On a recent Monday in August, Kevito Clark hosted a video conference call to discuss the next installment of a game night he runs at the LINE LA, a hotel in Koreatown. But over the course of the hour-long meeting, he never said a word.
Instead Clark, who has a shaved head and a full beard with a touch of gray in it, used other communication tools. When the hotel’s brand manager expressed hesitation around passing out rubber bracelets, he nodded. When a collaborator mentioned the name of a tentative performer, he used Google Meet’s settings to send heart and thumbs up emojis. In between these interactions, he typed his thoughts — “Branded cups are cute,” “Any last questions?” — into the chat. Not once did he make his voice heard.
It was an unusual way to run a meeting, but Clark’s collaborators have grown accustomed to it. As he …