To be annoyed that no one has ever told me I look like an actual sea monster in real life?

[MaudBaileysGreenTurban]

I have just watched myself on a recorded Teams meeting.

Sweet fucking Jesus.

My face is basically a blancmange in a plastic bag with two googly Mr Potato Head eyes stuck on wonky. One is half-shut all the time.

When I talk, my mouth sort of does a collapsy thing.

Where is my chin? WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO MY CHIN?

I can't believe I've actually been walking around, conversing with people, looking like this. For years.

Why did no one tell me I looked like this????

I look like a dream... Dream topping that's been puked onto a grey washcloth. I stupidly did the first make up free, not anymore, I have even been fake tanning to try to counteract the grey. My mum realised her roots were showing so appeared in an African headdress yesterday. We aren't African and I kept forgetting she could see my actual face laughing at it. She startled the cat and he kept pawing at the screen everytime she moved.

Used to be thin and attractive, now a 38 year old mother of four and look like Johnny Vegas onscreen. Sad times.

You lot think you've got problems! My cheeks have decided to fall down and become JOWLS for Gods sake! I'm 31!!

I tell everyone that my camera doesn’t work. This is because of the electrical tape stuck across it, but they don’t know that.

Feeling comforted I'm not the only one! My face is so asymmetrical I really hate watching videos of myself but at least I know I'm not the only one.

In Zoom meetings lighting is EVERYTHING. I have a wide nose and the shadow from my lounge light right above my head means the bottom half of my face is basically in the shadow of my nose! Side and natural lighting helps so much.

I look like my Dad in a wig
You and me both

All my colleagues look peculiar on video calls, so I don't think what you can see is a true reflection of what you actually look like in real life, don't worry!

Spartacus - yep me too. Duct tape is very useful!

Bwahahahah. Thanks, Mumsnet. I needed a laugh.

I'm so glad I've never watched myself. I look in the mirror so rarely these days I still get a shock when the face snarling back at me doesn't match the one in my head. Add voice and movement to that and... no thanks.

Glad I’m in such esteemed company. I, too, look terrible, but so does everyone to be fair. Except for my boss, who looks bloody amazing - the camera just loves her. It’s very dispiriting 😂

I did a "zoom" last week for the first time.

Saw my lovely DM looking back at me.

She has been dead for 16 years.

Frightened the shit out of me.

Looking at colleagues just now, they all sit way back from their screen and they’re very still, plus their screens are up a height. I had the fake background but it’s very wobbly, so I turned it off and kept my double chin out of shot. 😢

I thought I looked OK in real life, but on camera I look like that last surviving giant tortoise who went on tour with Captain Cook and lived for 200+ years.

Now I pile the make up on for videocalls. In the mirror I look like Barbara Cartland but on camera I look mostly like a human being.

I shift around a lot, partly to try and disguise my boobs and belly, and partly because I hate it when people feel the need to SHOUT (looking at you DH) so over-compensate with body language and gestures which I think helps people to understand me. No. I look like a twat sitting on an electric fence.

I look like a crumpled up sheet of grey paper with a huge red comedy nose slightly left of centre, framed by dull straw-coloured curtains, producing a droning monotone in a Welsh accent ten times thicker than it sounds in my head. Imagine Droopy's nan with the voice of Uncle Bryn from Gavin and Stacey with a really bad hangover.

I've worked demo home for decades, have been participating in online meetings for years.... we never use video. We use the screens for sharing documents and graphics, doing demos of the software. Wtf would we want to look at each other?

OTOH I had my first zoom Pilates class this morning....

Oh you are my people - I must have some reverse dysmorphia thing where I imagine I look ok. I know I am not thin, my skins a bit shit and stuff but who notices right? Turns out everyone when they look at you and when did my mouth go wonky, I thought anxiety about it looking weird once was making it go weird but no that’s my weird wonky mouth. I look like my own Imaginary fat uncle.

Sparklingbrook I look like Myra Hindley in my passport photo. Combination of not smiling, hair down. At least I hope.

Honestly, the number of times I’ve said this in real life and the person has gone HAHAHA of course you don’t. Then seen it and gone oh my God, you actually do.

@IamwhoIsayIam My DP is the opposite. He looks fine in real life, but I stood behind him in front of the mirror once and blurted out that he had a strange looking face

My cat looks fabulous on FaceTime. I must ask her what her secret is.

Thankfully I've never had the misfortune to have to view myself on screen, but I have had the unpleasnat experience of hearing a recording of how my voive actually sounds!

What I once thought was a subtle accent, has in fact turned out to be scarily similar to Liam Gallagher's! Now I know why one of my exes liked me to quote the Boddington's advert for him

I don’t look too bad but I sound absolutely awful. I’ve lived abroad in a French-speaking country for 10 years, so thought I’d mostly lost my regional accent. But no, I sound like a Brummie smurf

I hear you OP. I Ve always known I'm not a beautiful woman but these video chats have schooled me that I am quite a site really. Clearly I am delusional - I don't feel like the fat, saggy, beady eyed woman with the hideous hair but....there it is. I notice everyone else looks the same as I see them in real life so it's sadly not the camera

I look like a Cornish pasty. I sound like Helen Baxendale with tonsillitis.

I really love seeing my colleagues though Errol, it makes me feel connected.

Although I have noticed that as time goes on fewer and fewer people are putting their cameras on, unless they want to speak.

Doing that is worse though, I reckon. The shock of it. A ghostly blancmange with huge cavernous nostrils suddenly hoves into view without warning. Not good for the train of thought.