MTV Gets Veganized With New Compassion Over Killing Ads!!

by Michael Parrish DuDell February 23, 2009
Categories: Film/TV.

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MTV viewers are about to get a serious dose of VEG action delivered straight to their living rooms!

Our friends over at Vegan.com just posted this exciting news from Compassion Over Killing member Erica Meier:

“Our 2009 MTV Pro-Veg Ad campaign launches tonight: viewers around the country will see, perhaps for their first time, a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the cruel world of factory farming—and they’ll be further directed to visit our website TryVeg.com for more information.

The ads will run nationwide for five straight weeks, offering viewers a 30-second behind-the-scenes tour inside the world of factory farming and encouraging them to think about exactly what they’re eating.

So tune in already and check out Compassion Over Killing’s new fancy pants ads! To learn more about this hard-working organization, visit COK.net!

Jen Hamilton

I’m VERY happy about this!
Jess

Good! Although I wish it would come with a “support local” message, too.

There’s a big difference between the small farms you can tour and the ‘farms’ [factories] where cameras and outsiders are forbidden.
Amy

These commercials are such a great way to reach the public! Yay Compassion Over Killing!
Christine

This is such wonderful news!! Great job COK!

Re: Jess’ wish that the spots would come with a “support local” message….um NO!
Support local killing you mean?

Meat = suffering and death no matter what “local” or “humane” spin you want to put on it.
Jess

Christine – I’d just hate to see people supporting the same companies that work with industrial ag. behind closed doors.

Local markets are where it’s at for all your veggie needs!

It’s just like big brands selling Organic, when 90% of their fields are planted with GMOs, or KFC selling veggie-sandwiches alongside their legs and wings.

Every dollar spent is like a vote! Make it count!
steph

FINALLY, some great AR groups getting some attention…and positive to boot.

Not all AR groups are PETA. Support COK, IDA and Mercy for Animals!!
Maggie

WOW! thanks for posting about this. i’ve always wished for vegetarian ads on TV, and here they are! Now let’s get them everywhere on TV—i just made a donation to Compassion Over Killing to help with this awesome campaign. If we all gave even just a little, it would collectively add up to a lot!
http://www.pompousvegan.blogspot.com misty snatchwrath

Amazing news – I’m glad they’re getting this to a place where the most young people will actually see it. I hope it sinks in.
http://beaelliott.blogspot.com/ Bea Elliott

COK thanks for all you do to get the Veg message out! Hooray on you!
http://RawfoodsRetreat.com Erin @ RawfoodsRetreat.com

Great news. Glad to see all the fellow vegetarians who are in agreement on this one.

(I agree though supporting local farmers is crucial too. I’vehad my support local organic farmer stickers since high school and still follow and believe it . Amen

E
Kevin

There’s a lot of patting on the back going on for these commercials. But unfortunately, they won’t have any impact if the message is ‘go vegan’ rather than ‘stop cruelty’. People will always eat meat, from now until the end of time. If we want to help animals in the meat industry, we need to change regulations and standards to offer actual alleviation of cruel conditions. Just being one out of several billion consumers saying ‘no thanks’ to a burger isn’t going to change anything.

Don’t take a hard line position of ‘either you’re a vegan or you’re a murderer’, that isn’t going to help anyone – even if it makes you feel superior. Supporting animal rights activists (or becoming one), voting for animal friendly legislators, and encouraging people who are going to eat meat anyway to buy local, organic, cruelty-free meats may actually have an impact – while trying to convert meat-eaters with inflammatory messages will do more harm than good.
http://www.mypace.com/xjaxinx jaxin

Wow, that’s incredible. I can only assume that they got on the air because it’s NOT PETA.

Good on you MTV!! Thank you to COK.
Whoever…

This is exactly what people need to watch – the naked truth!

Then they can make up their minds once and for all – either stop saying they love animals (you don’t eat your loved ones) and continue to eat meat and fish (but this time aware of how the animals were killed, which will make them think twice) or become vegetarian/vegan and feel extremely good about themselves and be so much healthier.

It’s a win/win situation!
http://www.veganjapan.net herwin

its so great and thrilling to see the PETA bashers are still here !
Matt

Kevin, while supporting legislation to protect animals is important, animal rights activists will never encourage people to eat so called “humane” meat any more than an Abolitionist would support “humane” slavery. We may be a long way from a vegan world, but condoning the needless slaughter of animals for food is not going to help animals. It will only ensure needless and perpetual suffering.
Veganstuff

Stop fooling yourself….”cruelty free meat” is an oxymoron.

