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An Influencer’s Video of Clothespins on Her Cat Has the Internet Furious

ByIva Antolovic

A video posted to Snapchat by French influencer Elisa Buj has sparked widespread outrage online after viewers watched her clip clothespins to her cat’s fur and ears. The footage spread rapidly across social media platforms, igniting a fierce backlash from animal lovers and everyday users alike. What began as a brief clip quickly became one of those moments where the internet collectively decided it had seen enough, and the response was anything but gentle.

Many who came across the video wasted no time condemning Buj’s actions, with a significant portion of commenters describing what she did as straightforward animal abuse. The fact that it was posted on Snapchat, a platform where content often disappears quickly, did not stop the clip from being captured and shared widely across other networks. Screenshots and reposts ensured that the footage reached audiences far beyond her existing follower base, amplifying the outrage well beyond what any initial Snapchat audience might have generated.

The comments that flooded in ranged from disappointed to scathing. One user wrote, “If you love your pet, you don’t do this to them, not even as a joke.” Others were far less restrained in their criticism, with one commenter declaring, “Besides being human garbage, she is a deranged lunatic who can’t do anything right.” The intensity of the reaction reflected how personally people take the treatment of animals, particularly cats, which have an enormous and deeply loyal following across social media communities worldwide.

Some observers used the moment to voice broader frustrations about what they see as a general decline in empathy in online culture. One commenter offered a more philosophical take, writing, “What is the point of all this? This world disgusts me more every day. No sense anywhere. Only violence, judgment, and mockery. Intolerance. Anyone who believes in a better world is dreaming.” While not everyone agreed with that level of pessimism, the sentiment resonated with those who felt the clip was symptomatic of something larger than one person’s poor judgment.

A subset of commenters also questioned Buj’s intentions more directly, raising the possibility that the act was not innocent mischief but something more troubling. “After all, there are people who genuinely enjoy causing pain to animals,” one user noted. “It wouldn’t surprise me if she did it for exactly that reason.” Whether or not that interpretation is accurate, it speaks to how quickly trust erodes once a public figure is seen treating a vulnerable creature as a prop for content.

Elisa Buj is a French influencer and public personality who built her following primarily through Snapchat, Instagram, and TikTok, where she shares content from her personal life and entertainment endeavors. She has also appeared in film, with credits including ‘Taxi 5’ and ‘Les Segpa.’ Part of her public profile has been shaped by her openness about living with dwarfism, a topic she has addressed candidly in various posts and interviews. She has not been a stranger to controversy, and viral moments have historically contributed to spikes in her media coverage, though this particular incident appears to have generated more sustained criticism than she may have anticipated.

The debate around what constitutes animal mistreatment in content creation is not new, but cases like this one continue to reignite it. Animal welfare advocates have long argued that using pets as props for entertainment, even without visible injury, can cause stress and discomfort that owners either fail to recognize or choose to ignore for the sake of a good post. Clothespins, while seemingly mundane household items, exert pressure that can be uncomfortable or painful for an animal’s sensitive skin and ears, areas that cats use extensively for communication and sensory input.

France does have laws protecting animals from cruelty, and the country has in recent years tightened regulations around animal welfare. Whether the video in question rises to the level of a legal violation is a separate matter, but the court of public opinion delivered its verdict swiftly and without ambiguity.

Cats have a higher density of nerve endings in their skin compared to humans, which means pressure that seems trivial to us can register very differently for them. France’s animal cruelty laws, updated in 2021, now classify pets as “sentient beings” under civil law, meaning their capacity to feel pain is formally recognized. The global market for pet-related content is estimated to be worth billions of dollars annually, which means the incentive to push boundaries with animal-featuring videos is only growing.

What do you think about influencers using their pets in viral content, and where do you draw the line between harmless fun and mistreatment? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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