Everybody loves a good cat and, more so a good cat filter. Just perhaps not Pakistani Minister Shoukat Yousufzai.
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Minister of Information’s Facebook live streamed with an accidental cat filter has not only been the source of much laughter across the world, but was also picked up by Stephen Colbert for an episode of his Late Night Show this week.
“This member of the Pakistani government accidentally live-streamed his press briefing with the cat filter on,” Colbert explained, laughing that the minister perhaps may have been calling for a national ban on dogs.
The minute-long segment also included Colbert speculating that “a lot more people would watch the Democratic debates if they used a filter or two”.
Photos of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf minister and his colleague sporting cat ears, whiskers and a pink nose went viral even as the party hurriedly attempted damage control.
While the press conference had been called to announce serious the decisions of the provincial assembly, none of those mattered to viewers of the photographs.
The comments on the live chat accompanying the broadcast were another source for entertainment. One bewildered viewer said, “Khuda PTI walon ko hidayat de [May god show the members of PTI the right way ahead].” Another exclaimed in the typically Pashtuni style, “Filter hata lo, banda billi bana hua hai [Remove the filte,r the man is sporting cat ears].”
A day after the event, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf posted a clarification saying that the party’s “disciplinary committee probed the matter first hand and concluded the incident as ‘a human error’ by one of our hard-working volunteers”.
The party also felt it necessary to add, “Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s social media is deemed to be the pioneers of social media in Pakistan.” But of course.
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