Basic Trope: A character cannot figure out how to use video call services.
- Straight: Joe tries to have a video call with his grandma, Martha. However, Martha cannot figure it out — she continually changes the backgrounds to various pictures, accidentally mutes herself, keeps turning on filters, and is wearing a strange outfit.
- Exaggerated: Everyone in the video call's meeting is very confused about what to do.
- Downplayed: Martha briefly struggles with figuring out how to turn the sound on, but manages to figure it out when her grandson Joe instructs her.
- Justified:
- Martha is Hopeless with Tech in general.
- Martha is relatively experienced with technology; she's just never used a video call service before, and is having some difficulty.
- Inverted: Martha manages to immediately figure out how to use a video call service perfectly.
- Subverted: ???
- Double Subverted: ???
- Parodied:
- Things that are not video calls have issues typical to video calls.
- Martha is the logical extreme of Too Incompetent to Operate a Blanket, and the device she's trying to have a video call on somehow explodes.
- Zig-Zagged: ???
- Averted:
- There is no video call.
- Joe and Martha have a relatively normal video chat.
- Enforced: The work is supposed to be a Very Special Episode about COVID-19 (or other situations that would require them to have to stay apart from each other), and so it shows the importance of staying safe, but there's no reason some humor can't be thrown in.
- Lampshaded: "Martha, do you even know how to use a video call?"
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: Joe chose a video call rather than a regular voice call because he doesn't really want to talk to Martha and knows technical difficulties will give him a way out.
- Defied:
- Joe realizes that his grandma is going to have difficulty with a video call, so they opt for a simple phone call instead.
- Joe teaches Martha how to use a video call before they have one, so that she knows what to do.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Implied: The video call itself is not seen, but a Noodle Incident about "the time Joe's grandma accidentally turned on the cat filter" is mentioned.
- Played for Laughs: Martha does weird stuff on the video call that's played for Cringe Comedy.
- Played for Drama:
- Martha gets self-conscious about how she acted on a video call.
- Poor Communication Kills occur as a result of a video call failing.
- Played for Horror: Martha gets murdered during a video call with Joe, but he ends up not noticing the murder because Martha has turned on a cat filter and has muted herself while trying some of the video call's functions.
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