A Texas lawyer faced his worst nightmare while attending a virtual court meeting when he was unable to remove the "cat filter".
In a video that has now gone viral, the cute blue-eyed "cat" in the bottom right corner of the screen was actually County Attorney Rod Ponton, covered by a filter.
“Mr Ponton, I believe you have filter turned on in the video settings,” Judge Roy Ferguson said in the video.
“I’m here live, I’m not a cat,” said Ponton as his assistant tried to fix the settings, to which the judge replied, "I can see that."
The viral video which was re-shared by Judge Roy Ferguson on Twitter, read, "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 (sound on)."
"I was using my secretary’s computer and she was “mortified” by the mistake," Lawyer Ponton told The New York Times.
Ponton isn’t on Twitter, “I didn’t know that I had become an international phenomenon until he started getting calls from reporters barely more than an hour after the hearing ended", he said.
A post of the video on Twitter has garnered more than 25 million views, and the social media site is now abuzz with 'cat' puns.
“I’m here. I’m live. I’m not a cat,” I say to the mirror each morning," said one Twitter user.
Another user added, "I'm not a cat" is exactly what a kitten lawyer would say."
