Die in a Fire, and Other Terms of Endearment: Let’s do something nice for PETA!
Oh PETA, I have something for you. It’s three hundred pounds of raw death fat power, and it’s quivering with rage.
I wasn’t going to blog about this because, PETA, it’s been well-established for awhile now that you are assholes. And as a general rule I don’t waste my time on trying to communicate with assholes.
However, Twitter’s blowing up this afternoon with outrage at your most recent billboard and I thought I should say something. The something I want to say, because I just don’t say it enough, is: fuck you, PETA.
From the PETA blog post unveiling this delight of hatred and body-shaming:
For most of us, summer is fading fast, but for residents of Jacksonville, Florida, bikini season lasts all year. What does the Sunshine State’s endless summer mean for PETA? Our phone lines ring off the hook with reports of “beached whale sightings.” Good one, guys.
Luckily, we know the secret to getting—and maintaining—a killer beach bod. Did you know that vegetarians are 20 to 30 percent leaner than meat-eaters?
The “beached whale” picture they chose to link is especially classy.
According to my highly scientific anecdata (well, it’s at least as scientific as their research into vegetarianism/veganism and weight loss) PETA’s suggestion that vegetarianism or veganism leads to weight loss is inaccurate at best. I was a fat vegetarian for eight years. My husband? A fat vegetarian for four years. I have friends who have been fat vegetarians for a decade and more. I even know a couple of fat vegans. And I know this isn’t news to you; I know you’re quite aware that there are plenty of fatass vegetarians. I mean, people have been telling you this for years. And even beyond your sweet track record of fat-shaming, you also have an impressive legacy of shockingly overt racism and sexism as well.
So I’m led to believe that y’all aren’t really interested in promoting vegetarian or vegan lifestyles at all. You’re not actually committed to making the world a better place, to promoting the abolition of unsustainable and unhealthy modes of food production and culture. Rather, you’re in this for the pure joy you derive from being assholes. You get a big giant throbbing boner from making people feel like shit about themselves. Unfortunately for you, I’m personally no longer at a place where seeing this kind of billboard can make me upset or even ruin my day; at most (and I did this when I first saw this billboard on the Fatshionista LiveJournal community last week) I tend to roll my eyes and halfheartedly shrug: “Eh, PETA’s just being PETA: assholes.”
I feel bad about this, I do. I feel like I’m denying you your boner, the thing that gives you the most joy, and even though you despise me and find me repulsive, I am going to be the bigger person (see what I did there?) and try to make up for my lack of feeling hurt and sad and hating myself. So I’m starting a grassroots campaign to invite everyone I know to say “Fuck You” to PETA.
If you’re on Twitter, you can say “Fuck You” to PETA by replying to @officialpeta. (ETA: If you’re as fond of profanity as I am, include the hashtag #fuckyoupeta as well!)
You can say “Fuck You” to PETA on their blog here, though be warned some of the comments there may cost you some sanity points.
If you don’t have the sanity points to spare, you can say “Fuck You” to PETA in comments to this post right here and I’ll make sure PETA gets your message.
You can also email your “Fuck You” directly to PETA using this handy online form. (The beauty of the online form is that you can even give them a fake email address if you want, like fuckyoupeta@youareassholes.com.)
Got a blog? Say “Fuck You” to PETA in a post of your own there and send them a link to your post using the form above; also drop a link in comments below so we can all share in the joy.
If you use LiveJournal, here’s a quickie LJ icon you can steal. You don’t even need to credit!
Let’s think of this as the First Official “Fuck You PETA” Carnival. You can say “Fuck You” to PETA for being sexist, racist, body-shaming and hateful, generally insulting, because you love meat, or for no reason at all - the important thing is that you say it. Let’s give PETA the hate-boner they so richly deserve for all the hard work they put into being assholes. Together, we can.
ETA: Also check out the billboard improvements posted here and here. Got a Whale-banner upgrade? Link it in comments and I’ll add it here.
Fuck PETA. I think we should also make that a hashtag on Twitter.
I don’t even know WHERE to begin. @#(^*#$(^*($#^ is a good start. Funny how I lost 150 pounds eating primarily meat (low carb diet). Funny how I’m doing it again, having lost 30 so far. Funny how I also know fat vegetarians, and even people who gained weight after becoming a vegetarian! ($^*#($*^ Where the hell do they think they’re getting off at?
