Has PETA's cat jumped over the moon?
The question is, has PETA actually gone over-board with these social media gimmicks?.
PETA has been known for its controversial takes when it comes to animal rights, and the organisation again finds itself in soup.
PETA’s Emily Rice said that English proverbs with references to animals should be changed or removed, to do away with what she calls ‘speciesism’. It went ahead and posted a simple chart with changes such as, “Beat a dead horse” to “Feed a fed horse”. The tweet immediately went viral, with the Twitterati ripping apart PETA with memes.
From images of an over-fed cat with a caption that says ‘stop’ to an image of a camel trying to lift an over-weight man, the micro-blogging site was a flurry of activities. The highlight was people suggesting more linguistic changes to traditional proverbs. Jesse Hawken, a Twitter user, took the usual ‘curiosity killed the cat’ and made it, “Curiosity thrilled the cat (sic)!” which was eventually re-tweeted by PETA. Vincent Coglianese, editorial director at the Daily Caller, tweeted a new ‘vegetarian’ proverb, “Don’t put all your kale in one strainer.”
The question is, has PETA actually gone over-board with these social media gimmicks?
City-based animal lover and founder of The Pet Cafe, Deve Behati thinks that PETA needs to act more responsibly considering it is a big name in animal activism. “I think this was a very stupid move by PETA. They could have gone ahead and done something more concrete, like actually saving a species of endangered animal. Everybody knows that idioms are not realistic.”
Vasanthi Vadi, president, People for Animals, Hyderabad, resonates with a similar idea. “This is a very trivial matter that has been blown out of proportions. By that definition, Hindu mythology in India will need a complete makeover considering every Hindu deity is connected to an animal. PETA needs to concentrate on more constructive campaigns.”