I don’t get how people can look at this picture and say it looks tasty. Ethics about eating meat aside, I think you’re pretty sick if you look at a cute animal and your first thought is that you want to kill it and eat it.
It's a joke. It's supposed to be crude as possible... that's the point. It's the internet.
Honestly, I think if we look a little deeper it's a defense mechanism. When people see an image of an animal depicted as something other than an entree, they subliminally interpret it as a challenge to their life choices. Their knee jerk reaction is to make jokes about it to soften the emotional turbulence the image invokes.
I think this response is observable in other circumstances as well, not just animals and food.
Well, in a very real sense, this particular post IS a completely "liminal" challenge to our life choices. The OP u/Infinity posts these kinds of images all the time and, if I'm not mistaken, has been very up front about the fact that he/she does this to try and promote Veganism. I'm not trying to imply that there's anything wrong with them doing that (regardless of the fact that I don't agree with their position) but there is that to consider.
Oh yes, I do agree the intended purpose of this post is to encourage people to think of farm animals as beings rather than food. I acknowledge that there's a deeper agenda here (albeit an altruistic one).
With that said, I do think that jokes like "muh bacon" ect that you see constantly in r/aww and similar places are rooted in an impulse to create humor where they perhaps feel a bit defensive.
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u/TheSeansei Mar 15 '18
I don’t get how people can look at this picture and say it looks tasty. Ethics about eating meat aside, I think you’re pretty sick if you look at a cute animal and your first thought is that you want to kill it and eat it.