People Share Awkward Moments That Occurred During Virtual Learning

Explore the amusing and embarrassing mishaps of virtual learning during lockdown! From muted mics to unexpected surprises, hear firsthand accounts of the awkward moments that defined online education.

1. A Little Oopsie

I had to defend my thesis over Zoom and many professors came into the call to watch. My thesis was about the immune response in fish to parasites. One professor joined late and forgot to mute her mic and we got treated to this little gem:

"Shhhh. Mommy is learning about fish parasites, which is what you'll get if you don't stop peeing in the koi pond."

daemare

This is from a couple of years ago. I was working for a private college that has several campuses—my campus was the “online” campus. Each year, the campuses took turns hosting an annual writing conference for English/Speech faculty.

With it being the online campus’s turn to host, we came up with the idea to make it a virtual conference that faculty members could attend from home or go to their own campus and attend with their peers in a classroom.

Anyway, as one of the people on the conference committee, my job was to host several of the various break-out sessions, make sure the WebEx meeting was working, introduce the presenter of the session, monitor the q and a, etc. I also made sure to mute the participants once it was time for the speaker to start.

So there was no live mic scenario, but one of the participants left his webcam on. During the presentation, he whips out a gigantic party sub and is just going to town on it.

So while everyone is watching the presenter’s PowerPoint, you just see this guy (who I had met before and was a legit 6’8) just scarfing down a party sub in a window at the bottom of the screen. Honestly, it was more impressive than anything.

Liverpool510

I just did 8-hour Zoom calls for 7 weeks of training for a new project. On the second week, a man unmutes his call, farts the longest fart I’ve ever heard in my life, then when he finishes, mutes the call.

I can see others laughing while muted at his fatal error of thinking he wasn’t muted so he went to “mute” his call.

I found this to be the highlight of the week, but the following week the guy does it again!!! Honestly the second time I laughed but then started to wonder if it was some kind of power move.

solo1024

The teacher was going through a rough time and the class could feel it. We assured her that we had done our homework and that she could take a rest for the time being.

She agreed and told me she would switch her mic off and sleep for a while, as we did whatever.

Her husband was right beside her and the mic wasn't turned off. She said, "I am so lucky to have these students" and started sobbing to her husband. We all heard this but kept quiet to prevent her from being embarrassed.  

She slept well during that time and we sent her a thank-you gift collectively.

Unknown_user_12

I teach for an online university that requires me to conduct a weekly live session. One morning, I was lecturing and a student popped in late. I said, “Hello, (student name)! Thanks for joining us.”

She said, “Don’t say my name, b**ch!”, just before she realized her mic was on and turned it off. I just laughed.

AndeeCreative

Ironically, my IT teacher forgot to turn off his mic and camera and proceeded to get into a very heated argument on the phone with his ex-girlfriend, who he has a kid with.

Did I mention that she’s also a teacher at our school? Yeah, those were the most awkward 5 minutes of my life, before he realized.

Odd_Camera_9588

I was producing a video for some university professors on a specific medical thing for a virtual learning course. I was all set up to shoot the process, and the teachers excused themselves to the next office to regroup and have a chat.

I already had their wireless lav mics attached and fed to my camera, so when I sat down at the camera and put on my headphones I immediately heard their conversation.

They were criticizing me, saying they couldn't believe they hired someone so young, inexperienced in that particular medical field, how I looked, how I asked questions, etc... Oops!  

At least I made them a fine video. These days I don't put my headphones on until we're about to shoot.

bingbong1234

During my English class, this one girl forgot to mute herself. While my teacher was talking, she almost deafened all of us on the Zoom call answering her mother's questions.

Her mother (from a distance): "What class are you in?"

Her (yelling): English!

Her mother: Oh, the hot teacher?

Her: Yeah, that guy.

Now, even I'll admit my teacher is fairly attractive, but it does take it to another level when you get your own mother involved.

