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Tofu Activists Spoof Meat-Based Indie Game
Faulkner39 writes "In response to the recently released independently developed platformer Super Meat Boy, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has released a Flash-based spoof game titled Super Tofu Boy. The spoof attempts to mirror the original by featuring a protagonist made of tofu and an antagonist made of meat in a statement promoting animal rights. Ironically, however, the original game is about a human boy who is vulnerable because he lacks skin (Meat Boy), raising the question: 'is the spoof in reality really about cannibalism?'"
The Super Meat Boy team posted a response on their Twitter feed.
I had never heard of Super Meat Boy.
They offer downloads for PC and Mac. What, no Linux version? You mean I have to play the version on the website to play in Linux?
If they won't give me Linux Tofu Boy, then I have absolutely no incentive to cease my consumption of meat. Clearly, they don't care about me, so I will continue to not care about them.
I should go have a double down or something later....
Let q be a radix > 1. I am in ur base-q, killing 10 d00ds.
You know, maybe they could have spent some of that development money on outreach for their shelters, so that they wouldn't have to kill 86% of the animals they shelter.
But no, I guess making video games, stockpiling red paint, and placing ads of naked hippies should really come first.
I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
They'll attempt to demonize any mention of carnivorous behavior, often without a complete grasp of what they are attacking-- as seen here. A boy with no skin must be countered with a lump of tofu? Obviously no one there actually played Super Meat Boy.
PETA can't rightfully preach about animal rights while euthanizing tens of thousands of unwanted pets every year. Hypocrisy at its finest.
From the 'meet the characters' page:
http://features.peta.org/super-meat-boy-parody/meet.aspx
"Meat Boy is a vengeful, bloody cube of rotting animal flesh. And he smells. After a short-lived fling with Bandage Girl (sympathy dates, really), he became enraged when he was dumped for the tasty and satisfying Tofu Boy. Once Bandage Girl slept with Tofu Boy and saw all that he had to offer, it was bye-bye beef, hello bean curd. Enraged by his loss and lack of ability to compete with the badass that is Tofu Boy, Meat Boy snapped and kidnapped Bandage Girl—because if he can't have her, no one will."
Does anyone else think it's a bit wrong if it's aimed at children?
I should go have a double down or something later....
What could be later than a double down?
Stop the violator!
I wish they changed their key-bindings from space-bar to up-arrow. I fail at the second level already
Vegetarians are a whole different and sad subspecies of humankind, they try to deny we've been eating meat from animals since many millions of years.
As a matter of fact we've become the creatures we are because we ate animals, for example there is strong evidence of a correlation in humanoids starting to eat seafood and a jump in intelligence that led to the making and use of tools.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
...People for the Eatig Tasty Animals (PETA)....
There, I fixed that for you....
...but Super Tofu Boy seems to lack the polish of the original. The controls feel sticky, the ideas in the levels feel lifted from Super Meat Boy, the difficulties in the levels spike quite aggressively compared to those of Super Meat Boy (I'm not quite sure how to get past Golden Arches 2) and the animation doesn't feel quite so smooth. Is tofu inferior to meat in this case?
...People for the Eating Tasty Animals (PETA).... There, I fixed that for me....
Who are those people that made it into 'People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals' anyway?
After 11 yrs of Slashdot reading, have finally found something worth posting about!
I clicked on the link to the PETA site....
Found this stupid link about McDonalds Cruelty that lets you "make a sign" suitable for an "activist".
The sign I created was not PETA friendly.
AND they let me download n save it as a GIF
Where should I post it......? :-)
some tofu brisket then
I am an omnivore. It means I fuckin' eat everything. And if you got a problem with that, I'll fuckin' eat you too.
No, not PETA, the developers of Super Meat Boy.
After hearing about this game I was curious as to whether a Linux version was available or in the works. I ended up at http://www.indiegames.com/blog/2010/10/indiegamescom_podcast_5_super.html, and a commenter put a link to a podcast with the developers here: http://www.levelfortytwo.com/2009/12/talk-is-cheap-12-21-09/
The relevant bit starts at 43:55. Basically, they think that a Linux version would mean it would have to be open source, which obviously it doesn't. To quote one of the developers: "Linux can fuck off as far as I'm concerned." Gee, thanks. I don't mind if you're not going to bother making a port to Linux, but to not even bother to understand what people are asking and instead resorting to profanity shows these guys are a bunch of closed-minded dicks.
To do this, they HAD to look beyond the title.