Blog post to come later tonight on my blog, http://skinnyemmie.com
@lilyblue Good idea!
Ha, I cam here to post the same thing lilyblue did! I am going to start, but I think #FUCKYOUPETA is better, no?
@LowBudgetDiva, I just started that hashtag.
Um, skinnyemmie, telling us the way you *did* intentionally lose weight is not the supportive comment you may think it is.
@rebecca I agree, but I think the point she was trying to get across is that a diet that includes or excludes meat doesn’t necessarily equal fat or skinny. Which, really, is where PETA went way wrong here.
Lesley, thanks for a great article.
PETA has no interest in hearing from those of us who are vegetarian but don’t think passion for ethical or healthy food should result in douchebaggery. Case in point, my husband gave PETA some gruff over their racist KKK = AKC crap. They basically told him, you have never donated money to us, so we don’t care.
@skinnyemmie While I appreciate your support, talking about how to achieve weight loss seems out of place. I think at least one point Lesley was making is that you can live a “healthy” lifestyle (vegetarianism, low fat, go to the gym regularly, etc. etc.) and be fat.
I feel like every fat positive event I’ve been to has had a significant number of vegetarians and vegans. Who must not exist since PETA says being a veggie means you’ll be THIN.
I am also appalled at how unethically they treat people in their pursuit of ethical animal treatment. God PETA sucks so hard.
I’m going to eat a huge pile of vegetables and vegetarian things tomorrow while being an awesome fattie. If PETA only knew how much vegetables I put away they would be shapalled.
Fuck you PETA!
I saw this the other day on HuffPo and was disgusted then.
PETA has proven, time and again, how much they hate people and animals. Did you all know that they are responsible for thousands of animal deaths a year? They take animals from no-kill shelters and kill them. http://www.petakillsanimals.com/
I hate hypocrites.
Fuck you, PETA!
Just wanted to add, I blogged about it. Check out my blog at www.job2310.wordpress.com
i delurked and registered just to say FUCK YOU, PETA.
from,
a fattie animal-loving vegetarian.
Fuck you, PETA.
Damn, that felt good!
Fuck you PETA! I gained more weight during my two years as a vegan than I ever did eating the same diet calorically as an onmivore. Not the point, but yeah, fat vegans exist.
Objectifying marginalized bodies, minorities, fat shaming, body hatred, mocking the GLBT community… keep batting 1000, PETA.
I registered for the first time just to comment:
PETA, you are morons whose stupidity is so stupid it is almost beyond the stupidity that normal people can comprehend! May you be mauled by a rescued circus animal.
Like other commentators, I know plenty of fat vegetarians. Just think, the fat women you insultingly call “whales” on a fucking billboard, might just be dedicated vegetarians and EVEN animal-rights supporters. I also know plenty of fat animal-lovers, who devote hours and dollars to local shelters, humane societies and ecological causes. If you weren’t such total douchebags, some of them might have even given money to you. You can forget about those checks now.
What’s more important to you, loving animals or hating people? And if you think your animal-love requires merciless critique of humans, doesn’t it then make sense to hate the human race _equally_ without piling onto groups who already catch a lot of flack in our unjust society? Take Michael Vick (dogfighter who moonlights as NFL star) for instance — he’s not a fat woman, he’s even famous, but isn’t he an enemy of animals, more deserving of your self-righteous hatred?
You know what though? Fuckyou. You don’t deserve this smart fat woman’s free advice.
I wrote a polite but firm email to PETA (though if find the F*** you’s more than appropriate) and I got this response.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on PETA’s “Lose the Blubber” billboard. We apologize for any offense we may have caused; that was not our intent. We agree that a world where self-esteem is unrelated to body size would be a wonderful place. Our aim is not to insult people who are overweight but to persuade them to make a simple, positive change for their health.
While many people have found our billboard humorous, we take obesity very seriously, and we think it would be cruel not to tell people about the health benefits of going vegetarian. Researchers have found that a higher body mass index is associated with a greater risk of premature death from all causes. For example, according to the American Heart Association, obesity contributes to heart disease, America’s number one cause of death. The American Dietetic Association says that vegetarians have lower rates of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and obesity than meat-eaters do.