Check out http://www.humanemyth.org/
Hil

I agree with Kevin. It is great to see more and more people making the lifestyle choice to be veg/vegan but until a majority of American’s reduce their meat consumption we won’t see a strong shift in greenhouse gas emmissions. Also for some reason the trends of America is contagious, and if we can get a majority of Americans to reduce their meat consumption to no more than once a day and to have at least one meat free day a week, we will see a huge shift in the global meat market.
VeggieTart

Kevin, the only way to stop cruelty is to go vegan. There’s no way to produce animal foods that isn’t cruel. Better to reduce your consumption of animal foods.
JL

Kevin – I agree with your ideas, but they won’t go far here.

The majority of people on this site, and in all Animal Rights groups, aren’t campaigning for better laws and regulation – they’re campaigning for abolition.

Again, I agree with you, the masses are much more likely to transition from supporting Industrial Meats to Free-Ranged to None, and less likely to make that jump from Industrial Meats to None.

If this film wanted to be intellectually honest, it would show the intermediate (free-range, pasture-raised, no anti-biotic, etc.) – but the idea is to stop ALL killing, not to lessen suffering, so that would actually detract from their purpose. Animal Welfare works in a tier system – Animal Rights is far less allowing: if animals are used, it’s bad.

Which is why I support the Animal Welfare movement… they aim to lessen suffering, and every little bit helps. I don’t think the ‘scene’ is right for breaking the shell of speciesism yet.
http://RawfoodsRetreat.com Erin Raw foods retreat

Wow I cannot believe it (someone pinch me but I was going to write something similar to what JL wrote and I sorta agree with him her (he she still doesn’t have the balls to give a name – at least we’d know if it’s a man or woman! – well unless the name were Jesse that would be a tough one, but I digress)

There is NO way I am getting my huge family to go vegan BUT I can definitely encourage them to buy 100% local organic meat. Is it cruelty free? No way. It is not. But it’s better and let’s face it. I think it’s going to be a tough one to get them to all be vegan tomorrow.

Also I buy meat every day (why you ask!? I don’t eat it- I have two old cats – one turning 17 and the other 13 in a few weeks. These two rescue kitties have (for most of their lives) eaten free range and or organic meat and some organic cat food. I have to buy meat several times a week so I have researched where it comes from.

I NEVER do Kosher (Kosher is a JOKE and as we all know inhumane) But I have found local sources for organic free range and I know where it comes from. Doesn’t mean it is cruelty free but sorry my cats aren’t going vegan. And for all the vegan pet owners out there make SURE YOUR PETS ARE ON ORGANIC anti biotic free FREE RANGE food!

My family isn’t going vegan either. But they’re starting to eat LESS meat and only buy organic meat and eggs, stop drinking milk… At 60 something years old (the parents) and that’s a big step.. One step at a time. And personally if they don’t give it up okay.. but at least they know that the animal’s life was hopefully not as awful as non organic animal’s and it’s healthier for my family to eat organic… just the facts in life..

I do hope someday they’d give it up altogether. I think I can get my birthmother to do so. She only worked for WWF (not the wresting group for decades. She used to be veg but the dumb doc said she needed meat (BS) then she got cancer and cut back, but I think I can get her to quit altogether which would be nice

Erin
Kevin

Thank you for the good responses! I’ll try to keep it short so I don’t go on too much of a rant, but I would like to respond.

Firstly, HumaneMyth.com has been cited to me many times. But I try to view this from an academic standpoint, and HumaneMyth is anything but. That website relies COMPLETELY on anthropomorphizing animals and using rhetoric rather than facts and research. It ignores the different anatomies of the animals in question, and basically every statement boils down to “would you want this to happen to YOU?”. It’s everything I feel is wrong with this kind of animal rights movement, taking a ‘either go vegan or you’re a murderer’ stance.

If we want to help these animals, we need to realize something. We will never, EVER abolish the meat industry. It will always exist. Advocates who only promote abolition get ignored by legislators and the industry. It’s like trying to put out a forest fire by spitting on it.

We need to focus on the biggest evils of the industry – overcrowded, overfeeding, over-milking, and inhumane killing. We cannot take the stance of a broad definition of cruelty as causing any pain at all on any animal. We can’t speak only in hyperbole and exaggerated anthropomorphisms, it’s just not an effective means of generating real change.

We should be pinpointing the biggest offenders to animal cruelty in the meat market (I’m looking at YOU Wal-Mart), calling them out, and using that evidence to generate an outcry that will create better regulations to the meat industry.
Jesse

Female, and thanks for the name!
http://RawfoodsRetreat.com Erin @ RawfoodsRetreat.com

lol not even sure if that is really JL posting but if it is. you’re welcome. Kevin – I have boycotted Walmart for twenty years (ok for emergencies i have been there a tiny handful of times in 20 yrs but not many) but why are they the worst? I boycott them for different reasons but will add it to the list – if you care to elaborate.. thanks!

