The Sexiest Vegetarian Next Door

PETA is finally getting around to addressing the most important issue yet in animal welfare: Who are the sexiest non-celebrity vegetarians willing to objectify themselves for the cause?

Will it be Stephanie of Roseville, CA, who (in addition to the fact that she is naked) would like you to know, "There is an unfiltered kindness and love in an animals eyes that you just can't find in a persons" (sic)?

Or Erika of Greenville, SC, who riddles us this: "If you love animals called pets, why do you eat animals called dinner?"

There are men in the running as well.

Zachary of Brooklyn, NY, who seems to have a hard time keeping his underpants up, says "No animals were harmed in the making of this body."

Malik of Pembroke Pines, FL, says "Animals have a place in my heart, not in my stomach".

You only have two weeks left to vote for the two winners, who will then be sent to Hawaii together to  prove how much sex vegetarians can have. (Presuming they're both straight. But I don't want to promote any stereotypes here...)

See all the contestants at the PETA site.

Interestingly, the women outnumber the men by more than 5:1.

PETA sexploitation ads: Coming on a fire truck near you?

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Only if you live in Baltimore.

According to AdFreak, a Baltimore city councillor has proposed selling ad space on city vehicles to add an new revenue stream. PETA has already mocked up their own custom ad for the occasion, claiming that seeing a half-naked woman and a bad pun "will drive Baltimore residents to PETA's heart-healthy vegan recipes that will keep them firing on all cylinders."

Yeah, whatever.

Courtney Stodden does another "Go Veg" PSA nobody asked for

America's Most Unspeakably Nasty Teen Bride™, of whom I keep lying about never blogging again, seems to have really taken to vegetarianism. A couple of weeks ago, PETA apparently accepted and promoted a video she made for them with her dog.

This new one, however...



I guess she feels that the Go Veg movement is interest she can borrow as she trashes her way through the last 15 seconds of her fame.

Next time, I hope she goes back to shooting these to black and white. That tan is much less unsettling as a shade of grey.

Why is this Playboy Bunny's lettuce bikini so horribly photoshopped? #FdAdFriday

I suppose the combination of model Sheridyn Fisher's body heat and the studio lights would wilt lettuce pretty quickly, but come on, PETA.

Of course, it's not as if the Playboy Bunny has never been photoshopped before. But it's probably the most awkward and least fun photo editing job anyone's ever had with one of her photos.

You can see the "real" lettuce swimwear in the video version here:



Via Adrants.

PETA trolls the Miami Marlins

Now, this is the kind of PETA I'd like to see more of:

The above is a mock-up of a sponsored paving stone that PETA put into the promenade of the Miami Marlins new ballpark.

The slogan is actually an acrostic that reads: F I S H I N G H U R T S (dot) C O M.

I'm not a PETA fan, and I like to go fishing. But I appreciate a good prank. Plus, it's very appropriate for Easter, since acrostics were a popular code among early Christians.

It may not be effective social marketing, putting a hidden message out, but the earned media around it should garner a few extra clicks.

At least no humans were abused in this one.

Do vegetarians buy BBQs?

Of course some do. You can do amazing things with grilled vegetables and mushrooms.

But this flyer, from a local distributor for BBQing.com, seems to be betting not only that its potential customers are not vegetarians, but also that they hate PETA.

Now, I am not a vegetarian and I do dislike PETA's marketing tactics and extremism. This brand is probably making a smart strategic move by targeting guys (let's face it) who eat lots of meat and like to feel obnoxious about it. Canadian Tire and Home Depot can't do this, because they have to appeal to everyone. These guys can afford to be assholes.

By the way, if the "mashed potatoes" gag seems familiar it's because this billboard has been floating around the internet forever:

But if you're going to wear that statement around, you might as well get the original.

Courtney Stodden for PETA

Oh. My. God.

So this happened:



PETA's description: "In this video that Courtney and her dog, Bazaar, shot for PETA, the teen newlywed shares how eating cruelty-free has helped her save animals' lives, protect the environment, and get a figure that the shutterbugs can't get enough of."

I swore I would stop blogging about this teenage trainwreck of a manufactured celebrity. But then she had to go and do a PSA! So this is actually kind of relevant.

I'm not sure why PETA chose her, beside the fact that she claims to be a vegetarian and craves attention. She's not exactly good at the "speaking" part of the whole "spokesperson" thing. But at least she kept more clothes on here than in most of her public photoshoots. Which is kind of ironic for a PETA ad.

