A Texan lawyer who accidentally left a kitten filter on during a video conference with a judge, has become an overnight internet sensation, sending thousands of people across the globe into hysterics as they watched him trying to remove the mournful kitty’s face from his screen.
The lawyer, who has been identified by multiple media outlets as Rob Ponton, the county attorney in Presidio, Texas, was forced to clarify during the Zoom video conference call that “I am not a cat”, even as the kitten image gazed sadly at the other conference participants – who somehow managed to remain straight-faced and serious.
This all took place during what was meant to be a virtual case hearing at the judicial court, and quickly turned into perhaps the best viral moment so far of 2021.
“I believe you have a filter turned on in the video settings, you might want to…” Judge Roy Ferguson can be heard telling Ponton. To which the lawyer quickly replied with a worried voice (and an equally concerned look on the kitten’s face), “Ah, we’re trying to… can you hear me judge?”.
The conversation then went back and forth between the judge and the lawyer as they tried to work out between them how to remove the cute but inappropriate filter.
“I can hear you, I think it’s a filter,” Ferguson says politely. “It is and I don’t know how to remove it, I’ve got my assistant here, she’s trying to, but uh, I’m prepared to go forward with it,” Ponton replies. “I’m here live, I am not a cat.”
The judge cheekily shared a video of the interaction on social media, local news outlet mysanantonio.com said, and it wasn’t long before the recording of the proceeding had spread across the internet.
“I like, ‘I *think” it’s a filter’, like he’s leaving open the possibility the lawyer is in fact a cat,” @Trisarahjtops wrote on Twitter. @JSawallaGusehMD said,”I don’t know why, but my favourite part is, ‘I’m prepared to go forward with it’. That’s the kind of radical acceptance we need sometimes”.
And @endaf87 added, “When he says ‘I’ve got my assistant here, she’s trying to remove it,’ all I can picture is another cat pawing desperately at the keyboard”.
Judge Ferguson later told mysanantonio.com that the fact that everyone involved handled the kitten situation with “grace and dignity” was a “testament to professionalism all round”. Meanwhile, Ponton explained to the news outlet that he was using his secretary’s computer so hadn’t encountered the filter issue before. But he said he was happy to have raised a few smiles during stressful times.
“If I can make everybody laugh for a moment at my expense, I’ll take it,” Ponton said.
This is just one of many video chat mishaps that have occurred over the past year, since working from home became the norm during Covid-19. Not everyone has escaped with as much dignity intact as Ponton, however.
In November, school board member Frances Cogelja lived everyone’s worst nightmare when a video chat organised by the Hackensack Board of Education in New Jersey caught her going to the toilet.
According to a report in the Daily Voice, Cogelja didn’t realise her laptop camera was on when she took the device into the bathroom. Her trip to the toilet was witnessed by nearly 150 participants, including students. During the incident, the board’s vice-president, Scott James-Vickery, can reportedly be heard telling Cogelja, “You need to go. We’re here trying to get work done while you’re sitting on the toilet.”
Cogelja subsequently resigned as a trustee of the Hackensack Board of Education.