Erin
Whoever…

Thanks Veganstuff…

I guess humanity has so much to learn and evolve before we truly consider ourselves humane…

This is an extract of what a former beef farmer said at:

http://www.humanemyth.org/haroldbrown.htm

“[...] I have often heard the word “humane” used in relation to meat, dairy, eggs, and other products like cosmetics. I have always found this curious, because my understanding is that humane means to act with kindness, tenderness, and mercy. I can tell you as a former animal farmer that while it may be true that you can treat a farm animal kindly and show tenderness toward them, mercy is a different matter. In 4-H, I saw many, many young people treat their animals as they would a cat or dog, actually more like a dog because it is kind of hard to lead a cat on a halter. And I saw many young people cry their eyes out when they auctioned off their animals at the end of the county fair. I always wondered about that. Why do we have a double standard?

[...]

Eventually I realized that all animals, including humans, exist for their own reasons, with their own interests. This was a profound revelation for me because that nagging little voice in the back of my mind had always, since childhood, told me that I wasn’t living to my full, authentic potential, that there was something inherently wrong. All my life I had observed the community that existed in a cow herd, how they grieved for a dead calf or herd mate that had been shot by a deer hunter. I had witnessed the joy a cow experiences when she is let out into a fresh new pasture or calves running and kicking up their heels with each other in the field. I now knew for certain that regardless of the rationalizations I had created, when I killed an animal and saw that light leave their eyes, by extinguishing that divine spark, I had broken a sacred trust. [...]

If I was going to be true to myself and live to my full potential I had to reevaluate, think, and choose. I chose life. So no, in my experience, there is no such thing as humane animal products, humane farming practices, humane transport, or humane slaughter.”

It makes one think, uh…?

At least this proved to me once again that the main goal of major NGOs like PETA, WWF, Greenpeace and others (in spite of all the good they do), is money!
I’m sorry but I have very good reasons to make this statement!

In spite of everything I still believe (maybe I’m being very naive) that animal suffering in the food industry could be ‘minimized’ if there was the will to do it!

I know that meat and fish industry will never end on this planet, but at least there should be ways of minimizing the stress of animals when they are killed. I mean, with so much technology and knowledge and no one can come up with an idea to solve this situation?

Why can’t they produce an innocuous substance that could be put into the food of the animals (to make them fall into deep sleep) that were going to be killed? At least they wouldn’t be aware while they were slaughtered!!!

I don’t know…

sorry for the extension of my comment…
Kevin

That farmer’s story is touching, and I think reflects why many decide not to eat meat. But again, it stretches the definition of humane treatment to an unattainable goal. I agree, by the definition of the word – killing is not humane. But we need to understand that these animals are bred to die and do what we can to help them while they live. I feel very strongly that if the movement for improving conditions for livestock animals would try to go with baby steps rather than call for the instant total abolition of the meat industry we could accomplish so much.

As for Wal-Mart, they have spent millions and lobbied for years to attempt to stop regulations requiring meat to have Country of Origins Labels. As far as I know, Wal-Mart still refuses to release information regarded where they get their meats from. Hell for all we know it could be Soylent Green. That doesn’t even count their practice of ‘blooming’ meats. Basically each container contains a certain amount of chemicals and gases that give the meat a false look of freshness. When the plastic seal is broken (when they stock the meat), it goes from a greenish, blueish color to red.
Jesse

Kevin – ew. But apparently blooming is natural, due to Myoglobin. The amount of this protein is influenced by diet, species, etc., and oxygenation triggers the color.
Jesse

So it’s not WalMart-exclusive.
http://www.earthlings.com Shaun Monson

The images in the COK ad are actually tame in comparison to what I’ve seen, though I give them all due credit for getting it aired on any TV station that also advertises fast food. The fact is there are simply too many animal products being sold for most stations to accept an ad that directly opposes everything they’re selling at commercials.

The documentary film “Earthlings” includes footage that is much stronger … sadly. We too heard people use words like “assaulting” and “desensitizing” in regards to our non-fiction film. In fact, when distributors saw “Earthlings” at an industry screening, they specifically asked me to re-edit it “so as to not upset viewers” and to “cut around the more unpleasant aspects of the film.” Which only begs the question: “How much truth should be cut out of a non-fiction film?

It’s interesting to note too that Hollywood has a perennial interest in horror films, which so many audiences enjoy. Are these not assaulting and desensitizing, and yet completely fictional? However, the same viewers suddenly become too fragile, and too easily offended, to witness anything upsetting … if it’s REAL.