Blood Bath

Nothing gets our blood up like naked, hot, sweaty and blood-covered interns. And you’ve got to hand it to PETA here: This “Jackass”-worthy prank certainly got some attention, though most of it from confused-looking passersby and the cops (who inquired as to the the safety of the stunt and seemed to make a sincere effort to get this poor defenseless little animal—ahem—we mean dumb intern unwrapped). The next time we torment our intern Darryl for our own fun and amusement we are going to follow this Carrieesque-slather-and-wrap-in-plastic procedure pioneered by the brave people at PETA. Though we’ll let him keep his clothes on—junior has been putting down a whole lot of pork belly lately and nobody needs to see that. So we’ll probably just skip the American Apparel attire and Morrissey tribute signs. The main problem with this pro-vegan campaign though is that looking at this naked twenty-year-old girl splayed before us like veal we just keep thinking that we want to throw her on the grill or something. (Miss Courtney Humiston’s story for Media magazine, “Fresh Meat,” and more pictures after the jump.)

“Fresh Meat”

The typical PETA Campaign: Turns heads (and causes them to shake in disgust and ridicule shortly afterwards); usually involves some level of nudity and sometimes (we’re being generous here) even helps animals. A recent effort led by Lindsay Rajt, manager of vegan campaigns, involved wrapping half-naked interns in plastic like flank steaks and labeling them FLESH on a muggy 80-plus-degree day in Memphis. Traditional marketers could learn a lot from PETA. Like how to get people to do really ridiculous and dangerous things for nothing. As is the case with many organizations with limited resources, PETA relies heavily on shock value and impassioned youth.

In the press release, Rajt states: “We are challenging people to really think about what ‘meat’ is. Eating flesh means eating the corpse of a tortured animal who did not want to die.” Apparently, neither did the tortured interns: According to a local news source, one intern complained of being hot and dizzy and asked how much longer she had to stay there. They may not be willing to give their lives, but if it was media attention they wanted, the campaign could be considered a success. The press release also states, “On today’s factory farms, cows are routinely branded, dehorned, and castrated without any painkillers. Slaughterhouse workers sometimes resort to strangling, beating, scalding, skinning, and dismembering conscious animals,” which makes us wonder what next year’s interns will be subjected to.—CE Humiston

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