The very idea that it was for kids at all is the satire. It wasn't made to be shown to kids. If it were, PETA would post it on their kids page. As a member of PETA and a father I can assure you that I wouldn't show such a thing to my children. PETA is not trying to give this to your niece. If you are letting your seven year old niece google whatever she wants to, she will find far more disturbing things than this comic, (which is not meant for her eyes) so any argument about your niece being able to find this in a google search are invalid. There are a lot of much more disturbing images available online which can be found in a google search, whether or not you have a content filter.
The fact that it wasn't posted on their kid's page
does not mean it's not meant for kids. I don't know if you have the same TV commercials I do, but we have
commercials that show the example of Phillip Morris promoting products that are unsuitable for children being aimed at a target audience of children. PETA is doing the same thing, whether you want to admit it or not.
As for your assertion that we are "letting my niece google anything she wants to", she did a google search for "fishing comic". She wanted to print off a comic that her daddy would enjoy and found a comic that made her live in fear of her daddy.
Saying meat is dead is not a scare tactic. Saying that slaughterhouses slaughter over 5% of the animals fully concious is not a scare tactic. Saying that due to the improper handling of meat by slaughter houses makes the meat more likely to carry things like botulism is not a scare tactic. These things are merely uncomfortable facts. Writing a fake kids comic telling kids to keep their animals away from their fisherman daddies is not a scare tactic since said comic is not actually for children. There are things you could use to label such a tactic, but "scare tactic" is simply not one of them. The term you are looking for, I think, is "emotional ploy". PETA does do that. Then again everyone uses emotional ploys.....
You're right - I wouldn't call the first three you mention scare tactics. I vehemently disagree with you on the issue of this comic not being meant for children. That, my friend,
is a scare tactic. You have not provided me with any proof (other than the absence of this comic from PETA's kid website, which I addressed above) that would make me believe otherwise.
In this case there is a pretty big difference. It was asserted that this comic was intended for kids as a scare tactic. It was not intended for children at all. It was intended for adults, and as such, there is no scare tactic involved because men who fish are unlikely to be afraid of their children hiding the cat from them. So when you read this comic in the context in which is intended, the only thing remaining is the emotional ploy, which I happily concede that PETA uses all the time.
A parent who fishes loves their child no less than the staunchest animal rights activist. To say that "men who fish are unlikely to be afraid of their children hiding the cat from them" implies that they are so cold-hearted that they would not care that their children are living in fear of their parents. I find this statement to be abhorent.
Again, I disagree that this comic is not intended for children. All the promotion I have seen for this comic says it's for children. It has been handed out to children (not their parents) in several of my local neighborhoods. This is not the best way to convert people to PETA's cause. If PETA wants to affect people in a positive manner towards their cause, they should stick to telling the facts, not scare tactics (or even emotional ploys, if you continue to insist that it's not a scare tactic).
