My Almost Viral Video

I like watching viral videos, but making them isn’t for me

I almost made a viral video. It involved two stray cats in my neighborhood.

Two stray cats I feed.

My son called me outside to tell me the cats were fighting in the street. He is 13 and likes watching YouTube videos of cats hissing, yowling or fighting.

These two cats were definitely brawling. Our jaws dropped watching the fight. We were speechless for a few seconds.

The cats were rolling around and wrestling in the middle of the street. I mean, this was one of those catfights where fur was flying all over the place.

Someone was going to have scratch marks. Or worse.

The orange cat was defending its territory.

My patio.

It’s the place where I feed him every morning at 6:30 a.m. and the place where he naps in the sun throughout the day in the patio garden.

The grey cat was an intruder. A threat. And the orange cat is the Alpha male cat of the neighborhood who has a tenderness underneath his mean streak.

That’s with humans. Not his fellow cats. And I’m sure he initiated this brawl taking place in the middle of the street to the soundtrack on screeches.

“Quick, video this,” my son said. “It will go viral.”

I pulled out my phone and my finger was about to tap the video button.

Then I put my phone back in my pocket.

How could I record this fight when I care about both cats?

I consider both cats fur friends. One gives me fist bumps and the other lays on his back and lets me rub his belly — a trust it took me several months to build.

Shouldn’t I be breaking up the fight than video recording it?

So that’s what I did. I put my love of my cats over a ridiculous pursuit of capturing a viral video, and that’s how I almost created a viral video.

“Hey, hey, hey,” I said to the cats. “Break it up!”

And the grey cat walked away as the orange cat stared him down. The grey cat had a huge gash behind his ear when I checked on him later. But he was alive, and I hugged the orange cat. Later.

That’s what I always do with him. Alpha cats need hugs too. And I’m glad I didn’t become like one of my viral-chasing high school students.

Whenever there is a fight on campus, everyone runs to the fight with their phones out to record and (sometimes) post their video of the fight.

I’m better than that or creating a viral video from a catfight. Plus, my YouTube channel is about writing and it doesn’t fit my theme.

Thanks for reading my story.

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Or check out my YouTube video on “7 Tips for Success on Medium.”