Yesterday you might have seen the fun story about Cat Lawyer, the lawyer who didn’t know how to turn a cat filter off his Zoom and then was forced to take part in a legal proceeding while appearing as a small kitten. Or smol kitten, I believe is the technical internet terminology.
Well, in perhaps the most predictable run of events I’ve ever witnessed, it turns out that Cat Lawyer is Bad.
Funny story about Rod Ponton, the "Zoom cat lawyer" that everyone's talking about today.
I reported on him in 2014, when he was a local prosecutor used the power of his office — and roped in federal law enforcement — to harass a former lover. https://t.co/fIuK4hbHfJ
— Anthony L. Fisher (@anthonyLfisher) February 10, 2021
Cat Lawyer has been Milkshake Ducked.
If you don’t know what Milkshake Ducked means, that means you’ve probably avoided the broken internet discourse for a long time and I tip my cap to you. But to catch you up, Milkshake Ducking relates to this tweet:
The whole internet loves Milkshake Duck, a lovely duck that drinks milkshakes! *5 seconds later* We regret to inform you the duck is racist
— pixelatedboat aka “mr tweets” (@pixelatedboat) June 12, 2016
The idea being that anyone the entire internet loves at any moment will inevitably be discovered, often quickly, as being not all that lovable.
The funny thing about this instance of internet celebrity is that *in real time* people were anticipating Cat Lawyer’s eventual downfall.
6pm: cat lawyer zoom stops being endearing due to overexposure
7pm: someone on twitter finds out that the cat lawyer guy once did something bad
7:30: joyless take about how it was never actually funny
9: NYT releases update to cat zoom story acknowledging troubling new info
— rebecca jennings (@rebexxxxa) February 9, 2021
What does this all mean? I have no idea what this means. It means nothing. It means we’ve been so trained by this years-long cycle of internet discourse that we know exactly what’s going to happen before it happens. We over-hype a person (or possibly duck), we make a realization about said person/duck, we flame said person/duck, then we counter-argue that it’s stupid to get mad at the person/duck, and then we wait to do it again.
I’d like to blame this on the pandemic or 2020 amirite or whatever but I honestly think this is just what we do now. This is our demented internet community’s sport of choice. Wheeee.
