-Photos courtesy of pixabay.com
In a recent social media campaign, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) suggested that individuals replace their everyday “anti-animal” euphemisms with more animal-friendly phrases.
According to their initial Twitter post, PETA suggested that people use phrases such as “Feed two birds with one scone” instead of “Kill two birds with one stone,” “Be the test tube” instead of “Be the guinea pig,” and “Feed a fed horse” instead of “Beat a dead horse.”
Words matter, and as our understanding of social justice evolves, our language evolves along with it. Here’s how to remove speciesism from your daily conversations. pic.twitter.com/o67EbBA7H4
— PETA (@peta) December 4, 2018
The Washington Post released an interesting article on this, citing the responses from other Twitter users.
“Don’t put all your kale in one strainer,” wrote editorial director at the Daily Caller Vincent Coglianese.
“Well, this just looks like they are trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear,” said Twitter user Allyson Paynter.
According to PETA’s slogan, “On the four areas in which the largest numbers of animals suffer the most intensely for the longest periods of time: in laboratories, in the food industry, in the clothing trade and in the entertainment industry.”
From an outsider’s perspective, this campaign to change how people repeat age-old sayings is both not in their mission statement and more of an attention seeking act.
PETA has been fighting to restore their public image ever since their 2014 controversy in Parksley, VA. Resident of the small town had filed complaints about their own pets, everything from dogs to goats, going missing. Finally, one family was able to produce surveillance footage of a PETA representative taking their dog, Maya.
“When the family returned and found their beloved Maya missing, they searched around the neighborhood before checking the video on the surveillance camera. That is when they saw the PETA van on the film and recognized the woman who had come to their house on prior occasions to talk to them about Maya,” wrote The Virginian Pilot in an article on this situation. “They called PETA and asked for Maya’s return. According to a family spokesperson, PETA claimed it did not have the dog. When PETA was told that its employees had been filmed taking the dog, they hung up. Shortly afterward, a PETA attorney called and informed the family that Maya was dead. PETA had killed her.”
While these “dog-nappings” were not happening on a common basis to even consider it a pattern or epidemic, the incident blew up on social media and PETA has been recovering from the fallout ever since.
Heading a social media campaign on “anti-animal” sayings seemed to truly strike the wrong note with many social media users, in no small part due to their history of questionable behavior as well as the flimsy legitimacy of Tweeting commandments like this in the first place.
PETA may not be some large corporation that profits off the “bleeding-heart” nature of animal lovers, nor are they straight up animal killers. But anyone who observes their Twitter campaign might ask themselves… Why? At this moment in time, why is this so important to say? PETA seems all too excited to hop on the political correctness train and chug their way to relevance again.
Have you ever seen a SINGLE bird killed with ONE stone? Neither have we, but we’ll still use the fun euphemism where applicable. No harm intended.
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