You don’t often hear the word “fun” in the same sentence as “PETA” and “Morrissey” (unless it’s sitting at the front of the sentence “-damentally right about at least some of this stuff, but in a way that makes you feel like a tool for agreeing with them.”) But today, the Smiths rocker and the animal rights group have teamed up for a marketing push that’s at least a little less dour than their usual efforts, a light, browser-based video game titled “The Beautiful Creature Must Die.” (We did say it was only a little less dour, right?)
The game is pretty simple—click the animals to save them from the evil, bloody slaughterhouse, and avoid the bombs which have somehow also made their way onto the assembly line. (PETA presumably denies all knowledge of how they got mixed in with the cute turkeys and the giant pigs.) But it does have a certain aesthetic charm, especially with the chiptunes cover of —what else?—“Meat Is Murder” playing in the background.
Of course, Morrissey being Morrissey, he had to make sure to get a little British raincloud into even this bright, rainbow-filled experience, with a press release quoting him saying, “This game is the biggest social crusade of all, as we safeguard the weak and helpless from violent human aggression. You don’t get that from Pokémon Go.”