Hey, Diners, ‘I’m ME, Not MEAT!’ and ‘I Am You, Only Different’ Proclaims PETA Ad Blitz

Placed Outside High-Traffic Restaurants, PETA’s Provocative Bus Shelter Ads Plead With Diners to See Animals as Individuals and Go Vegan

For Immediate Release:
July 31, 2017

Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382

PETA is serving up some food for thought to hungry diners, courtesy of a dozen ads promoting the idea that animals are much more than the sum of their parts. The ads have gone up outside fast-food restaurants in Westchester County, on Long Island, and in New Jersey.

The ads—which appear outside locations of KFC, Wendy’s, and McDonald’s, among others—come in four designs. One shows a chicken’s face next to the words “I’m ME, Not MEAT. See the Individual. Go Vegan.” In the other designs, a pig, a crying cow, or a herd of cows appears next to the words “I Am You, Only Different. Go Vegan.”

“Just like humans, chickens and cows are made of flesh and blood, feel pain and fear, have unique personalities, and value their own lives,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA’s new ad campaign encourages everyone to empathize with animals by choosing vegan meals.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—notes that in today’s industrialized meat industry, chickens killed for their flesh are crammed by the tens of thousands into filthy sheds and bred to grow such unnaturally large upper bodies that their legs often become crippled under the weight. Pigs’ tails are chopped off, their teeth are cut with pliers, and males are castrated, all without any painkillers. At slaughterhouses, workers shoot cows in the head with a captive-bolt gun, hang them up by one leg, cut their throats, and skin them, often while they’re still conscious.

PETA initially tried to post the crying calf ad in Westchester, but the Westchester County Department of Transportation rejected the image, later accepting the version with a herd of cows.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.