Thankfully, our teacher is a chill guy and thought the whole thing was just kind of funny, and kind of just gave a general reminder to the class to keep mics muted. She didn't say anything for the rest of the class.

townie0114

In a math class I was in last year, we were taking a test, in which you had to turn your mic on—their way of trying to prevent cheating.

Some girl apparently forgot that hers was on and started belting out Stand By You by Rachel Platten at the top of her lungs. It went on for the entire song and she was still humming it when I finished the test and left the call.

vegancheezits

I had a student's boyfriend (both college) walk up behind her on Zoom; reach into her shirt; pull out her breasts; and start doing a little “dance”. She was just laughing and playfully slapping his hands away.

This was probably 30 seconds after I had just gone through my whole speech of making sure there was nothing in your browser history, Google search history, or names of folders that could be embarrassing or offensive.

gold_and_diamond

One time in an art class (separate from my school), my dad knocked on my door. It was dead silent at that point, everyone was working on their projects.

I clicked the mute button and yelled "WHAT!?". Turns out my mic was already muted and I turned it on. I startled the entire class and the teacher asked if I was okay.

dragonncat

I was visiting my best friend during a lecture and she had her mic and video turned off. She then had to join a group discussion and sometimes unmuted herself to contribute something.

After that, the whole class was supposed to present their results and she supposedly muted herself again.

I started venting to her about how wasps are considered wild bees even though they have no business being bees because they're a**holes, and suddenly we hear laughter from her professor and her classmates. She forgot to mute herself.

Jawleene

A student's mother had the habit of standing just off camera and very closely observing her kid. I know this because one time the student "forgot" to disable the mic.

Everyone heard how the mother was coaching the student on how to act. Don't look my way, smile, pay attention. It was next-level helicoptering.

Our school has a good counselor and the student is getting help. All the teachers have been advised to limit contact with the mother and not make waves, lest she withdraw the student or redouble her controlling behavior. I worry about it.

The_Minstrel_Boy

It isn't too bad, but during the graduating ceremony for a class, all staff were asked to attend and turn on their mic to clap at certain points so it wouldn't be awkward.

One such staff member forgot to turn their mic back off and was heard loudly jokingly insulting her husband and asking for another drink whilst complaining about how long and boring this was.

This was broadcast to a whole class, their parents, and anyone else listening. We stuck together and didn't tell anyone who it was, but we all knew. MUTE. YOUR. MICS!!!

whaddupdemons

My son calls his tablet his “fix” because when I first got it and the battery would die, I’d tell him I was going to fix it.

So imagine his pre-k teacher's surprise last spring when he asked me if he could have his fix now that he was done with school. I cracked up, held up the fix in question, and explained what he meant.

GreenOnionCrusader

A student in my class forgot to turn off their mic, and we heard some background noises (doors closing, tapping...), because of a display bug, we couldn't see where the noise was from.

Then the student started saying crap about the teacher, "Oh, yeah this is useless, he's just writing on a tablet, even I could do that, etc."  

Everyone heard that, the teacher heard them just insult him. They didn't come back to the classes after that.

The_Legendarian

We had a student in my class who was logged in on a smartphone, using an anonymous login, who never muted their mic once. They were outside, or near a window, every time.

When their mic picked up a sound, it would maximize their blank screen, minimizing the teacher's lesson which was on a whiteboard. It happened a lot.

The teacher didn’t know who it was and despite all of us begging them to mute, they never responded or did so and the teacher wasn't able to mute or boot them.

The worst part is, since they were connected anonymously they never even got recorded as attending the lectures and failed for that reason alone. All of us suffered for this one jerk who failed anyway.

StevenAssantisFoot

During one of the lectures, our cat came into the room and jumped into my lap. I proceeded to tell him how very cute he was and how much I love him, in the stupidly sweetest voice possible because he's the best boy.

Then, a full minute or two into me praising the cat, a message popped up from my classmate saying I was unmuted. I had a mini spook and replied with "Oh haha I was just talking to him" + a picture of the cat.

