PETA, you and I were never friends. Don't get me wrong, I like animals. I have no less than four in my care as I am typing this. Heck, I even like OTHER animal rights groups, like the Humane Society. I can even go as far as standing those anti-animal abuse commercials with Sarah Mclachlan where you hear the "In the arms of the angels" lyrics and just go "OH GOD TEH POOR ANIMALS, CHANGE TEH CHANNEL BEFORE THEY STARE INTO MY SOUL!" and then what feels like an hour later you flip back to the same channel and are like "OH GOD HOW IS THIS STILL RUNNING WHAT IS I DON'T EVEN...!" and then go about hating yourself for the rest of the day. I don't like to sit through them, but at least they're good at what they're there for: making you feel guilty.
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| Well, there's goes all my good feelings for the day. |
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| Er...what? |
But hey, let's see your other stuff and maybe we'll...
Do not take my shock as a good job on your part. It really isn't. Why? Because again, I don't come away with this ad with a desire to help animals. Animals don't even cross my mind for awhile. There is a value to shock, but too much of it and your original point is lost.
So let's compare the two media campaigns: one is a heartfelt plea featuring pictures of actual downtrodden animals and the assurance that there is something you can do to proactively help, and the other is focused on playing to your most primal senses and beating you in the face with how terrible of a person you are.
So at this point, you're probably wondering why I'm talking about this. After all, PETA is not geeky or superhero-y, so why do I bring it up. I bring it up because PETA decided it was going to go after something I am very fond of.
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| Oh. Hell. No. |
I hope you realize who's tree you just rustled PETA. I don't call myself the geekasaurus (entirely) for the fun of it. I am a seven foot tall man who speaks a little Russian, which is all the motivation I need right now to make an Ivan Drago reference.
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| I must break you. |
Now if you have no experience with the actual games, and only have the most basic understanding of the franchise, you may not understand where PETA is going wrong. Well, fortunately you have me.
The fallacy is in thinking of pokemon as dog-fighting, wherein the owners force their otherwise peaceful dogs to cruelly maul each other to the death for their entertainment. That is sick, and it still annoys me that Michael Vic is playing football again.
In the actual mythos of the show, however, pokemon goes out of it's way to show that pokemon fighting is more like competitive martial arts or boxing. There are several instances where it is mentioned that pokemon will battle each other in the wild as a form of strength-building. The pokemon trainer is just that: a trainer. It is the trainer's job to raise the pokemon to be the best that it can be, and that is what the pokemon wants, as demonstrated by it's happiness gauge, which can rise and fall based on how it performs in battles.
In the games, and especially in the show, good pokemon trainers care for their pokemon, even ones not suited to battling. An injury is a rush to the pokemon center, being knocked unconscious means that the fight is over. As an 8 year old, there was real tension in hoping that you could get your poisoned pokemon medical attention before it fainted, not because there was any penalty (there really wasn't) but because that was your pet and you cared about it.
Now, there are trainers who treat pokemon as tools, as weapons to fight, and to whom no weak pokemon can have any kind of worth. Those are called the bad guys. And it is for those exact reasons that you are going up against them. Once pokemon battles stop being friendly competition and start going into that dark territory, it is made totally, impeccably, and undeniably clear that they are cruel people who should never be emulated.
So to bottom line this: pokemon and their trainer are not a tortured pit bull and a jackass on a power trip. They are Bruce Lee and Ip Man, coach and player. It's about care for each other.
But you didn't know any of that PETA, did you? You didn't bother to actually take the time to understand just what the hell you were talking about. You took the show on it's most basic mechanics and decided to fling yourself onto your high horse with the speed of a rapidash on carbos and tout just how horrible something you had no concept of was. You had to go back through fifteen years and slap each and every child who found themselves immersed in a magical world where being good means being loving and being bad means being selfish right in the face.
Because that's who you are PETA. You are that ignorant hipster in every college philosophy class touting your superiority on issues you don't actually get. You want to shock us into complacency, showing us startling images to tell us that even though we don't actually see your point, you must be right. Your head is shoved so far up your own ass that you are pressing your ear to your own bleeding heart.
In actuality however, this campaign doesn't matter. It is a gigantic waste of your time and money. Anyone who buys the crap you are touting here obviously was never into pokemon in the first place, and anyone who is or ever was into pokemon can smell your bullshit a mile out.
Even those people who don't know pokemon know you though, PETA. Remember that whole tanuki suit campaign? Remember the children's books on how owning pets made you the devil?
The world knows you're a joke.
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Sorry for swearing so much, readers.
