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Collected Item: “HIST30060 Zoom Family Gatherings”

Give your story a title.

HIST30060 Zoom Family Gatherings

What sort of object is this: text story, photograph, video, audio interview, screenshot, drawing, meme, etc.?

Screenshot

Tell us a story; share your experience. Describe what the object or story you've uploaded says about the pandemic, and/or why what you've submitted is important to you.

This screenshot was taken during a zoom call with members of my Dad's side of the family in September 2020, during Victoria's third COVID lockdown. At this point, we hadn't seen each other since early June of that year, which was unusual - in normal times, we would gather in person at least once a month, but lockdown prevented social gatherings with anyone outside one's household. We were zooming in from 8 different locations and with competing voices, technical difficulties and zoom-illiterate older relatives, it wasn't quite the same experience as catching up in person. One thing we realised very quickly was that it was impossible to initiate more intimate, one-on-one conversations with people on zoom. Instead, each screen in the call got a chance to give an update and we missed the more personal conversations. It was also strange seeing families grouped together in this
virtual family gathering. In person, certain people in the family would naturally form groups based on age and gender and families wouldn't appear so much like a unit as in these calls. Although it was good to see people's faces again, I think we would all agree zoom calls are a poor substitute for the real deal.

Use one-word hashtags (separated by commas) to describe your story. For example: Where did it originate? How does this object make you feel? How does this object relate to the pandemic?

family, zoom, Melbourne, connection, online, gathering, virtual

Who originally created this object? (If you created this object, such as photo, then put "self" here.)

Charlotte Cameron

Give this story a date.

2020-09-18
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