PETA: Bloody Mario Was 'Tongue-In-Cheek"

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

It turned out that their story "was meant to be funny".

This reminds me of that time Yahtzee used an example of a guy who told a really obscure joke that nobody laughed at, but then the guy explained the joke in great and unnecessary detail and everyone nodded and admitted that it was kinda clever. But still nobody laughed. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that the Escapist just pwned PETA. Coffee, anyone?

 

[Ukomba]

Skinned Alive? I doubt that.

 

[Zom-B]

Congratulations internet, they left the bait and you gave them all the attention they could have ever wanted.

You all know the rule.

Don't feed the troll.

I'd say it was more of a massive backpedal than anything else. Of course such a tasteless and inflammatory tactic got a lot of attention, which PETA wanted. But at the same time, it got them scads of negative attention. More people rolling their eyes, facepalming and groaning in disbelief than they had before.

I know the old saying is "there's no such thing as bad publicity", but the way PETA does things, they continually undermine their very real and very important message about ethical treatment of animals. Publicly and foolishly demonizing beloved icons, whether they be from gaming or not, makes PETA look like the bad guy, not Mario and not people that use animal products.

 

[jessegeek]

Say what you like about PETA (I frequently do) but before reading these articles I became aware through their headline-grabbing tactics I didn't know that raccoons actually are skinned alive for their furs. I'm not the type of person to go on a PETA website and now I know.

So... I guess it has actually worked from their perspective.

 

[antipunt]

Soooooo trolls win?

....

Dammit

 

[Zom-B]

What's with everyones sense of human fail? It was funny and pretty clearly meant to be funny and achieved it's purpose?

I think everyone's acting a little sullen because they took something seriously that wasn't meant to be taken seriously and feels a little cheated about it. But all your doing is reinforcing your own negative impression of PETA by re-interpreting something to fit your own world view and blaming them for not being how you think of them.

In other words, we're acting like FOX viewers

Look at it this way: I saw an article about PETA and how they link Mario and tanooki suits to animal cruelty, plus a link to a game. Regardless of whether or not the game itself was a "joke", I wasn't about to give PETA the benefit of the doubt and play their stupid, most likely inflammatory game.

So maybe I missed the "joke" because I didn't take the time to engage with their massive hype machine. I'd say that the majority of people who learned about this felt the same way. By that metric, the campaign becomes a complete failure, because if people won't take the time to get to the punchline because the body of the joke is so stupid, offensive and blatantly incorrect it's not really a joke. It's just poor taste masquerading as humour. Furthermore, if you have to tell people it's a joke, it's probably not funny to begin with.

Personally, I don't think PETA meant it as a joke. They were probably dead serious and thought it would be a great way to get information to a certain segment of the population. When they discovered that their tactic had the effect of enraging said population, they fired up the spin machine and called it a joke.

Either way you skin it, PETA failed to convey the important message about animal welfare and buried it under sensationalism and poor taste, of which PETA has a long and unpleasant history of doing. I believe that they are the single biggest foe to their own cause.

 

[drthmik]

It wasn't a joke because PETA has no sense of humor
they didn't mean it as a joke, it's the same as everything else they put out
they were serious, they always are, even in their hypocrisy.
but somebody (probably Nintendo) probably threatened to sue them so they lied and said it was a joke.

 

[BrotherRool]

What's with everyones sense of human fail? It was funny and pretty clearly meant to be funny and achieved it's purpose?

I think everyone's acting a little sullen because they took something seriously that wasn't meant to be taken seriously and feels a little cheated about it. But all your doing is reinforcing your own negative impression of PETA by re-interpreting something to fit your own world view and blaming them for not being how you think of them.

In other words, we're acting like FOX viewers

Look at it this way: I saw an article about PETA and how they link Mario and tanooki suits to animal cruelty, plus a link to a game. Regardless of whether or not the game itself was a "joke", I wasn't about to give PETA the benefit of the doubt and play their stupid, most likely inflammatory game.

So maybe I missed the "joke" because I didn't take the time to engage with their massive hype machine. I'd say that the majority of people who learned about this felt the same way. By that metric, the campaign becomes a complete failure, because if people won't take the time to get to the punchline because the body of the joke is so stupid, offensive and blatantly incorrect it's not really a joke. It's just poor taste masquerading as humour. Furthermore, if you have to tell people it's a joke, it's probably not funny to begin with.

