I love animals, but PETA can bite me. Their poorly-timed Gilbert Arenas campaign is just the latest example of how out-of-touch they are with sports fans.
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Yardbarker's tip box received a message from PETA this morning sharing the story of "All Star" Gilbert Arenas and his anti-fur photo shoot. Yay, this is totally something I want to write a puff piece on! Who cares about the current criminal investigation surrounding the four guns he brought into the Wizards lockerroom!
If the PETA PR people totally missed the news about Gil's troubles, then that's just stupid. If they intentionally released this info now because he's in the news, then that's stupid and counter-productive to the goal of resonating with sports fans.
It wouldn't surprise me if this timing was intentional -- PETA's protests of anything Michael Vick-related seem to be more about exploiting Vick's news buzz than about actual substantive complaints. The Vick protests have become predictable knee-jerk reactions that have lost all meaning to me. For instance, I have no idea if Vick deserved the Courage Award his teammates gave him, but the mere fact that PETA was up in arms about it had me defending the award choice.
Dog-fighting is horrible for the dogs, and I support efforts to stop that abuse and educate the public about it. But PETA's opportunistic whining about Vick makes me question how dedicated they really are to actually helping animals. Now that they're celebrating their involvement with an NBA player who foolishly plays with guns and makes light of an issue that kills people, it makes me write them off entirely as just a flimsy PR-whoring organization.