What your go-to online uni outfit says about you

Imagine being boring and not having your camera on in Zoom seminars


With the one year anniversary of the first lockdown around the corner, Zoom lectures and online learning have become the dreaded norm for Newcastle students. Long gone are the days of wearing your favourite flares in Flares and rocking a North Face at Grey’s Club.

Since you can’t cut shapes in your best fit in Shaker anymore, you must improvise, adapt and overcome by sporting all your best lockdown purchases over a video camera – but little did you know how much your choice of Zoom attire says about you.

Full glam

Always full glam for your Zoom classes, you won’t turn your camera on unless you’re the best dressed in the seminar. You have a passion for fashion and dress to impress. Your Zoom-mates are equally intimated and in awe of your perfectly winged eyeliner at 9am. You’re the person that everyone wants to be and are also known to have your laptop six feet away, so the whole seminar can catch a glimpse of your fit.

You’ve even considered wearing the gown or three-piece suit you bought for the society ball (it was expensive and you cut the tags off before the event was cancelled) – and who can blame you? With Soho shut, Zoom might be the only way to attract a potential partner before June 21st.

Business on top, party on the bottom

You know the vibes. We’re talking your nicest top with your most embarrassing pyjama bottoms. A cute jumper paired with joggers, which feature an old, questionable stain. But that doesn’t matter as long as you’re sat down. You want to be taken seriously, but you’re not that serious.

You’ve got the best of both worlds – you look fantastic and put together, but really you’ve ascended to peak comfort. Jeans just aren’t comfortable, and while you might have worn them to the Robbo once or twice and sworn they were for comfort, not fashion, you were definitely just kidding yourself. You’re not willing to go to those lengths online when no one can see them anyway.

Bed hair don’t care

It’s 8:55am and you just woke up for your 9am lecture. Maybe there are some perks to lockdown learning after all. A slurp of the miscellaneous liquid on your bedside table and your laptop is all you need to get you through the next hour, and you don’t intend to leave your bed – comfort is key!

You’re most likely nursing a hangover that you wish was caused by too many trebs when really the culprit was a bottle of Echo Falls you accidentally downed whilst binging the latest Netflix series. Unlike our next category, you’re proud of your lazy lifestyle and turn your camera on anyway.

Let’s be honest, your other half-asleep classmates are either too tired to notice or are doing the exact same thing. You’re comfortable in your own skin and in your questionable pyjamas… your confidence is enviable.

Your camera is off anyway

You’ve never turned your camera on in a seminar because laptop cameras just aren’t flattering. Besides, you have better things to do – like make lunch or taking a nap. Sitting faceless in a crowd means you can dress up or down for the occasion. You have the freedom to wear your fluffiest Primark pj’s or your Oh Polly dress that was saved for House of Smith before it closed. Either way, no one will ever know.

Ultimately, online university won’t last forever, and soon we’ll be back on campus in our favourite fits. Lecture halls will once again be filled with Depop garms and puffer jackets – maybe it will even be socially acceptable to wear pyjamas down Northumberland Street by then?

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