Personally, I don't think PETA meant it as a joke. They were probably dead serious and thought it would be a great way to get information to a certain segment of the population. When they discovered that their tactic had the effect of enraging said population, they fired up the spin machine and called it a joke.

Either way you skin it, PETA failed to convey the important message about animal welfare and buried it under sensationalism and poor taste, of which PETA has a long and unpleasant history of doing. I believe that they are the single biggest foe to their own cause.

Dude, I'm trying to listen to your point, but I honestly can't agree with you.

No the game wasn't a joke.

The mario thing was. We're talking about a cartoony, famously child friendly cartoon character skinning and wearing a bloody live animal. That is a joke.

Now if you're anything like me, (and I'm probably far worse than you), you're probably looking for points where you can disprove me here. But if it's okay with you, can I ask you to try and step back from this argument and try to take a fresh perspective. If you do and you still feel the same way, then fair enough, the faults with me.

But the thing is, we're both on the Escapist so I like to think we're immersed into the same sort of culture. And that culture includes
Happy Tree Friends
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opAinuVvKfw

Itchy + Scratchy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3PDKESyHj8

Lamas with hats
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=lamas+with+hats&oq=lamas+with+hats&aq=f&aqi=g-s4&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=36921l41219l0l41350l26l17l0l0l0l1l245l2598l2.8.5l17l0

Cyanide and Happiness...

and so on. And it's stuff with find funny.

Heck we even do it with Mario.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBj_jsiUD14
http://www.geekologie.com/2011/07/frighteningly-reimagined-super-mario-ene.php
http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://files.myopera.com/seaempty/blog/Evil%2520Mario.jpg&imgrefurl=http://my.opera.com/Nplus/blog/2007/08/02/evil-mario-strikes&h=336&w=328&sz=18&tbnid=HEXO1aLGO3BKJM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=88&prev=/search%3Fq%3Devil%2Bmario%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=evil+mario&docid=UM-v01HS1HN7vM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=L5PFTtGgN5KW8gO256DpCg&ved=0CCUQ9QEwAQ&dur=915
http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2010/198/1/5/Evil_Mario_by_GameScanner.jpg

http://www.bartsnews.net/2007/07/mario-is-evil.html
http://uk.wii.gamespy.com/articles/108/1080907p1.html


And what I want to ask is, why is all this obviously a joke (and I could find so much more than this) and the PETA thing not?

You're asking me to believe that actual people associate Mario with the above image and I can't see why that would be, when a much more normal solution, is that it's a funny provocative image.

The truth is, we villanise the PETA, but if you look at their stuff with open eyes almost (not all) of it is light-hearted and poking fun.

NSFW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ShWBWU6NT8 This is clearly a joke, PETA people don't all just have vegetables fetishes. It's funny because you know, it's vegetables

This is the video of someone with a sense of humour
www.youtube.com/watch?v=i20snI7sBV0&feature=channel_video_title

Now I'm not saying that they don't do crazy things, but I feel that on the whole, these are obviously jokes, jokes which as shown above, we tell each other all the time. You'd find them on Stumbleupon.

And whilst we're at it. These people do good work (I'm not a member of the organisation by the way), look at their investigative work on exposing some horrific cruelty to pets, look at the way they try to stop people buying pets then neglecting them and abusing them when they get bored.

Even the stuff we disagree, that we don't like, when they argue that we price a nice jacket and some comfy shoes over the life of an animal that can breathe and think and feel and rear young. And you know what? I feel guilty about it. So many people would never ever eat their cat, never skin their cat, never turn their cat into shoes, but they're happy to do that to other animals as long as they're not animals that are in front of them now. We all know what that is, it's deliberate disassociation of the mind to avoid something that they know is wrong. I'm fine with people who hold the opposite opinion, but they've got to be man enough to look at the animals they know and see day to day and say, yes I'd do it to you, I've made a rational decision not based on some petty whim for my own comfort but a decision I'm comfortable with.

