A room with a view: the Twitter account that spent a year staring into people’s homes

With its stately lamp and verdant window view, Hillary Clinton’s “Zoom room” is nicer than most. So when Room Rater – a Twitter account which scores the video conference backgrounds of highprofile figures – gave it nine out of 10 last spring, Clinton took her disappointment to social media: “I’ll keep striving for that highest, hardest glass ceiling, the elusive 10/10,” she tweeted at the account.

Judging the backgrounds on video calls has been the armchair sport of the past year. Room Rater just happened to screengrab these moments. As we doomscrolled through bleak statistics online, it was cheering to see shots of Meryl Streep’s sterile shelves or the copies of Fahrenheit 451 and The Twits propped up behind Boris Johnson at a school in Leicestershire. Scrolling through the posts today, these images are emblematic of just how quickly coronavirus forced us inside and online.

Room Rater is still going strong and today has almost 400k followers. It has slowed its output from about 40 rooms a day to four or five, but is now writing a guidebook of how to cultivate Zoom backgrounds for this “new reality”, says one of its co-founders, Claude Taylor. Some aspects of life are opening up, but many – particularly video conferencing – are here to stay. “People ask if we are going to shut down the account when everyone is vaccinated and the answer is no, because this is the new normal.”

Taylor created the account with his partner, Jessie Bahrey, last April. Taylor lives in Washington DC, Bahrey near Vancouver, and so, separated in lockdown, they would watch the news and judge the rooms of senators, some UK politicians, celebrities and “the punditry class” over the phone.

“The idea was to entertain at a time when we all needed that sort of diversion,” says Taylor. It quickly took off. Today, it’s standard practice for subjects, such as Clinton, to respond or even improve their backdrops at Room Rater’s behest. One very high-profile Republican senator was so miffed at getting a poor rating, their head of communications contacted the account to try to “re-pitch” the room to them.

Room Rater’s grading system is particular and partisan – if you’re an Obama or a liberal pundit, you’ll often score well. If you’re a Cruz or a Trump, you won’t. One Bernie Sanders appearance got a three, but the Vermont senator picked up a 10/10 for his muchmemed inauguration look. There are points for good lighting, staircases and depth. Paintings are a big plus, as are books. Plants can bump a six to a nine, but too many can be seen as affectations.

Elsewhere, points are docked for bad lighting, bad angles and minor cord violations – headphones, chargers, anything that gives the game away. “You also need your camera at the right height. It just needs to be eye level. That’s the single most common mistake people make – no one wants the nostril view,” he says. The main issue with Hillary Clinton’s room was “her depth”, says Taylor. “You need to be