PETA under fire for TikTok campaign against Animal Crossing fish tanks Nintendo EPDPETA has used fish in Animal Crossing for their latest virtual protest and, in doing so, somehow angered thousands of animal-lovers and gamers alike. PETA, or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, appears to have mistreated Animal Crossing and, once again, whiffed on an effort to strike a topical chord with today\u2019s culture. In their latest gaffe, the organization shared a TikTok video in which they mounted a virtual protest at Blathers\u2019 museum, picketing with signs and yelling at the game\u2019s beloved museum curating owl to \u201cempty the tanks!\u201d Instead of the viral support for a \u201ccultural reset\u201d they presumably hoped for, the organization has been met with general condemnations of simple misguidedness and more specific shots at their hypocrisy in a classic example of a popular Twitter account getting \u2018ratio\u2019d.\u2019 For one, Blathers is an owl, making his harassment feel\u2026misplaced. For another, people have pointed out that, in order to protest at all, PETA would have had to catch the fish and offer them to Blathers\u2019 museum\u2014hypocritically breaking their own vegan guide to Animal Crossing. A cultural reset \ud83e\udd89\ud83d\udc1f #AnimalCrossingNewHorizons pic.twitter.com\/2kfMnTUeRX \u2014 PETA (@peta) May 19, 2020 It\u2019s like wanting to protest someone wearing a fur coat and, to do so, killing a litter of adorable minks, crafting the coat, and then pouring red paint upon yourself. The whole thing just feels like a reach and one in the wrong direction. Yes, animals deserve advocacy, and, outside of the obviously inhumane fur industry, there is legitimate discourse to be had surrounding hunting, meat consumption, and wildlife captivity. But, as many have pointed out, Animal Crossing is a video game. While people live amongst anthropomorphic animals, they also get into some fishing and bug hunting. If PETA believes that gaming behavior can be intrinsically problematic for the real world, then wait until they find out about Call of Duty. Then, wait until they hear about some this year\u2019s Academy Awards winners: Parasite, Joker, and 1917. This isn\u2019t PETA\u2019s first attempt to strike out at gaming content instead of real-world abuse; their 2012 Pokemon Black & Blue flash game\u2014in which players played as Pikachu and battled against abusive trainers\u2014is the most popular example. And this latest campaign is, again, a miss. The organization has over a million followers on Twitter and Instagram apiece, but, at the time of writing, they\u2019ve managed to hit just 2,760 on TikTok. This is surprising for an app so dominated by Gen Z, a generation known for its activism and environmentalism. But it speaks to tone-deaf messaging. While the organization has followed their video up on Twitter by calling their Animal Crossing campaign \u201ctongue-in-cheek\u201d and mocking people \u201ccrying about PETA raiding islands to free the fish,\u201d they continue to miss the mark. Although it may be exaggerated, the video is not at all tongue-in-cheek as it simply reiterates their earlier article about the game. And no one is complaining about them raiding islands, no one even thinks that they raiding islands\u2014since whoever\u2019s island it is must be the one to put the signs down themselves, thanks to Nintendo\u2019s griefing rules. PETA has most certainly succeeded in raising pitchforks for their \u201c#BlathersIsOverParty,\u201d but those pitchforks have been pointed at their uncouth marketing instead of a pixelated owl.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PETA under fire for TikTok campaign against Animal Crossing fish tanks Nintendo EPDPETA has used fish in Animal Crossing for their latest virtual protest and, in doing so, somehow angered thousands of animal-lovers and gamers alike. PETA, or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, appears to have mistreated Animal Crossing and, once again, whiffed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11010\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}