PETA Protests in Second Life
An article in The PETA Files blog hails the upcoming anti-fur protest rally that the organization is going to hold in Second Life on July 12. Their slogan for this rally appears to be “I’d rather be pixelated than wear fur.”
Ooookay. I won’t wear fur in Real Life, and avoid doing so in Second Life as well. One of my favorite SL clothing designers makes outfits trimmed in “fur” and it makes me sad. I love animals (see the multitude of critter and cat-centric photos upstream). However, PETA chaps my butt for their extremist views for the general treatment of animals, so this move is giving me pause. I’m not quite sure what to make of it.
I’m also curious about how PETA regards Second Life’s community of Furries — people who would prefer to interact in SL using animal, mostly mammalian and fur-bearing, avatars. This is the ultimate in the wearing of fur by humans, IMO, though your mileage will vary, depending on the furry to whom you speak.
I may send my alt (alternative avatar) to the rally wearing his fox AV, just to see what happens…
July 4th, 2007 at 9:50pm
Okay, I give up. I’ve been avoiding commenting on this because of the absurdity. Is it going to shock the people in PETA [a homonym of PITA] that Second Life isn’t real? Isn’t this a bit like complaining to the Lakota about whaling, or the problems of the Amazon rain forest with the Inuit? It’s not that people might not be concerned, but they aren’t involved in the problem in any meaningful way.
I can’t imagine that the people in Second Life are there to be nagged.
July 5th, 2007 at 7:32am
It may seem absurd, but most of Real Life is pretty absurd, too, if it isn’t happening to you. Second Life is not only a platform for fun, art and education, but also for advertising: personal, commercial and viewpoint. How is it different from TV — except that it’s interactive?
It’s been my experience that SL’ers engage in every sort of human activity imaginable, and quite a number of them take it dead seriously. At the micro level, there are serious personal relationships complete with marriages (partnerships), pregnancies, domestic disputes, and divorces. At the macro level, political campaigns are being waged online — right up to the fracas that broke out at a French sim during France’s recent presidential campaign.
As for the Furries, I spoke to an Otterish friend of mine who also regards PETA as a PITA. He wants to attend the rally and set up a cheeseburger stand…
July 5th, 2007 at 6:01pm
It’s going to devolve into LOLCats language, isn’t it? There is going to be irony, satire, and probably sarcasm involved, right? He is going to be otterly brutal to the Petards, isn’t he?
July 5th, 2007 at 8:45pm
That’s what the residents of Otter Cove do best — poke fun at the ridiculously serious!