I'm not good at this stuff, I don't avoid leather and things like that but I would never eat my cat, never skin my cat, never deliberately harm my cat. And when I see PETA stuff, I lash out a bit. But really I'm doing that because it's easier to believe these are crazy people with no grounding in common sense talking about impossible pie in the sky ideas, because when I believe that I can ignore the small bit of me that knows I'm doing wrong. Vegetarians aren't freaks, they're people like you and me who realised there's a decision to be made that goes beyond their own comfort, and they've made it. Farmers tend to be good the other way, they know there's a decision to be made and they've made it too, they'll wring the neck of the chicken and see the blood. Me? I'm not strong enough to be either of those and I hate the fact that some people try and remind me of that

 

[MB202]

I regret playing right into PETA's hands.

 

[-Samurai-]

"In games like Call of Duty, where characters shoot and kill animals..."

You mean the attack dogs trained specifically to kill enemy soldiers and that will rip your jugular out of your throat if you don't kill them?

Perspective, people. Perspective.

Not to mention the suicide attack dogs with C4 strapped to their sides. Gah!

Anyway, PETA have been super serious about some really ridiculous shit. Did they really think they could make a joke and have people not take it seriously? Not seriously seriously, but PETA seriously.

 

[Guardian of Nekops]

PETA has proved, I think, time and time again, that it does not believe that humans have a right to exist on this planet.

Say, and I'm just making these numbers up to make a point, mind, but say that the human population eats 6 billion pounds of meat per day. In addition, say we also eat 12 billion pounds of assorted other products, most of which are derived from plants. Now, at present, there are those who eat more than they need to survive, but there are also those who are starving. All in all, we have a food surplus... but it's not a huge one.

Meat, like it or not, is denser than vegatables in terms of calories. So if we all decided, suddenly, to stop eating meat, we would need to produce an extra, oh, 12 billion pounds of edible plant matter to feed everyone. Every day. Okay, great. So we convert all the current grazing land into farm land, send our domesticated animals out to fend for themselves, and we all live in peace and harmony, yes?

Well, no. Not all grass land can be converted to support other crops, or more specifically the huge tracts of nut-growing land we would need to get the protein we need in our diets. We don't just need any food, remember, we need the few foods that allow vegitarians to make up for the lack of meat, and we need them in MASSIVE quantities because now everybody, not just the tiny percentage of vegitarians out there now, are trying to fool their bodies into thinking they're eating meat.

Oh, and wouldn't you know it? Most of the places that are good for growing stuff already have things growing there. And animals living on the things that have grown there. So suddenly we're razing forests and sending animals running for cover because we need somewhere to grow all this new food, so that we can leave the animals alone.

That's not even taking into account the fact that if we don't ever want to hurt or hamper an animal we can't keep them from digging up our lawns, standing on our roads, infesting our houses, or snacking on all the new crops we need twice as many of now. We can't drill for oil, cut down trees, or mine for metal for fear of messing up the natural habitat, and without that stuff all we have to work with is... you guessed it... animal products like leather, ivory, and whale oil.

If we don't use what resources we have, if we don't continue to keep animal populations in check and assert our right to live at the level of technology we have achieved, we will lose our cities and our cars and our plastics... the things that most vegans use to avoid having to eat meat or use leather where cloth won't do. And once we lose them, the only way we can possibly survive is to start eating animals again and claw our way back up. If we refuse to do that, if we insist that the animal right to life is more important than the human one, then we will die out as a species.

It is for this reason that I, with great seriousness and a heavy sense of responibility, am forced to ignore everything that PETA has to say. I can get behind not dissecting small rodents for fun while they try to escape, and not torturing animals before we kill and eat them... I'm not a monster, and neither are most people. But when you start saying that we should pass away so that the animals can live in peace, well. Then you've lost me.

And honestly, if you see magically spawning digital outfit that pops out of a block and think "Oh no! The poor animals that died to make that coat!" then you need to take a serious look at how your mind works.

 

[LTK_70]

Ah, what a wonderful example of Poe's law [http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Poe%27s_Law] in action. I haven't seen it happening before my eyes before. And I'm not even sure I really wanted to...

 

[Guardian of Nekops]

Ah, what a wonderful example of Poe's law [http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Poe%27s_Law] in action. I haven't seen it happening before my eyes before. And I'm not even sure I really wanted to...

Keep the Corollary in mind, though.

