PETA's new ad campaign is really, really strange and no one knows what to make of it

Animal welfare charity PETA are not unfamiliar with controversy. Their entire marketing strategy is essentially “lets annoy loads of people with this advert” and they have been variously described as “racy”, “controversial” and “horrible”. They’ve objectified women, made fun of fat people, said meat eating is the same as hitting your girlfriend and put up a billboard in Germany comparing meat eating to the literal actual Holocaust. Quite a broad range of things you probably shouldn’t do in your ad campaign, there. 

So you probably won’t be that surprised to see they have once again annoyed, confused and grossed out a large proportion of the internet with their newest ad, which depicts… well, look at it. 

It’s a chicken. In bed… with some men. 

That’s it.

The point of the advert, presumably, is to imply that people who eat meat are impotent. Fine. But what it actually looks like is that some men just had sex with a chicken. 

AND IT GETS WORSE. OR BETTER MAYBE, IT’S HARD TO TELL REALLY. 

There is also a pig, if having a threesome with a pig is more up your alley? 

You may be surprised to hear that Twitter reactions have been… mixed. Some have been… enthusiastic about the whole thing:

Others have taken it slightly less seriously. Cue loads of “who came first...” jokes. 

PETA have also released a Nick Cave-soundtracked, Iggy Pop-starring advert to win you over, which might be more up your street if you don’t want to imagine human men having sex with pigs or cows.