PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of
Animals) recently put out ads for cow-protection, making reference to Raksha
Bandhan (Rakhi) festival. Here is the ad (Source: Twitter/Swarajya):
The above ad created a huge
controversy on social media where people started questioning PETA about its
intention to target a “Hindu festival”. Since PETA’s slogan had said, “Go
leather free”, people started making jokes that perhaps PETA thought that Rakhis
were made of leather (this imagination was weird to begin with; whoever started
it). As it happens on social media, people spend little time in reading more
about topics and immediately start making memes and jokes. It is a competition:
those who tell jokes earliest, get maximum ‘likes’ and ‘shares’. And those who
can sacrifice truth and facts for quick publicity and fame, earn more ‘followers’.
As we can see from this ad, PETA
tried to send the message of “cow protection”. The Ad shows picture of a cow,
who apparently is herself saying, “This Rakshabandhan, please protect me: go
leather-free”. As you can see, there is a colon after “me”. It is obvious that
most cows are killed for leather industry apart from being used for beef. But
since Rakhi is a Hindu festival, it is obvious that PETA won’t speak about “beef”
since Hindus do not eat beef and hence PETA spoke about leather instead, since
Hindus still use leather products.
We can realize that the intention of
this ad was noble and fine. But it still ended up creating a huge uproar on
social media. These days, social media is like a place where land-mines are
installed; no one knows when and where one would explode. Could PETA have
avoided this controversy? I think yes, if it did not target a specific
festival, or if it used more text on the ad. Perhaps it is a PETA strategy to
target festivals, since it catches people’s attention, and hence the strategy works
fine. But if PETA had used a better catch phrase, it could have saved the day.
For example, how about below quote from the cow:
“You take a vow to protect your
sisters on Raksha Bandhan. Please protect me too by boycotting leather products.”
The above slogan would have been much
more acceptable. Or there may be other better ideas.
After the controversy, PETA India clarified
too. PETA said, “We didn’t say Rakhis are made of leather. We said Raksha
Bandhan is a good day to extend protection to cows who are our sisters under
the skin by taking a pledge to go leather-free, for life. That’s a message all
kind people can get behind.” [Reference: Swarajya]
This controversy is a reminder that people
should not blindly trust whatever they see on social media, but they need to
search the credible news sites like newspapers to read the complete news. Also,
they should not react “immediately” if they see a controversy; but wait until
more facts become known. Social media users should also not promote “rumor
mongering” by some popular channels through their mindless likes and retweets. At the same time, this controversy is a
reminder to PETA that they need to plan their campaign better. This controversy
did make a huge impact, but all in the wrong direction. No one is talking about
the cause of “cow protection” after this Ad and its related controversy. PETA
won’t like to waste such opportunities into wasting money, time and energy.
- Rahul Tiwary
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