Texas lawyer Ron Ponton found viral fame last week when he accidentally joined a Zoom call with a filter that turned him into a cat. “I’m here live, I’m not a cat,” he could be heard saying in the clip, which has since been viewed millions of times. “I can see that,” the judge responded, with Ponton later saying he’s ready to “go forward” with the rest of the call regardless. While he was initially embarrassed, now he’s looking to make some money off the incident.
TMZ reports that Ponton said he’s come around to embrace his newfound viral fame, and he’s already got plans for merch. “At first I was embarrassed, but by the time I realized that the thing had gone viral and it was already everywhere in the world, I got over it,” he said. “In Texas we have a saying; You can’t put toothpaste back in the tube. … Everything’s changing, they’re already selling t-shirts on the web and mugs and everything else, so we’re going to try to catch up with that.”
Ponton also revealed that he’s had people reaching out to him for interviews since the mishap, presumably to talk about the challenges of working from home. “Everything was going fine until the judge called the case, and suddenly you jumped from the waiting room to the virtual courtroom,” he added, explaining how he somehow put on the filter on. “When I moved to the virtual courtroom, I disappeared and the cat appeared…and I had no clue how and why.”
Rewatch Ponton’s viral moment above.