It was extra awkward because I walk around with a resting b**ch face and barely talk to anyone when we're at uni, so my classmate later admitted that the only reason no one warned me sooner was because it didn't occur to them that the person with this sweet voice was me.

chavrilfreak

A boy accidentally forgot to turn his mic off and we heard how his mom was literally cursing at him, then he looked at the camera and realized that the mic was on so he turned the camera and mic off.

The next day, he looked like he cried all day and his mom was behind the camera; I still feel bad for that kid.

Le_Fer

Not a Zoom meeting, but when I was a flight attendant, we used handheld mics to give briefings and make announcements.

One female passenger got in my friend's face and screamed at her that if her bags were lost or if her golf bag was damaged, she would make sure to hold her personally responsible.

My friend was pretty shaken not only by the loudness and anger but by the woman's spittle and tried to hold it together to give her departure briefing.

"Welcome aboard Flt xxx, service to Orlando. You damn b**ch."

The entire plane lost it. (my friend had forgotten to let go of the key on the side of the mic so all noise was picked up).

Throwawaybibbi

The president of the uni I attended (until 2007) was presenting something with a bunch of other important people. This was being recorded for later upload and right when the pandemic was starting, around March 2020.

His wife appears in the middle of the talk mad as hell telling him to go clean the toilet and that she's not her slave to clean his crap. A few very awkward seconds later he just says "Maybe we have to edit this out later".  

Now imagine how viral this must have been: I haven't had any ties to the uni since 2007 yet somehow the video got to my WhatsApp.

inhalingsounds

So we were making our classes as phone call on an app called Teampspeak I think. Anyway, I was using my phone to talk and my computer to work and sometimes check Discord, at a point, we were supposed to do some exercise on our own and I left my mic on.

My friend sent me a message talking about the fact that he got a girlfriend. So I sent him "You did it, you crazy son of a b**ch".

Then I wanted to add some emoji, so I tried to edit the message and I hit the text-to-speech button instead. The computer literally yells " You crazy son of a b**ch".

Bleizik

I'm a tutor, and my student forgot to mute herself before leaving for a 5-minute break. She had a beautiful conversation with her brother about how much of a c*nt I was, how much I sucked, and how poor I look/my house looked.

Luckily, I always record my tutoring sessions, so I finish as if nothing happened, and sent the clip straight to my supervisor. She got booted off of the tutoring program, as I'm the only tutor advanced enough for the grade that is able to take her.

sneezypeasyqueezy

Not really turn off the mic, but do you know that feature of pressing the spacebar to talk? Well, someone in my class was too used to pressing the spacebar to pause a video and mistakenly pressed it to "Pause" the class to speak to someone in

 their home but would instead say nonsense while the teacher was speaking. This happened several times by the way.  

Natyous

This was a conference call for work but it was a big call with like 12 people and I’m new-ish so I was really just listening as the senior analysts were discussing something.

  The call was going on for a while so I took my laptop Into the bathroom with me to do my business, flushed the toilet, and everyone just stopped talking.

Turns out I didn’t mute my mic and everyone just heard a toilet flushing in the middle of a meeting. Luckily no one cared and they all laughed about it but I was mortified.

holdthe_5thline

While giving a lecture on the 'heated' arguments among different schools of psychology, our professor screamed "Fire fire, there is fire" and most of the confused students including the teacher's pets replied "I agree. Those were some lit points."

Things turned out funnier and scarier when the professor went on with the screaming and we could hear her calling her house help and her brother alarming them of a fire sparking up her switchboard.

So yeah, a confused, concerned class of 50 sat through the entire episode of turning out the fire while our professor revealed every dynamic of their family through her freaked-out screams.

And 30 minutes later she comes back to her lappy to unmute herself only to find a hundred "Are you okay?" texts in the chat box.

sleepercellofzoom

We recently had a meeting with our whole team where the host forgot to turn off screen-sharing, so we all saw him respond positively to a job offer. Funniest thing I've ever seen.

