PETA is protesting Animal Crossing: New Horizons once again - and this time, they're back with a full-on PR stunt with a TikTok video, plenty of Twitter hashtags, and some very bizarre motivations.
When New Horizons launched back in March, the animal rights organization took to the interwebs to release their own "Vegan Guide to 'Animal Crossing'" which was filled with ridiculous rules (e.g. no fishing, no bug catching, no digging up clams, etc.). Apparently, they believed in-game anthropomorphic renderings comprised of code equated to real-life animals. Alright.
However, it appears The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals didn't think their guide was enough, and that more vocal action needed to be taken.
Yesterday, the group released a TikTok, both on their official account as well as on Twitter, showcasing their in-game protest at Blathers' museum. The "protesters" gathered outside of the museum, calling out the owl museum curator for his unfair encaging of fish. The protest was filled with loud and excitable villagers, custom shirts, and signs that read "FISH BELONG IN THE OCEAN" and "EMPTY THE TANKS."
During the video, protesting villagers can be seen running through the museum, spamming their text boxes with angry messages. At one point, the video displays the following caption: "Blathers encourages villagers to take fish out of their natural habitats so he can trap them in tiny tanks - CANCELLED." PETA even created their own hashtag to accompany the protest, #BlathersIsOverParty.
The reasons why this company decided to dedicate their time, money, and energy into this absurd stunt are currently unknown - but if they were hoping to cause a social media stir, they sure have accomplished that goal. (Though, it probably has the opposite effect than what they were hoping for.)
Reactions to the strange video have mostly consisted of some very confused, and a couple of concerned, followers.
A number of people have pointed out the almost hilarious hypocrisy in PETA's stunt, noting that, for a company who claims Animal Crossing is "unethical", the amount of time and money all of these protestors had to have given up in order to pull off this "protest" is signifanct.
A number of people have also pointed out that Blathers, himself, is also an animal, which just raises even more concerns and questions about PETA's endgame.
Regardless of how you feel about the situation, note that, no matter what you do to the in-game animals in New Horizons, it truly has no effect on animals in the real-world.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is available now, exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.
Source: Twitter