How to Use a Cat Filter Like the One in the Viral Zoom Courtroom Video

And—perhaps most importantly—how to turn it off

On Tuesday, attorney Rod Ponton was testifying in a Zoom hearing in front of Judge Roy Ferguson of Texas’s 394th Judicial District, when he mistakenly engaged a filter on his assistant’s computer, transforming his face into that of a cat.

“I’m not a cat,” Ponton said in a wistful Texas drawl as he struggled to remove the filter, his cat face perfectly capturing the shame and regret he was no doubt feeling.

Those words may well go down as one of the iconic one-liners of the pandemic era. It’s delightful to see a grown man — testifying under oath in a serious legal proceeding — transformed into an animated LOLCAT. And in our post-pandemic world — where absolutely everything seems uncertain — it’s even more delightful that Ponton felt he had to reassure Ferguson he had not, in fact, actually transformed into a cat.

Unsurprisingly, Ponton’s Zoom fail became a meme within hours, and a search for “lawyer Zoom cat” on Twitter already returns thousands of results. It’s great fun to watch Ponton’s transformation. But what if you, too, want to be a cat on your next Zoom meeting (or court appearance)?

Snap Camera has at least 20 similar filters, so you can take your pick of cat faces.

While it’s not 100% clear exactly what app Ponton mistakenly engaged, there’s a theory that the filter is linked to an ancient Dell program, and an old post on the blog ChemBark depicts a seemingly identical cat filter running during a Skype call. I confirmed this by firing up an old Dell laptop from the late ’00s, and loading up the Dell Webcam Central program. Clicking over to the Avatars tab, I found a cat filter that appears to perfectly match the one Ponton used. I also confirmed that the cat filter is extremely challenging to switch off.