Why I hate PETA

roadnottaken · 3 months

It has nothing to do with PETA. Your choice to be vegetarian is offensive to people because it implies that they're doing something wrong. People don't like being judged, and when you decide that something they engage in regularly (eating meat) is wrong for you, you're judging them. Doesn't matter if you never bring it up. This took me a while to understand... you just have to learn to deal with it as gracefully as possible.

carnegiehall · 3 months

I've found that most people who aren't vegetarian know nothing of the alf and think all their radical actions are the responsibility of PETA. I've never thrown paint at anyone wearing fur but I've protested retail shops. The point is that PETA brings attention to animal rights, regardless if you agree with their methods. GetEqual is an lgbt activist group that handcuffed themselves to the white house fence to protest unfair laws against the community. Some may view this as disrespectful but it got attention in the media thereby increasing awareness of the injustice.

rooktakesqueen · 3 months

You know, I frequently hear about all these terrible things PETA does, but only in generalities, never specifics.

So far as I've ever heard, the worst PETA actually does is, gasp, put up advertisements with naked people. Or picket outside a KFC. Those terrible extremists!

I've never observed any red paint being thrown on someone wearing fur, and I'd be willing to bet that's as much a farcical right-wing bogeyman as the welfare queen driving a Cadillac.

And to tie together PETA and the ALF is ridiculous. That's like trying to link the Council on American-Islamic Relations with Al Qaeda because hey, they're both Muslim. Being an animal-rights organization does not make PETA responsible for the actions of every other animal-rights organization.

bw2002 · 3 months

PETA's methods are the only reason people know about the conditions at factory farms.

Libido · 3 months

I thought like this when I was a newbie vegetarian, and then again after a while.

The truth is that it's bullshit though. It's convenient as shit to be a non preachy, almost closet vegetarian that doesn't trouble people with the fact that you know your friends and family are eating the rotting caucuses of dead animals that are the biggest cause of pollution in our country, help increase global starvation, not to mention the personal health effects or lack of compassion that eating meat causes.

It is so much easier to realize how disgusting meat is, change your personal diet, and then object to those doing something about it.

I can't really blame you, it is much easier to just quietly realize the truth in your corner... I've been there for years. Lead by example, slowly convince people to eat less meat or no meat at all, feel angry about those that take bold measures...

However, I've come to believe that it is those bold measures, those individuals that feel so strongly about animals being abducted, attacked, etc that they will risk their own personal safety to rescue those animals and expose them.... it is those individuals that are at the forefront and only them that have a chance of making a difference.

trashed_culture · 3 months

I'm a vegetarian, and I'm seriously not in anyone's face about it. But my whole family always criticizes me for it, even though I never bring it up.

Maybe you should. Maybe we all should be.

bobbaphet · 3 months

[deleted]

sephrah · 3 months

i have to disagree with you. yes, some of peta's methods are a little extreme, but i think that the topics they are addressing are extreme.

extreme circumstances call for extreme measures.

bobbaphet · 3 months

PETA is the reason that the general public even knows what animal rights is to begin with.

maybesociallyawkward · 3 months

I think they have a positive influence on people who are already inclined towards vegetarianism but for people who are even neutral towards it they might turn them off

xexers · 3 months

Tough to say. For example, when it comes to preaching atheism... you have barbed guys like Richard Dawkins who call religious people "Delusional" ... or you have nice guys like Neil D. Tyson. At the end of the day, results are king. Which one of those two guys is getting more converts to atheism?

I think when spreading a message, some people respond to gentle reasoning and others respond better to a tough stance (like PETA). I guess PETA just finds they get more converts with the tough stance.

My point is nicely summed up here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_2xGIwQfik

I_am_Kyle · 3 months

Don't like PETA? Here is a much more sane group: http://www.veganoutreach.org/

Dr_Legacy · 3 months

PETA pisses me off too, but not as much as the meat industry does.

kloober · 3 months

my whole family always criticizes me for it, even though I never bring it up.

It's not PETA's fault that your family are assholes. Reasonable people don't act that way.

philogos0 · 3 months

PETA is fighting the good fight. Respect.

NeinNeinNein · 3 months

SO BRAVE.

PETA helped me turn vegetarian in high school 10 years ago and revealed the truth about factory farms to me. What kind of activism have you done to change people's mind?