The five worst Valentine's puns you may read today #vday

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Via Retronaut

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Via Retronaut

Via PETA

F'd Ad Fridays: Olivia Munn goes naked and furless for PETA

As often happens, this new PETA celebsploitation campaign looks more like an ad for a waxing salon than a social marketing campaign.

The actress and author asks us, "who needs fur to feel beautiful?" and the poor rabbit seems insulted by it.

Here's the video:



Via Celebuzz

Top 10 Posts of 2011, Part Two

Yesterday, I started my countdown with the the most-read posts from #10 to #6. Here are the top five, based on total visits from Jan 1, 2011, to today.

#5 Interview with FEMEN's founder, Anna Hutsol 

This post wasn't even original, it was a repost from a Facebook interview I did with Anna through her translator/community manager, Eugene Smirnov, on Osocio. It was short and sweet, as she picked and chose the questions she would answer, but any FEMEN post immediately gets the interest and support of their global activist community and associated voyeurs.

And yes, the post contained boobs.


#4 Nude activism continues to take over the internet

No, my posts are not all about nudity and sexuality. But it's a testament to the power of those primal forces, in activism as well as advertising, that my top posts mostly involve naked people.

This one was both interesting and amusing. After Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei's assistant Zhao Zhao was legally harassed for "spreading pornography online" with this picture, supporters started a nude protest blog called "Listen, Chinese Government: Nudity is NOT Pornography".

It's pretty weird. But in the tradition of PETA, FEMEN and "nude photo revolutionary" Aliaa Magda Elmahdy, it certainly gets them noticed.


#3 He's a straight talkin' PETA with a letter for the U of M...

Speaking of PETA, my distaste for their shock-and-eww tactics is a common topic here. But the PETA post that was my third most read of 2011 was neither. It was a personal appeal by one of my personal rock gods, Iggy Pop, to his alma mater to stop using live animals to train students in field medicine for the survival flight course.

It was a very well-written and rational appeal from a man who once described himself as "a street walking cheetah with a heart full of napalm". He even signed off with "Thanks for your time"!

Iggy has gone on to do more radical stuff for PETA, but to me this was his shining moment of elder statescraft.


#2 Disney's The Little Mermaid's sexual coming-of-age story, as told by her hipster meme

This was something I did on a winter weekend out of boredom. The Hipster Little Mermaid was a thing at the time, and I thought it would be fun to try to make a narrative out of it.

Yes, writers are sick people. But the internet is even sicker, and apparently any content that combines a teenage Disney Princess with the word "sex" is enough to bring them in like fruit flies on red wine. Even if there is no actual sex in the post, just a lot of English Major tomfoolery.

You can read the whole thing here.

#1 NZ church keeps up its irreverent Christian holiday ad tradition

As much as people love a good post about sex or nudity, blasphemy was the draw of the year. Despite being less than two weeks old, this post about the latest Christmas billboard by St Matthews in the City Church in Auckland, NZ, quickly took the lead in pageviews.

It's a beautiful ad, with an important message. According to Vicar Glynn Cardy:

"It's real. Christmas is real. It's about a real pregnancy, a real mother and a real child. It's about real anxiety, courage and hope. This billboard portrays Mary, Jesus' mother, looking at a home pregnancy test kit revealing that she is pregnant.   Regardless of any premonition, that discovery would have been shocking.  Mary was unmarried, young, and poor.  This pregnancy would shape her future.  She was certainly not the first woman in this situation or the last."

The progressive  Anglican church has long been known for its radical Christian messages of questioning tradition and acceptance of all people. What would Jesus do?

He'd probably go to St. Matts.

Happy New Year. I'll be back tomorrow with 2011's most effed ads.

PETA prescribes meatlessness in mock pharma ad

It's pretty funny ay first, but goes on for way too long. And for the record, I'm against factory farming too. I prefer to eat animals that were loved to death.

PETA helps humans (for a change)

I have plenty of issues with some of PETA's promotional tactics, like sexploitation and making fun of human tragedy, but this campaign I really like.

Last week, PETA donated 100 cast-off fur coats to the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless, noting that people on the street are "the only people who have any excuse to wear them." They were then distributed free-of-charge.

Of course, they made note of the fact that all the furs had been "donated by erstwhile fur-wearers who, once they found out that animals on fur farms are often bludgeoned or genitally electrocuted, couldn't stand to have carcasses in their closets." PETA marks the coats to make resale impossible, and issues tax receipts to donors.

Donated furs are also used as bedding for animals in wildlife rehabilitation centers, or as props in anti-fur demos.

F'd Ad Fridays: Ink, not mink

Easy enough to say when you're under studio lights. But Chris "Birdman" Andersen plays hoops for Denver. If he's serious, he must be freezing his nuggets off by now.