Also remember that, if they didn't mean it on some level, then they wouldn't have said it with their official voice. Even if it was supposed to be a joke, they want you to laugh AND take away the 'moral'... which means it's not really a joke, but an opinion wrapped in comedy. At the core of it, somewhere, there is the following thought, "Isn't it funny that, in this society, Mario can get away with treating the suffering of these animals so flippantly? We should change that." Never mind that faux fur causes no harm to animals, never mind that this was not only fake, but digital and that it therefore was not possible for it to be real... they took Mario's image and linked it to the suffering of animals, as those of us who are Mario fans to any degree looked on in horror.

So yeah. Sure, I'll buy that it's a joke, since it doesn't really matter. That still means that they meant 90% of it, and chose to convey it in a way that provoked outrage. They're just calling it a joke, and much like I wouldn't expect that to buy me much wiggle room if I put a Whoopie Cushion in your chair... when you were sitting in a business webchat with the whole of your customer base... I don't think it buys them much leniency.

 

[Taunta]

So this was a joke, but Super Chick Bros and their Cooking mama game weren't? Oh silly me must have missed the difference...

 

[Zom-B]

snip

Well, I won't deny that you've made some good points, but I think I can somewhat refute them. Things like Happy Tree Friends, Itchy and Scratchy, Mario is Evil and Llamas with Hats (which I hadn't heard of until now) come from sources we know are in the business of humour. One of the Mario is Evil articles you posted is tagged, right at the top, "humor". Nor do they disguise a message within their media. Happy Tree Friends isn't making a commentary on animal cruelty. Mario is Evil isn't a political statement. That's why PETA's campaign isn't a joke. As I said, when you have to explain your joke, it's not funny. Aside from that, it's pretty obvious that if it really was intended as a joke, PETA misjudged quite badly, which seems to be their m.o. They don't understand the difference between a shocking joke and just plain shocking and mean-spirited. I do agree that seeing Mario as a bloodthirsty animal killer can be viewed as humourous, but they way they went about doing it wasn't funny, it was, again, just mean-spirited

PETA is in the business of shocking, grossing out and otherwise assaulting people's beliefs and pre-conceived notions using various radical tactics, not all of which are humour based. If PETA always took a light-hearted, humourous tone we would come to expect it from them. But they employ many styles to get their message across, not all of them funny. There's nothing funny about throwing real or fake blood on people wearing furs. There's nothing funny about comparing humans to Nazis and animals to Jews ( http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2008/05/05/petas-holocaust-on-your-plate-campaign/ ). There just isn't.

We do villainize PETA, but they certainly help us do it. Not only that, but as an organization it's very hypocritical and the founder, in particular, is well known for her hypocritical actions and erratic behaviour. All you have to do is google PETA+hypocrisy or even just "hypocrisy animal rights" and the first link will point you towards http://www.petakillsanimals.com/, which shows how hypocritical PETA can be. I know it doesn't erase the good that PETA does do, but it's telling nonetheless. I can absolutely dislike PETA and their methods while at the same time applauding their goals. It's just too bad that the goal is often lost because the messages they send and the way they choose to send them are so distasteful.

The PETA: Cats at Play video you linked is miles and miles away from beloved characters transformed into bloody, animal murdering psychopaths. There's no comparison. Funny video of cats is funny video, after all. Seeing a childhood icon transformed into a gore soaked monster to convey a political and social message is harder to do, or at least do well. PETA is all sound and fury, no subtlety or intelligence. They want to blast a message into your brain with whatever means necessary, and when you're doing that it's really easy to miss the mark. For PETA, I'm sure that if they fling enough shit at the walls, something is going to stick eventually, or in this case, someone will laugh.

There's a huge, huge difference between the ethical treatment of animals, from raising, to keeping to slaughter and use and the commodification and systematic abuse of animals. Personally, I don't have a problem with animal products that come from animals that were raised and slaughtered humanely, animals that receive loving and ethical care right up to the moment they are humanely slaughtered and then I expect that every part of that animal that has a use should be used, with no waste.

There's also a real difference between looking at a pet, especially a pet that we own, and an animal raised, albeit humanely and ethically, for a purpose, whether that be for meat, leather or other purposes. Of course no one wants to kill and eat their own cat or dog. And of course just because we've been eating cows and chickens for thousands and thousands of years it doesn't mean it must continue. However, animal products do have value and use and many people, myself included, prefer natural animal products for durability, performance, comfort and other reasons. I'm sorry, but no synthetic can match, for example, the performance of leather when it comes to shoes and gloves.