Super Meat Boy has nothing to fucking do with meat on a dietary level. What the hell went through the minds of those at PETA?
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
How can someone relate to an animal in order to sympathise with it and support its "rights"?
Don't get me wrong I'm not some sadistic freak that tortures animals but c'mon here...
I can relate to human torture because I can mentally put myself in the shoes of the tortured person a bit.
But no, I wouldn't/don't care about animal rights and I'll keep devouring them for a long, long time.
Until they take over and make us their pets no...no sympathy from me.
Because their president wants to be cooked at a barbecue when she dies, to disgust people from eating meat. Or something. Honestly, the idea was so nuts, I forgot to take notes on why, and merely listened to the what. Because when you're spoon-out-your-eyeballs crazy like that, it's hard not to be inadvertantly entertaining and terrifying at the same time.
There is no -1 Disagree.
Well, it is a more concentrated form of protein, which leaves you more time from gathering roots and berries, to like, build stuff, like pyramids, dams, hospitals , a civilization and the like.
This guy had a good take at it all: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Bronowski
My girlfriend had a veggie book, that claimed that eating meat was against human instinct; "who would ever think of eating a nice, cuddly squirrel?"
I countered with a quote from Benjamin Franklin, "hunger never saw bad bread'.
Veggieism is an ethical, rather than a physiological evolution. If you decide to be a veggie, make sure that you take many vitamin supplements. Otherwise, you will devolve what your hairy assed ancestors discovered . . . eating meat is good for you, and efficient.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Eat! Them! Eat! Them! Eat! Them!
Indeed, I hate PETA as much as any right-minded individual, but these guys pulled a dick-move. They basically trolled the PETA forums with a bunch of sock-puppet accounts in order to goad them into action and to get publicity for their game, which seems, judging by the /. comments, to have not made it onto many peoples' radar. Yet again, PETA have made the world a worse place in which to live. This time by giving these tumbling tumbling dick-weeds the publicity they are so obviously desperate for.
For PETA to have enough free time to waste on this nonsense, they must have successfully stopped all real animal mistreatment.
Otherwise, they'd look like idiots.
Animals die, you know, so it's mostly a matter of how and at what age. Me, I'd rather have my head clubbed or my neck slit in a farm than be eaten half-alive by a predator that just mauled me enough to keep me still. And while that's not a true dichotomy, the odds of dying peacefully, surrounded and guarded by my peers are small.
This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
Doesn't the pattern of PETA behaviour just scream parody? Or perhaps agent provocateur?
Remember that raw meat is instinctualy repugnant; it's only with the technologies of fire and weaponry that we began eating meat at all - environmental conditions positioning it as a good source of protein. All these years later, we have better, and more future proof means of satisifying our caloric and protein needs.
There are many reasons not to eat meat these days. Here are some
Meat production requires 10 to 20 times more energy per edible tonne than grain production and is estimated to have a 54:1 protein inefficiency ratio (54 units of protein are required to produce a single unit of meat protein). Each cow raised requires (directly and indirectly) 90 to 180 litres of water a day and passes 40kg of manure per kg of edible meat. It's been estimated by scientists that that 1kg (2.2 pounds) of beef is responsible for the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the average European car every 250 kilometers, and burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days.
Soya has 4 times more calories than red meat so the amount of soy that could be grown using the same amount of land would feed far more people than if used to raise cows. Moreso, a meat-based diet requires 7 times more land on average than a plant-based diet. Ironically much of the meat eaten world-wide is raised on soya grain anyway. According to The United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization, livestock production is at the heart of almost every environmental stress confronting the planet: rain forest destruction, growing deserts, loss of fresh water, air and water pollution, acid rain, floods and soil erosion.
Finally, meat eaters generally consume more than twice as much protein as they need, increasing likelihood of kidney failure, cholesterol, heart failure, hypertension, diabetes, stress. Legumes, especially soybeans, contain the largest percentage of protein among the vegetable foods and are in the same range as many meats. If legumes are a central part of a vegetarian's diet, there will be plenty of enough protein in the diet.
Seems to me that the writer of this article confused Meat Boy (explicitly described by the game producers as "an animated cube of meat") with Meat from Mortal Kombat (a guy with no skin). Kind of unimportant, and maybe it's just me being picky, but... yeah.
We know that any *true* vegan would have a Mac. I bet you don't even drive a Prius or own a bike, do you?
