Create Your Own Sea Kitten at peta.org!
They’ve already tried to rebrand fur with naked celebrities, having a relatively high success rate. But now PETA has taken turned their attention to those who eat fish…
Talk about taking the proverbial bull by the horns…
…not that they would do that, it would be against their ethics. As a brand, fish are a difficult subject.
1. You can’t really control them – so a change in perception has to be purely through communications.
2. Even some vegetarians consider fish to be okay.
3. Fish lack the cute interactive factor of other pets.
But PETA hasn’t given up on the challenge…
They’ve decided to address the ‘cute and cuddly’ factor, aiming most of their efforts at children. So they’ve gone for a complete rebrand, with the new name ‘Sea Kittens‘. Yes, fish are apparently like kittens.
Of course, this is meant to make children feel bad about killing fish. Unfortunately it has other effects:
- They lose any scientific credibility
- Fish (with the exception of catfish) look nothing like kittens
- Kittens EAT fish (and not in a very humane way)
They’ve also come up with ‘Sea Kitten Facts’, like this:
“Contrary to popular belief, the technical term for sea kitten offspring is “baby sea kitties,” not “caviar.” Many sea kittens build nests where they can raise their baby sea kitties, and others collect small rocks off the sea floor to make widdle hiding pwaces where they can rest.”
Kids can also make their own ’sea kitten’ (see above). Accessories include a Manchu moustache + beard, kitty litter and strangely, elephant trunk + ears. I chose a ‘cat hoodie’, water bowl, lipstick and floaties for the irony.
There is also an adult’s site which puts together every newspaper report and scientific study that talks about fish consumption negatively. Any site which refers to fish as ’sea kittens’ is going to come under ridicule. But if they get just a few people to think a bit more deeply about the lives of fish – and this just might – then they’ve succeeded in what they wanted to do.