Studies have shown that “weight loss” diets don’t work long-term—but going vegetarian does. Studies published in the Journal of Clinical Nutrition and the New England Journal of Medicine have found that vegetarians are far less likely to be overweight than meat eaters are. By encouraging people who want to lose weight to go vegetarian instead of resorting to unhealthy diets, we hope to offer them a choice that the multimillion-dollar diet industry won’t give them: a long-term strategy for maintaining a healthy weight.
Certainly not every single vegetarian is at a healthy weight, as some have suggested our billboard implies, but there are many more meat-eaters who are obese and unhealthy. For most people, eating vegetarian meals is an effective way to achieve and maintain a healthy weight. But weight loss isn’t the only reason to try a vegetarian diet; we also promote going vegetarian as a great way to lower cholesterol and reduce the risk of many diseases. For most people, a vegetarian diet is an effective prevention strategy.
The email went on to tell me more wonderful ways that I could start being a vegetarian and stop the spread of teh fatz. Sorry for the long post…
@Threnody - No apology necessary, THANK YOU for posting their response. It’s sort of a non-answer (”It’s YOUR fault for misunderstanding!”) and ridiculously patronizing (”DID YOU KNOW BEING FAT CAUSES DEATH? IT’S TRUE.”) but it’s nice to hear they’ve gotten enough emails on this that they’ve formulated a response.
PETA’s blatant objectification of women has annoyed me for years and this is yet another hateful variation on the theme. Never mind that I was a fat vegetarian for five years before I had to give it up for health reasons. Never mind that (as I learned) a healthy and well-balanced vegetarian diet can be difficult and expensive to maintain, especially when you don’t have easy access to soy or other meat substitutes with nutrients the human body needs. Using hateful, sizeist rhetoric to push something that for various reasons, isn’t even practical or healthy for everyone, really pisses me off.
I want to say that PETA isn’t even worth my anger, but I’d be lying if I said calling them out on Twitter didn’t brighten my morning a little. Fuck you, PETA, indeed.
Oh, I’m so glad to have a real reason to say fuck off to PETA.
I myself am a fat vegetarian, and when I’m particularly obsessive, a fat vegan. @Threnody, that WAS a non-answer. Makes me want to write to them too.
FUCK YOU, PETA! Y’all are nothing but a sack full of lies. http://www.petakillsanimals.com
PETA, you suck.
Seriously. I could waste my time and yours telling you that I’m a HAPPILY HUGELY FAT VEGETARIAN who’s told by her doctor that she’s one of his healthiest patients. I could even photo my truly offensive HAPPILY HUGELY FAT VEGETARIAN fat rolls cascading down my torso like melting butter and send it to you. But it wouldn’t matter. You’re PETA, so you suck. You choose to be the extremists that piss people off, get lots of exposure AND GET NOTHING ACCOMPLISHED. You are like the Paris Hilton of organizations. Pointless. So I’m not pissed, shocked or surprised. Because, you suck.
My actual note to PETA was slightly less profane than what I blogged:
http://ampleproportions.wordpress.com/2009/08/20/fuck-you-peta-an-open-letter/
Thanks to everyone for telling PeTA off, and please know that from
a serious animal advocacy viewpoint, PeTA’s a manipulative, intrusive, reactionary, dishonest publicity-seeking group that kills animals and has nothing sensible to offer on any score. They hate females, animals and animal rights. This group loud exploit anyone, whales included, to seize a headline which is why they really do deserve to be ignored and banished.
::Cues daydream theme music::
Dear PETA,
I know your next move. Since you’ve already covered racism, sexism, and sizeism, your next ad campaign will feature a person in a wheelchair, and it will say something comparing the worth of people with disabilities to that of dogs, cats, or guinea pigs. Careful, as the ADA and G-Force may join forces to defeat you when you least expect it.
Fuck you,
Me
aahhh I remember this.
PETA: getting massive throbbing boners off of being complete idiots!
I’m sorry but this is like saying “well there are more fat meat eaters than vegetarians, and there are more fat people who wear clothes than there are thin people who don’t, so no one should wear clothes either! GO NUDIST!”
*facepalm*
I roomed with a vegetarian last year who had a boner for PETA’s power, just not what they were doing with it.
She enjoyed making sly comments about my love of bacon.