Call us back when you're *really* ready to smugly proclaim yourself better than everyone else, poseur.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Wait... it’s immoral to consume meat because the protagonist of the meat-based indie game is made of meat, and the protagonist of this game is made of tofu, doesn’t that same concept logically extend to the tofu game implying that it’s now unethical to eat tofu?
This is so confusing.
Distributed Denial of APK: It takes 15 seconds to reply to him anonymously, but wastes tons of his time if we all do it.
ok whoever made that needs to try again as fml the meat boy very is better
note that was not a comment about tofu/meat
My Linux box is wrapped in bacon, take that PETA!
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I oppose it because I enjoy eating meat and domesticating animals.
Is it any surprise that a rational person would oppose turning away from thousands of years and agricultural development, and millions of years of evolutionary development? I mean, I certainly don't want to be a tree-bark eating, root chewing, hunter (wait, no hunting..so just gathering) neanderthal.
Actually, a neanderthal is more advanced than what they are advocating, neanderthals made animal companions.
Does anyone else consider willingly giving up our evolutionary advantages just for.. guilt...utterly insane? Humans are biologically hard-wired to eat meat. Arguments for giving up meat altogether tend to be based on philosophy, and not reality. I could never stop engaging in a biological function just because of what some random guy thinks.
for the same reasons a "vegetarian" eats "vegetables".
Super Tofu Boy is safe from me*!
*No, not really. Tofu can be a fine additional ingredient in numerous recipes based on large amounts of meat. Case in point.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Beef is indeed a horribly inefficient way of producing edible protein. However, both pork and, even better, poultry, are far more efficient.
Next, I can't find a single source that comes anywhere close to your 54:1 ratio. Three different books on Google (meant as practical references for ranchers raising cattle, and therefore having an interest in being accurate instead of propaganda) gave ratios from 6-15%, depending on what was being raised. That's a LONG way from sub-2%.
Also, see those pointy things at the front of your mouth? The ones maladapted to 100% plant consumption? They're called "canines", right next to "incisors." They are designed for tearing meat. Why are they there, in addition to the plant-grinding-things at the back of the mouth? Because you are an OMNIVORE. Mankind has been eating meat long before fire; raw meat is perfectly edible and digestible, even if game meats are a bit chewy.
Oh, and that last link to fao.org said NOTHING about renal/kidney failure (neither word occurs anywhere), and nothing about the hazards of excess protein consumption. (It did refer to excess fat consumption)
The real shame is that they let all those delicious euthanized critters go to waste.
I should go have a double down or something later....
That would mean something if the double down contained anything resembling meat.
Let's see. Your first two reasons are directly related to human overpopulation and the incapability of the planet to provide enough resources for that, not the consumption of meat. The "right" of every Duggar-wannabe to keep pumping out as many humans as they can does not personally seem like much reason for me stop eating meat.
The last reason is a personal choice on how to balance longevity vs. quality of life - do I want to be ascetic and live longer, or enjoy my meat and maybe die a little younger? Well, life is about assessing risk versus benefit, and in this case, I'll take a shorter lifetime of good steaks over a final year in the nursing home, thank you.
If it's ever scientifically proven that plants feel pain/suffering when harvested and eaten, then PETA will morally end up with two options: merge with VHEMT, or give up.
I have my Linux system in a leather backpack... Does that help?
I just had a bowl of wokked soja sprouts - yeah, really - but your post is so inspiring that I may actually stop by the hamburger place later tonight.
What a depressingly stupid machine.
You could double up after a double down.
You never get any is what's wrong, with you personally, that is.
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1891254&cid=34418274
It's a rather short game with some blatant background images. They did put some effort into the levels so it's not horrible or anything. Here's a spoiler Tofu Boy is a homewrecker and it looked more like "Bandage Girl" was being taken to safety by Meat Boy, and near the end it was shown the worst of his behavior came from being forcibly drugged. Wow, who knew that Tofu was such a slimy opportunist?
I was expecting this to be about the game Kingdom of Loathing where meat is a currency as well as an item used to build other items.
What is a "double down"?
From context, I'm guessing something to eat that has meat on/in it?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
From context, I'm guessing something to eat that has meat on/in it?
Sort of. It’s a bacon and cheese sandwich made with fried chicken instead of a bun.
Distributed Denial of APK: It takes 15 seconds to reply to him anonymously, but wastes tons of his time if we all do it.
Was the purpose of posting this story solely to give /.ers the chance to attack PETA? That's what all comments seem to revolve around.
FWIW, most vegans and/or animal activists I know hate PETA, myself included. They bring a bad name to a good cause.
