The Meatrix: It's got the Pork Board a little worried

by Sea Stachura
Jun 29th 2008 @ 1:05PM

Filed under: Food, Health, Activism

Last year the National Pork Board's media arm, Pork Checkoff, did a survey of none to 14-year olds. They were wondering whether kids were seeing online anti-feedlot content. PETA kids, the Humane Society and the Meatrix videos were a few of the sites and videos they asked about.

What they found was concerning. While not too many kids were looking at PETA Kids, and even those that were terribly impacted, the kids who saw the Meatrix had highly negative perceptions of feedlots. The Meatrix is a spoof on the Matrix. It was originally created as a viral video in 2003 by Sustainable Table. The target was never kids, but in the triology's five years of life on the net, it's ended up in college classrooms, high schools and, of course, YouTube.



So Pork Checkoff decided it was time to counter-attack. It started making its own YouTube videos about the care feedlot farmers take with their pigs. For now the videos target moms, but they intend to distribute more videos that will be marketed to both moms and kids.