PETA Rebrands Fish
How do you get people to start taking fish seriously? PETA's new campaign has the answer: You drop the name "fish" with all its slimy baggage and rename them "sea kittens." PETA's hope is that the name change will make people more sensitive to the horrible abuses happening daily in lakes and streams across the country:
"Most parents would never dream of spending a weekend torturing kittens for fun with their families, but hooking a sea kitten through the mouth and dragging her through the water is the same as hooking a kitten through the mouth and dragging her behind your car," Byrne says.
Through the Save the Sea Kittens website--where you and your children can dress up your own cartoon sea kittens and read sea kitten bedtime stories (I highly recommend the stories)--PETA hopes to change the way people view fish by simply co-opting the emotional response we have to the animals we currently refer to with the token "kittens" and attaching those associations to the animals-formerly-known-as-fish by assigning them the same token. Never mind that fish bear little, if any, resemblance to kittens. Language exists for us to use as a tool to manipulate people for our own ideological ends.
Misusing words as propaganda--separating them from the objects and concepts they represent in order to attach their emotional impact to a different object or concept of choice--will render those words meaningless in time. And PETA had better be careful because this kind of manipulation can seriously backfire. After all, if you convince enough people that land kittens are really just like fish, perhaps they will rethink their use of kittens.
LOL You had me at "sea kittens." That's the funniest thing I've read all day...but it's early.
Posted by: Sam | January 14, 2009 at 05:07 AM
Gosh, that makes Greg Koukl a kitten abuser. Put your rod and wheel away, Greg. PETA is comin to your house.
Posted by: Scott Klusendorf | January 14, 2009 at 06:00 AM
That's not right, Scott.
You have to actually hook something first :)
Interesting link, Amy. Very clever insight at the end.
Posted by: Robert Kunda | January 14, 2009 at 06:26 AM
Wow.
What does that portend about being fishers of men?
Posted by: Mike Westfall | January 14, 2009 at 06:48 AM
That the stupidest crap I have ever heard!
Posted by: trapperDave | January 14, 2009 at 06:55 AM
I think I'll go plug in the frydaddy and fix me some delicious seakitten for lunch.
Posted by: trapperDave | January 14, 2009 at 06:57 AM
I think I'll head down the the Great Barier Reef and snuggle up to a Great White Sea Kitten... here kitty kitty kitty
Posted by: Chris DeForge | January 14, 2009 at 07:25 AM
Get the name of the drugs they're on, got to be alot missing from a pharmacy, somewhere!
Posted by: Old Crow | January 14, 2009 at 08:08 AM
as PETA says: a cat is a fish is a dog is a cow...mmmmm, meat!!
Posted by: wesome | January 14, 2009 at 08:39 AM
Peta is one of the most immoral organizations there is. These bozos equate human life with animal life. I've read that they quote something like this "a boy is a dog is a rat is a fly" or something like that.
Posted by: Les | January 14, 2009 at 08:42 AM
Sea Kitteh iz not amuzed!
Posted by: Mike Westfall | January 14, 2009 at 10:12 AM
YUMMmmm..Sea Kittens with a side of Hush Puppies, Please!!
Posted by: tj | January 14, 2009 at 10:19 AM
Oh my gosh, Mike, you're killing me!! LOL!!
>>What does that portend about being fishers of men?
Well, for starters, it's seakitteners of men. Get with it, man!
Posted by: Amy Hall | January 14, 2009 at 10:21 AM
Maybe the PETARDS should just take a day off and go fishing?
Posted by: Chuck | January 14, 2009 at 10:22 AM
The NRA ought to take note of these tactics. You could change "hunting" into "land fishing," and "rifles" into "land fishing rods." Then there wouldn't be so many objections.
Posted by: Sam | January 14, 2009 at 10:44 AM
Lol@land fishing rods
This is the best thing i have ever read
LOL
peta also made a parody of Cooking mama (A DS Game), and at one point you break and egg open and blood & chicken parts come out
LoL
my goodness
silly
Posted by: Viulituoun | January 14, 2009 at 01:09 PM
Sea Kittens? lol. How about a campaign to treat the hairless commuting work monkeys better? LOL. If we are just animals as PETA asserts I can't help but wonder when the campaign to treat the two legged non-prehensile hairless (most of us) monkeys is going to start.
Hilarious in a sad and pathetic way.
Posted by: Damian | January 14, 2009 at 01:19 PM
Can we start calling fetuses, "Precious Little Babies?"
Posted by: Viulituoun | January 14, 2009 at 02:02 PM
Even better: womb kittens.
Posted by: Amy Hall | January 14, 2009 at 02:37 PM
That would be really sad--to have to associate the unborn with kittens so people won't kill them...as if being human isn't enough!
Posted by: Sam | January 14, 2009 at 03:38 PM
LOL
Womb Kittens is perfect.
Posted by: Viulituoun | January 14, 2009 at 03:47 PM
Infact, its so perfect that i could not help but submit it to urbandictionary.com
i gave you credit for the word amy.
i just hope the reviewers accept it!
Posted by: Viulituoun | January 14, 2009 at 03:55 PM
Viulituoun, did you check to see if "sea kittens" was already in there?
Posted by: Sam | January 14, 2009 at 04:14 PM
Holy Catfish, Batman!!!
:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)
They really need to bring in the sea ponies into this mix. At least there is such a thing as a sea horse. But I guess that would be horsing around way too much even for PETA.
Posted by: Louis Kuhelj | January 14, 2009 at 05:25 PM
Many of us Christians have 'sea kitten' emblems on our cars, how convenient!
Posted by: Garret G | January 14, 2009 at 07:55 PM
Yes sam Sea kittens is allready their so i based the definition off of Sea kittens, and edited some of the words accordingly
Posted by: Viulituoun | January 14, 2009 at 08:21 PM
PETA has lost touch with reality. Why has not some psychiatrist prescribed some psychotropic such as Chlormethiazole to treat this delirium disorder for the whole staff?
All kidding aside, PETA is severely ensnared in satan's net, and needs our prayers that his chains of mental control over these people be broken
Posted by: Randall | January 14, 2009 at 08:32 PM
I think it is sad that so many people who want to save baby animals can, in almost the next sentence, care so little about the baby humans.
I too used to be a cause-head, then realised that God but this passion and fight in me to be fine tuned to only worthy and eternal avenues.
I am not saying that I try to run over kittens, or go baby-seal hunting on the weekends, but there is such a huge chasm of difference between a human, with a soul, being killed and some fluffy panda.
Just a thought
Posted by: Erik | January 14, 2009 at 11:04 PM
This was inevitable. Click my name for a lolcat caption. 8)
Posted by: SW Chris | January 15, 2009 at 12:00 AM
I just heard that the US airways plane may have hit a flock of air kittens.
Posted by: Damian | January 15, 2009 at 02:26 PM
Just another example of the road to hell being paved with good intentions.
Posted by: Louis Kuhelj | January 15, 2009 at 02:34 PM
Smoked sea kitten just ain't the same as smoked salmon. It just don't sound right.
Posted by: a friend of STR | January 17, 2009 at 05:22 AM
vegetarian/vegan=bad hunter
Posted by: vertigo | January 17, 2009 at 09:43 PM
Meat is Murder.
Tasty, tasty murder.
First ever bumper sticker to make me laugh out loud.
Posted by: Barabbas | January 20, 2009 at 12:31 PM