UnoriginalMike · 3 months

I have to agree with you. Angry shouting kids will lose my support. Even if I would have otherwise supported the cause.

Uberche · 3 months

You can hate them all you want but like every movement two sides are needed, you need the assholes screaming and throwing paint and making documentaries to show just how fucked some of stuff going on is, but you also need the gentle "I'm not like that!" people to attract those who are like them.

Every successful movement has both the pacifist, gentle side and the more active, aggressive side. Even Gandhi's movement wasn't all peace and non-violence...

telfoid · 3 months

I think PETA's obsession with naked women is probably quite alienating for a lot of people who would be interested or sympathetic to PETA's message.

I really disliked their ads saying there is something wrong with human body hair; wearing fur is as bad as not shaving your body. I really think that is something that doesn't need to be perpetuated. There are other problems with human society besides the mistreatment of animals.

qemqemqem · 3 months

I'm glad ALF makes people think vegetarians are terrorists. That makes me seem like a bad-ass.

falafel1066 · 3 months

I find that PETA's exploitation of women in their ads is as repulsive as the meat industry exploiting animals. Why would you objectify one group of living things (women, who are super objectified in media) to promote not objectifying another group?

bloodsexsugarmagik · 3 months

I agree, I really dislike being automatically associated with PETA because I am a vegetarian.

From this article.

"PETA spends less than one percent of its multi-million dollar budget actually helping animals. The group euthanized (killed) more than 1,900 animals in 2003 alone -- that's over 85 percent of the animals it received. In fact, from July 1998 through the end of 2003, PETA killed over 10,000 dogs, cats, and other "companion animals" at its Norfolk, Virginia headquarters. That's more than five animals every day. On its 2002 federal income-tax return, PETA claimed a $9,370 expense for a giant walk-in freezer, the kind most people use as a meat locker or for ice-cream storage. But animal-rights activists don't eat meat or dairy foods. So far, the group hasn't confirmed the obvious -- that it's using the appliance to store the bodies of its victims."

ChatGarou · 3 months

That's why I prefer Defenders of Wildlife. They do what they can to bring about change through legislation.

SpectreOfMalta · 24 days

My girlfriend is a vegetarian and before she discovered PETA, I told her who they are and that they kill more animals than helping them.

Also the half-naked chicks that they use for their advertisements really irritates me.

masonmason22 · 3 months

They've done some cool stuff, but I just can't fathom why they want to alienate females with their incredibly sexist ads of late.

primedfordancing · 3 months

Shut the fuck up. Peta's not perfect but they've turned way more people vegetarian and vegan than you ever will. What's bitching about it on the internet going to do? What work have you done to change legislation? All you do is sit on the internet and piss and moan about people who take action when you're too much of a lazy fuck to do anything yourself.

So fuck YOU, RandallDangerStevens

Qender · 3 months

PETA is a cult of charlatans. It's a group of fanatics with extreme beliefs who do inappropriate things for attention which gets them more money and followers. It's all about publicity for them.

They say owning pets is slavery, but then they kill all the animals people give them for adoption, something like 80,000 animals are euthanized every year by PETA and they don't actually try to get them adopted. Why? Because they can take money when people drop off the animals and they only care about their image and making money.

They do sexist ad campaigns to get attention for the donations, which seem to be the only thing they care about.

They make all vegetarians, vegans, animal-rights groups, and environmentalists look like Westboro Baptist Church or something, when most of the other groups are actually level-headed and respectable.

RandallDangerStevens · 3 months

Dr. King knew that breaking laws and being rude to people outside of your cause would not help you accomplish your ultimate goal. Him, Gandhi, Harvey Milk. These people knew how to work the system. You present the calm, rational facts and people will listen.

jeddles · 3 months

What I worry about is the old scifi scenario of the medical reasearch lab. PETA, or equivalent, breaks in and releases the poor, sick animals infected with some superbug.

I know it's usually restricted to fiction....but.......

VinceThe3rd · 3 months

Which is why I almost never bring up my vegetarianism. I KNOW RIGHT!!!

necromundus · 3 months

...you don't hate PETA for practicing mass euthenasia and firebombing animal research centres?

Hituke · 3 months

Also this: http://cdn-www.i-am-bored.com/media/petafacts.jpg

And they are incredibly sexist and that really gets me.

No point is so important that it must be expressed violently. I think... I hope...

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