Won't somebody please think of the fish!

PETA has a new campaign to make people aware of the horrors of fishing. Their strategy? Openly rebrand fish as "seakittens." The theory being that while people don't think fish with their cold alien-like stares are cute, kittens are simply adorable. And if you find an animal adorable, well, you would be less likely to want to eat it – a theory easily disproven by the existence of veal.

I care about animals as much as the next person with too much spare time, and do want to see them treated humanely, but there is something intellectually dishonest about this campaign. People don't just want to eat kittens because they're cuter; they also have a far higher conscious level than fish.

Aside from that, this seems to break every rule of what a successful campaign should be. When you try to re-label something, you don't openly admit you’re re-labeling it. Could you imagine if big tobacco started a website that said: "Look we have a problem, people don't like us and know our product kills you, so we're going to make some pretty intensive efforts to change words that currently have a negative connotation into ones that will sound better to you!" No, they wouldn't. Instead, they would start some third party group dedicated to overturning the ban on the selling of cigarettes in public schools and call it "Young Consumers for Choice." Of course, big tobacco is run by people who know how to achieve their goals instead of making themselves look like absolute idiots. Here's hoping that one day the actually important issue of animal rights is represented by competent individuals.

Update: A fellow animal-loving but PETA-disgusted friend emails me suggesting I place our cat underwater, take a photo and send it to PETA with the note: "I tried this to see if your campaign works in reverse. It did: I feel slightly more inclined to eat a kitten when it is dressed as a fish."