Or it would be, if the offer hadn't included the salary, letting us all know that this grossly incompetent worker was getting paid way more than the rest of us. Still, we were just glad to see him go.

ncsuandrew12

I wasn't the one in class, but my brother. He was in class while I made lunch, but it was my first time making rice on my own. So I asked him if he could go and see if it was done, he didn't hear me, so I screamed at him the same question.

He then turned to face me, and screamed "WHAT?!" "IT'S NOT DONE. WAIT A MINUTE", and when he looked back at his class, his teacher was telling him to turn down the mic, and he almost got an eardrum popped.

Laughing-Hyane

It actually happened on Friday. I have to take training at my new workplace and it's online via Zoom. I had horrible diarrhea that day and I could barely sit in one place therefore I turned off the camera and the mic so the instructor didn't see my suffering and turned the mic on when I had to answer a question or something.

I don't know if she heard it but I think so because a couple of minutes after we took a break.

Lord-AG

YouTube has those targeted ads that play. My cooking teacher left the room while playing a YouTube video of how to peel an orange with a knife.

The targeted ad starts playing and an advert for shaving privates turns on. He comes back inside the room, quickly walks over to the computer, and skips the ad. Everyone avoided eye contact and it was probably the most awkward experience in school.

OwwwMyFoot

Online class student here. probably when your classmate got bored and started watching YouTube in the middle of sessions on that strict teacher.

An entire class got pretty hard warnings since the teacher could sense you immediately when you got bored by switching your attention to other things behind that screen.

lunalunia

Not a teacher-student deal but my mother was on a work call. She does tech stuff with a hospital. Lots of people in it. My cat was up on her desk trying to get attention and meowed this deep loud meow. Right into her mic.

The call proceeded with every time my cat meowed her co-workers would be like "Good point" or "Haven't thought of that" or like "Yeah that sounds right". My mother was so embarrassed but she couldn't get her to leave her alone.

Fuckthe4th

College student here! This was last semester so it was when we had first switched to all online. I had an 8 am class that was Renaissance through Modern Art History.

Anyway this kid in the class didn’t have his mic muted and he was snoring. Like snoring snoring. My poor professor tried to wake him up, and couldn’t.

She also had no idea how to mute him or kick him out so we went on with the lecture. After about 5 minutes she finally said “I can’t f***ing teach to this” and ended the Zoom meeting. The rest of the semester we used voice thread instead.

tasty_pickle_juice

My mother entered the room so I switched off the camera and the microphone (I thought) and started talking crap about the teacher with her.

After 50 seconds, my friend called me and told me that the microphone was on. I didn't say a word to that teacher for months after that. Also, she was a very bad teacher.

stalin885

I have a different kind of story and the reason why you have to manually turn your mic/camera on/off when you join a meeting.

Years ago, a sales guy working for Cisco was on the road so he was alone in a hotel room. I guess he had an 8 am meeting, so the guy joined the Webex, then proceeded to lay on his bed, naked, and rock one out, while the whole meeting watched.

He gets done and sees all the messages telling him his camera is on, and promptly leaves the meeting.

Cisco ended up firing the guy over this and I believe he ended up suing for invasion of privacy and winning or something like that.

So that, kids, is why you have to turn your camera on before every meeting (or get notified that it's on).

TSwizzlesNipples

We had a graduation on Zoom for my Air Force Airman Leadership School. Parents were invited to attend and someone's mother came in and, because she was the only one talking, became "center stage." She was looking down at the screen way too close, and said the following:

"Okay, I think I clicked the right button. I see a little black man in the corner. Huh? What do you mean? Well, if they don't want to hear me talk tell them not to listen.

Where the hell is the mute button? Okay, okay, okay. Everyone looks like their laughing, I must have missed something."

She found the mute button but it was still hilarious. Added hilarity for how tense and formal the event was supposed to be.