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
Old horses that nobody wanted anymore used to be sold in the US for meat, presumably after being slaughtered humanely. But the "cruelty" of eating horse bothered some people, so they shut down all the equine slaughterhouses in the US. Now you can't even give a horse away, every equine rescue operation is full and not accepting any new animals. So what happens to unwanted horses now? They are neglected and starve to death! Yeah, that's sure a lot more humane than killing them and eating them! (or feeding them to your dog)
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
if you're a man who wants to grow a nice set of titties and talk in a higher pitched voice. It's estrogenic, I don't know how it got a reputation among hippies as being some kind of health food.
Animal WELFARE = treat animals humanely, co-exist with animals, if animals are killed for food it should be as quick and painless as possible.
Animal RIGHTS = extinction of domestic animals, zero human/animal interaction
(yes, I know humans are animals, by animal I mean non-human animal)
Sort of. It's a bacon and cheese sandwich made with fried chicken instead of a bun."
Interesting.
Where do they serve this type thing? Is this inside or outside the US?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Where do they serve this type thing?
Kentucky Fried Chicken
Is this inside or outside the US?
Yes
Distributed Denial of APK: It takes 15 seconds to reply to him anonymously, but wastes tons of his time if we all do it.
Where do they serve this type thing? Is this inside or outside the US?
It's served at Kentucky Fried Chicken fast food restaurants in the United States, as well as in some of the KFC restaurants in other countries around the world. Although it has gone nationwide in the United States, the Wikipedia page on the sandwich suggests that it is still an experimental product in the other countries.
It is delicious.
Let q be a radix > 1. I am in ur base-q, killing 10 d00ds.
Or "People Euthanizing Thousands of Animals"
Or "Poorly Educated Teen Activists"
Reading comments like these, generously dissing PETA, you'd think the organization was actually set up by people who hate animals and whose only aim is to get them tortured and killed. Seriously, you guys are way off.
Everytime there's a news item related in some way to PETA, anywhere on the web, you can be sure there's a delegation of haters who are going to make these preposterous posts that get more and more implausible as you read: first PETA is described as inefficient idiots, then as liars inclined to cruelty until they are no more than a bunch of sadists and extremists. You would have people believe they eat pups meat or whatnot.
I find this totally bewildering. It's misinformation at its best; they can't just be disliked or disregarded, lies have to be spread about them in a propaganda fashion. Clearly, none of you know what PETA does for animals. All you have is this deep-rooted prejudice made of hate and ignorance, fueled by things you've read here and there online from other people who knew no better and had a grudge against them. It's just a long chain of slanders without actual knowledge of the facts or the people involved. For starters, PETA is certainly NOT against adoptions. Straight from the mouth of their president, Ingrid Newkirk (source):
"If anyone has a good home, love, and respect to offer, we beg them: Go to a shelter and take one or two animals home. The problem is that few people do that, choosing instead to go to a breeder or a pet shop and not "fixing" their dogs and cats, which contributes to the high euthanasia rate that animal shelters face."
Yes, they have to make tough decisions like euthanizing animals, because there's overpopulation, they explain it. They also explain that no-kill shelters, that someone mentioned, simply don't work (in short, they reject animals they don't find suitable for adoption or store them in cage until further notice; the lucky ones are sent to normal shelters that do perform euthanasia).
Dogs, cats and others pets are sexually mature within a year, have short gestation periods and easily half a dozen babies in one litter. Do you realize how many animals can be born in a few months time? What do you do with them? Release them all in the wild? That's why PETA has many campaigns to raise awareness on the importance of neutering and spaying, among other things.
I know some people who work for PETA. They're brave and kind, have to deal with a lot of foul-mouthed idiots on a daily basis. The only thing you could blame PETA for is to like animals too much. But this is a hardly a fault in their line of work.
As for the way they spend their funds, think of it this way: they have enough money to do both all the stupid things you complained about (ads, parody games, etc) AND all the other important things, for the animals. How did they get so much money ? Through donations and endorsement. How did they get so much support? By being talked about and known by everyone. How did they achieve that? By doing all the stupid things you complained about. Circle closed.
Maybe PETA could give you a queasy feeling about meat by making a game where disgusting meat, blood and gore splatters everywhere every time you fail. And you can easily fail every few seconds, splattering horror all around the world....
OH WAIT THAT'S WHAT SUPER MEAT BOY ALREADY IS!
Oh no, there's no version for Kolibri! I guess I won't care about them either.