OMG CLAY AIKEN IS LIKE SO MEEN 2 KITTIEEZ KTHXBAI
Where to start, where to start...

Over the summer, Clay Aiken was on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine and was their featured artist for the month. In his interview, he said: "I think cats are Satan. There's nothing worse to me than a house cat. When I was about 16, I had a kitten and ran over it. Seeing that cat die, I actually think that its spirit has haunted me. I wasn't afraid of cats before. But now they scare me to death."

A few months later, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) decided to run an ad with Triumph the Insult Comic Dog wearing a little bandaid over his dangly bits, with the caption "Get Neutered - it didn't hurt Clay Aiken." Said PETA: "[We] chose to target Clay Aiken because he recently told Rolling Stone, 'I think cats are Satan. There's nothing worse to me than a house cat. When I was about 16, I had a kitten and ran over it.' PETA deals with dozens of cases of cruelty to cats every week and knows firsthand how damaging statements like this can be-impressionable kids often mimic what their 'idols' do. Aiken never responded when PETA wrote to him."

Anyone who reads the entire quote would know that it had been a terrible, traumatizing accident and that he doesn't like housecats because he feels so guilty about what happened that he thinks all cats hate him. OK, so maybe Clay Aiken is completely delusional, but still!! Even worse, PETA has also said that they'll retract the whole campaign if Clay posts a page-sized ad for PETA on his official web site and publicly apologizes for saying he doesn't like cats.

Anyway, it seems Clay was not at all pleased by the swipe at his sexuality, and has since sicced his lawyer on them. 237425688162 Clay fans wrote irate e-mails and made irate phone calls about it. ClayAiken.org then linked to the following article: "Aiken irked by PETA's measure of his manhood," run in the Chicago Sun-Times last week.

Of course, the folks on ClayAiken.org were instantly torn by this, ahem, obviously pressing issue. =)


155+ wankalicious comments on this thread include:

- Gems such as "It was onli an accident...Clay is still new to all dis stardom n everyting...y dun u juz giv him a break!"

- A long-winded conspiracy plot linking PETA to terrorist organizations and threatening to report them to the IRS and the FBI;

- Posts calling the ad "blasphemy..." Clay Aiken. He's like FandomWank Jesus, in a way;

- a lovely "You're a homophobe! No, YOU'RE a homophobe!" exchange;

- Many posters calling all PETA supporters "complete whackos," and many others gloating at Clay's "obvious gayness;"

- The usual "You know that Clay is laughing at all of this, don't you? He'll be married with kids someday, and you morons will still be sitting at the computer, covered in cobwebs, bashing the character of some other celebrity" and "Grow up morons, if shoes were brains, you'd all be barefoot" and other troll-sightings;

- And then there's my very favorite: "I don't think that any of you idoits out there can't say that you haven't run over/hit a dog, cat, raccoon, even a bird. If you haven't, then you obviously can't drive." Whahuh??!?

OK, I think the PETA ad was an obvious smear campaign fueled by deliberate misinformation, but that's the funniest non-Harry-Potter wank I've seen in ages. ETA: This is a wank of beauty because not only did the fans wank to hell and back, but I also think it's a case of PETA flaming Clay and Clay pulling out the old "I'll sue you! That's slander!" card. It's a many-layered wank. It's wank parfait!