KaiserKiwi

Pexels, Pavel Danilyuk

This was work, not school, but someone posted a drawing of a Hello Kitty-type character on the side of their presentation during a virtual meeting. One of my coworkers mumbled, “Damn, fat butt” which, when I looked again, yeah, the character had a pear body shape.

It was such a weird thing for someone to say though my brain just dismissed it as me mishearing it until they panicked a second later and apologized for not being on mute, and then I fully proceeded with it. Additional context: coworker is a 50+ mother of three.

[deleted]

This is probably going to get buried, but my university law professor (a very intelligent guy, but very serious as well. Never laughed.

He had a limp, but nobody would ever dare to make fun of him because he had a military strict aura surrounding him) forgot to turn off his microphone in class while he was going to take a pee.

He was then loudly discussing his dark-colored pee and potential prostate issues with the junior teacher who was following him around for the day (and I guess had to pee too?). I never saw him the same again.

[deleted]

My cat caught a coral snake during my 1st Period Zoom right in front of me, right outside the window. That was a little disruptive. I ran out with a stick trying to separate the cat and the snake.

Then after I got my cat inside, I was afraid my cat got bit because I couldn't tell. I don't know what to look for. So I came back inside and told my students that if my cat starts having a seizure, I'm signing off and going to the vet.

Meanwhile, I asked my students to look up and make sure the saying is Red touch yellow kill a fellow...and it was.

[deleted]

This past Friday we had division-wide meetings to discuss our online learning plan in case we get shut down due to COVID.

While teaching regular classes, teachers will have to simultaneously develop online teaching resources so that we can seamlessly shift to online Wednesday if we are shut down on Tuesday.

After a division-wide meeting with all 7-12 ended one of our superintendents says, on a live mic, "Jesus Christ, can you feel my damn pain?"

The call had not been ended by the facilitator, pretty well all of us heard it clear as day.

Barabarabbit

I'm a teacher and we have been doing online professional developments lately, so like, big online staff meetings. The dean had us go around and introduce ourselves.

When she got to one teacher she said "Mr. [Teacher's Name], could you please turn on your camera so you can introduce yourself?"

And he gave this nervous sputtering answer like "NO! Uhh...I can't! It's uhh...BROKEN right now."

RainWindowCoffee

Best for me: My cat came over begging for affection and he purrs loudly enough to be heard in the Zoom room.

Most awkward: we had this academic conference, Asians only. During one girl's presentation, someone's... Alarm? Rang. It was Señorita by Shawn Mendez. The girl stopped and waited. And waited.

We were just trying to keep our poker faces. This was Japan so no one said anything, we just waited in silence. After 2 very long minutes, the poor girl said 'Uhm, I'm hearing some music, but is it just me?'.

The music was also louder than any speaker for some reason. The ladies running the conference didn't know how to mute all. Since they were like 80.

zgarbas

I joined science class the other day, and the first thing I heard was a kid loudly yelling "What the HELL." The teacher's reaction to this was, "Thomas (fake name), you might want to expand your lexicon."

The kid shut up after that. Later, probably after he thought about it more, the teacher said "I didn't know Pokemon trainers could cuss. Is that a thing they can do?"

Because the kid's profile picture was a Pokeball. I have a feeling I'm not going to forget this easily.

calflefef

Mine is super tame but it upset me a lot because of my social anxiety, but apparently, I forgot to turn off my mic and my cat (who I locked out of my room so she wouldn’t get in the way) began to meow outside my door.

My teacher said “Whoever’s got a cat going mute yourself” and I did, and I let my cat in to get her to shush and she immediately jumped in front of the webcam.

Xan-the-Woman

We were doing presentations on ourselves on Google Slides, and this girl who went right after me said that she liked to bake as a hobby. I had forgotten to turn off my mic and when she said that I said “She likes to bake weed brownies”.

My teacher heard me say that and just smiled and everyone else started to spam my phone and laugh in the class. I was really embarrassed.

Lolfredo