This is a video which starts off with the videomaker, a family man (Hamish Paterson), talking with his son and we then move on to a scene where this big man cries in front of the camera while holding up his black cat who he says survived the fire. It is not clear what the fire is or where it is. We have no idea or I don’t.
Beforehand he shows us his burned-out house overlooking a fantastic vista. He loves living in that house and it is totally burnt down. Was it his house? Is it a house burned down by the Camp Fire in Calif.? It could be. If it wasn’t his house the whole video is a fiction.
His black cat is totally unmarked by the fire. We have no background information as to what happened. I’m a very cynical man but, without wishing to be unkind, I am not convinced that this is a genuine story. You know it is possible to drive up to a burnt down home with your cat and make a selfie-video in front of the wreckage. It is a good idea for a video and very current. Ideas are hard to come by when making videos.
There’s no doubt that the cat belongs to the man but I’m not convinced that at the time the house was burned down the cat was in or around the house. I suspect that the cat was in their other house from where the main part of the video was made.
That’s my assessment whether it’s right or wrong. If you have time I’d like to hear your views on this.
Yeah, it appears to be a self-indulgent fake video. Not very interesting either. I don’t believe most of it. I don’t think it’s from the recent fires (foliage around the rubble is green). If you look at what happened here, everything was incinerated. Temperatures anywhere near were like 1800 degrees. All the oxygen was consumed, so all animal life died. That cat wasn’t even singed. Not identifying the location was the first mistake; faking grief is a sick thing to do. He didn’t even talk to his kid in a way he could understand. “What are you about today? Any trucks on your horizon?” And I saw no tears. You’re right Michael, it was all too weird and very inappropriate with respect to the current disasters… boring as well. I don’t even believe the property was his. You don’t walk away from a piece of property with a view like that. You accept the insurance money to rebuild. It was fake. What kind of man would fake all that.