five-knuckle shuffle like nothing to see here don’t mind me, and those of weaker constitution may just start screaming in horror, throwing up, and maybe some people, people like me, maybe they would just laugh, like this is the most interesting thing that’s happened to them in the last ten years, others repeating “dear god, make it stop” over and over again, their minds completely shattered from the realization that nowhere is safe, that we’re all animals, that anyone could just start whacking it in front of them at any time, driving them to some sort of permanent psychosis, and someone might say something like, “Is this call being recorded? I hope this call is being recorded,” while not clarifying exactly why they hope it’s being recorded, and some older gentleman would say something like, “I cannot believe this, the sheer audacity, making a mockery of our business like this,” and of course the woman who’s “calling HR right now” because she vainly believes herself to be the sexual catalyst for why this is even happening in the first place, because surely no one in the meeting is as attractive as her, and eventually I imagine the host would have no choice but to manually eject me from the conference call because I would just not stop whacking it, at which point I imagine quickly receiving a call from Human Resources, at which point I would no longer have a job, and everyone would be very shocked and disgusted for a few weeks, privately calling all their co-workers, “did you hear about Forrest, what he did, on the weekly risk call? There’s something seriously wrong with that guy,” until, eventually, months pass, and I become this sort of urban legend, people start making up stories about me, giving me masturbation-related nicknames, like “to this day, if you listen closely, on our internal Zoom calls, you can still hear the soft patter of The Phantom Phallus,” or maybe I would become like a hero figure, a symbol of anti-corporate anarchism, spoken highly of, with jovial reverence, “do you remember that one time, when Full-Fisted Forrest whipped it out in front of the Senior Vice President of Sales? I heard the VP lost his mind after the whole thing, had to retire,” and there would be all sorts of wild rumors about me, “Yeah, but I heard he started a new company called Beat-It Bombers where you pay him to hack into video calls and he just start beating it right there on camera,” or, “Oh yeah, I’ve heard about him, heard he’s like a Buddhist monk now, totally renounced both masturbation and corporate America, sounds like a cool dude, wish I had the balls to do what he did, damn,” and so on and so forth.

But of course, I would never do anything like this. I just don't have it in me. I have neither the chutzpah nor the vulgarity to do so. And I’d probably question the character and sanity of anyone who did, because anyone who would whip it out in a public space, be it virtual or physical, most definitely has a few screws loose, and if they’re willing to do something like that, then, let’s be serious, what else would they be willing to do, I mean, really? 

And while whacking it during a boring video conference may carry with it some symbolic oomph, a sort of absurdist mockery of modern life, in which a species who grew from the wilds of the earth has willingly enslaved themselves to cushy office chairs and computer monitors all while pretending that presenting the perfect PowerPoint bestows some grand meaning to their lives, I do have to wonder if the person whacking it on Zoom calls would even think about any of this, it seems more likely they’d just be freaks who get off to other people watching them do sexual stuff in weird situations, exhibitionists, I think they’re called, and if not, if this hypothetical serial stroker is truly trying to make a point, what is their motivation, really? Perhaps the attention, the recognition of making some profound absurdist point, is the driver, and if that’s the case, then is the Zoom wanker really so different from the PowerPoint presenter who also wants praise and recognition for their great PowerPoints? Perhaps the underlying driver here is the same, perhaps all we want, at the end of the day, is some sort of recognition, be it good, bad, or ugly. Perhaps our egos crave this attention, this validation, and, for some people, it doesn’t matter how they get it, just as long as they get it, which is perhaps why we see so many people doing absurd things for attention, especially with the advent of the Internet, where the end goal seems to be just feeding our egos by garnering as much recognition as possible, no matter the ethical or spiritual costs.

One thing is certain however, if you want some quick easy recognition, you’ll probably have better luck whacking off on a Zoom call one time than presenting the perfect PowerPoint, but it’s important to note that, in both cases, it’s all just masturbation, really.