I also don't like being demonized in PETA's eyes because I use animal products. Yes, I have leather shoes and gloves and if it was available I'd buy those products in organic "flavour". As it stands, I buy only local, ethically and hormone/antibiotic/medication-free meats and eggs as much as possible. And only occasionally at that. I believe I use animals responsibly and in moderation.

PETA wants not only to eliminate but demonize thousands of years of human culture. That won't be done in a few decades, and certainly not with the tactics that they employ. If we are ever to move towards an animal cruelty/death free world, it's only going to be achieved by slow growth, education and changing of attitudes. We are on our way, but I think PETA is only harming their own cause. How many comments in this very thread say "I'm going to keep eating animals just to spite PETA"? I often feel that way myself. It's a complete backfire when people think that way. Humans don't change because you tell them to. They change because they want to, because they've been educated as to how things can be different, why those things are better or as good as and they're given real options. Telling people they are murderous animal torturing monsters will work on a a certain segment of people, but probably not on many, and many others will do exactly the opposite. It's often human nature to be contrary.

 

[Ashcrexl]

PETA has lost so much credibility that it is now impossible to tell whether its latest hare-brained campaign is a joke or not. Poe's Law motherfuckers!

 

[Zom-B]

PETA has proved, I think, time and time again, that it does not believe that humans have a right to exist on this planet.

snip

I didn't mean to cut out your whole comment, but it's quite long so I just left that particular sentence there so your comments could easily be found

I understand your point, but I think you should do a little research. By the way, I do not advocate eliminating animal products.

Anyway, I don't have all the actual numbers, but I did get some from this wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_vegetarianism, as well as http://www.consumercide.com/js/index.php/food-supply/39-necessarily-vegetarian/379-how-to-win-an-argument-with-a-meat-eater.html, which has a sensationalistic title, but the info is real.

Some things to take into account:

- Approximately half of the crops raised worldwide go to feed animals.
- Approx. 30% of the earth's land is used to raise livestock.
- I can't seem to find the right terms to search it, but I know It takes far more land, taking into account the animals themselves and the land needed to raise food for the animals, to raise meat animals than it does to grow crops for human consumption.
- some figures place the amount of corn produced in the USA eaten by animals at 80%. For oats it is 95%

There is tons more information like this out there. Humans eat way too much meat. If we were to at the very least scale back livestock production and use the land reclaimed to grow crops for humans it would greatly reduce the amount of people who suffer from malnutrition or poor diets.

I don't believe that animal products should be eliminated, just reduced. I only eat meat probably once or twice a week, sometimes more, sometimes less and I think that's plenty. I know that there are probably millions of people that eat meat in two or three of their meals each day. There's lots of information that says that not only is that unnecessary, but unhealthy. People could easily cut their meat consumption way back and still enjoy a hamburger or a steak, with the added benefit of improved health.

Also, eating animals isn't what really keeps their populations in check. Sure, if all of a sudden we stopped eating meat, we'd have a lot of animals to figure out what to do with, but the only reason that there are so many millions of cows, chickens and pigs is because of factory farming, not because nature somehow increased the amount of animals to feed humans.

There's lots of rhetoric, misinformation and downright lies on this topic, so you always have to take everything with a grain of salt (as it were). Humanity definitely couldn't end meat animal raising and consumption and expect the world's hunger problems to go away in a day, but there's lots of changes that we could make, starting with eating less meat and moving towards converting animal feed crops and grazing land to crops for human consumption.

Of course, as you say, we can never eliminate the fact that regardless of what we do, some animals somewhere are being affected by human action. That's an unavoidable fact of sharing the planet. However, we can try and do it in ways that are less harmful, more thoughtful and more beneficial to not only animals but humans as well. Unfortunately, we are a long, long way off from that day.

 

[IPunchWithMyFists]

Nice try, PETA.

 

[BlindMessiah94]

In games like Call of Duty, where characters shoot and kill animals, or in Dog Wars, where players have fun fighting and torturing dogs, it sends a dangerous message that this kind of behavior is acceptable."

Ahh PETA. So a game where you kill animals is sending the wrong message, but a game where you kill people is okay.

I love their logic. TEH HUMANS CAN DIE SO LONG AS DEY DON'T HURT DEH FLUFFY WUFFIES

 

[PekoponTAS]

Excuse us Peta. Sorry if we can't tell when you're intentionally being crazy, or just being your regular selves.