Zoom Cat Lawyer, also known as I'm Not a Cat, is an Internet meme that refers to a viral video taken from a live stream of a civil forfeiture hearing, and being held on the video conferencing application Zoom in Texas' 394th Judicial District Court. The video features an attorney named Rod Ponton, who is struggling to disable a cat filter that shows a white kitten instead of his face, making it appear as though a cat is speaking.
On February 9, 2021, the YouTube account for the 394th District Court of Texas live-streamed and published a clip entitled "Kitten Zoom Filter Mishap." The video features an attorney, Rod Ponton, who accidentally signed in with a white kitten face filter and is attempting to remove it from his Zoom application. [1] In the video, the kitten's eyes appear to dart back and forth when Ponton says, "I don't know how to remove it. I've got my assistant here and she's trying to." Ponton then attempts to move forward, saying, "I'm prepared to go forward with it." Finally, he says, "I'm here live. I'm not a cat." [2] The post later received 3.6 million views on YouTube and over 26.9 million views on Twitter. [3] Ponton told CNN and the Associated Press that he was using his assistant's 10-year-old desktop computer when he logged on to the civil forfeiture hearing. [4] Ponton claimed his secretary or her daughter had last used the image, but Dell Technologies said that it is more likely that the aging desktop's machine needed a software update. [5]
After the clip was posted, Judge Roy Ferguson later shared the clip on Twitter with a tweet being captioned as "IMPORTANT ZOOM TIP: If a child used your computer, before you join a virtual hearing check the Zoom Video Options to be sure filters are off. This kitten just made a formal announcement on a case in the 394th." [6] Reuters reporter Lawrence Hurley later shared the clip on Twitter. [1] Canadian poet Margaret Atwood praised and also shared the tweet with a caption "I on the other hand am a cat. I just can't get this human filter off." [7] After the incident, Ponton said to The New York Times , "If I can make the country chuckle for a moment in these difficult times they're going through, I'm happy to let them do that at my expense." [2] He said to Vice , "Oh, that was just a mistake by my secretary. I was using her computer and for some reason, she had that filter on. I took it off and replaced it with my face. It was a case involving a man trying to exit the United States with contraband and contraband cash. All it was was a mistake. It was taken off and we had the hearing as normal." [8]
After the clip grew in popularity, several notable media outlets covered the video, including The New York Times , [2] NBC News, [9] The Wall Street Journal , [10] USA Today , [11] The Guardian , [12] ABC , [13] The Daily Dot , [14] Vice , [8] CNN , [15] and others. [4] [16] Wonderland described it as one of the best memes 2021 produced. [17] Jochan Embley of Evening Standard described it as one of the "Most hilarious Zoom fails in the year". [18] Natasha Hinde of HuffPost listed it among the "most hilarious Zoom moments of all time", [19] while WPBN-TV reported that the meme would be made into a bobblehead by the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum. [20]
The meme also inspired a prank involving Charles Barkley on Inside the NBA . [21] In a clip in which Minnesota representative Tom Emmer appears upside-down in a virtual US Congress Committee Finance meeting, a co-attendee references the meme, stating, "at least he's not a cat". [22]
The clip also appeared in a Mike's Hard Lemonade commercial. [23]
Ponton is an instance of a Milkshake Duck, a person who gains popularity on social media for some positive or charming trait but is later revealed to have a distasteful history. In 2014 Ponton "used federal agents to torment a former lover with drug raids and bogus charges", which ended up "destroying her business". [24] [25] [26] [27]
"All your base are belong to us" is an Internet meme based on a poorly translated phrase from the opening cutscene of the Japanese video game Zero Wing. The phrase first appeared on the European release of the 1991 Sega Mega Drive port of the 1989 Japanese arcade game.
Hanabiko "Koko" was a female western lowland gorilla. Koko was born in San Francisco Zoo, and lived most of her life at The Gorilla Foundation's preserve in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The name "Hanabiko" (花火子), lit. 'fireworks child', is of Japanese origin and is a reference to her date of birth, the Fourth of July. Koko gained public attention upon a report of her having adopted a kitten as a pet and naming him "All Ball", which the public perceived as her ability to rhyme.
A bobblehead, also known by nicknames such as nodder, wobbler, or wacky wobbler, is a type of small collectible figurine. Its head is often oversized compared to its body. Instead of a solid connection, its head is connected to the body by a spring or hook in such a way that a light tap will cause the head to move around, or "bobble", hence the name.
An Internet meme, or simply meme, is a cultural item that is spread via the Internet, often through social media platforms. Internet memes can take various forms, such as images, videos, GIFs, and various other viral sensations. Characteristics of memes include their susceptibility to parody, their use of intertextuality, their propagation in a viral pattern, and their evolution over time. The name is from the concept of memes proposed by Richard Dawkins in 1972.
Milkshake! is a British children's television programming block on Channel 5 and is currently aimed at children aged 2 to 7.
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Bad Luck Blackie is a 1949 American animated comedy short film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Keyboard Cat is a video-based internet meme. Its original form was a video made in 1984 by Charlie Schmidt of his cat Fatso seemingly playing a musical keyboard to a cheery tune. While Schmidt had uploaded the video himself to YouTube in 2007, Brad O'Farrell, with Schmidt's permission, appended the video to the end of a blooper video uploaded in 2009 as if to have the cat "play" the person offstage after the gaffe as they had done in Vaudeville. The idea of this quickly expanded on the Internet by numerous other users, typically under the name "Play Him Off, Keyboard Cat", and became a popular meme on YouTube.
Nyan Cat is a YouTube video uploaded in April 2011, which became an internet meme. The video merged a Japanese pop song with an animated cartoon cat with a Pop-Tart for a torso flying through space and leaving a rainbow trail behind. The video ranked at number five on the list of most viewed YouTube videos in 2011.
A YouTube poop (YTP) is a type of video mashup or edit created by remixing/editing pre-existing media sources, often carrying subcultural significance into a new video for humorous, satirical, obscene, absurd, profane, annoying, confusing, and/or dramatic purposes. YouTube poops are traditionally uploaded to the video sharing website YouTube, hence the name.
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Images and videos of domestic cats make up some of the most viewed content on the World Wide Web. ThoughtCatalog has described cats as the "unofficial mascot of the Internet".
In Internet culture, a Milkshake Duck is a person who gains popularity on social media for some positive or charming trait but is later revealed to have a distasteful history or to engage in offensive behavior. The term has been connected to cancel culture, a perceived trend of call-out culture on social media, sometimes resulting in celebrities being ostracized and careers abruptly derailed by publicized misconduct.
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