I’ll admit it. I’ve anthropomorphized a time or two. In any creative profession, it’s an easy fix to ascribe a like mind to an object or creature. It helps make old stories new again or create a more compelling interpersonal narrative where one doesn’t naturally exist (see: Cars, WALL-E, Toy Story, the entire Looney Toons catalogue, the Disney empire, Babe, Charlotte’s Web, California Cheese marketing, Chick-fil-a’s long-running gag and the Honda Fit commercials).

You can see from the list, anthropomorphizing can be helpful. It can be fun. It can be useful.

Most of the things on that list I like, remember and enjoy, save the Disney catalogue. With a younger sister, I watched a crooning Caribbean crab serenade two young lovers one too many times.

But there are a few places where anthropomorphizing shouldn’t be taken lightly. Like the animal welfare debate. For every happy cow, there’s a very unhappy cow nipping at your heels in the Google results.

You see, people are very clever, but our brains are even more clever.

I once took a seminar on Philosophy of the Mind, and we spend a good chunk of time discussing Theory of Mind. Basically, it’s our ability to, by attributing our own self-understanding to another, figure out what he or she may be thinking, what he or she intends to do or what underlying motives the subject may possess. It’s the mechanism that helps you anticipate and respond to questions in a meeting before they’re even asked. It’s what helps us offer helpful advice to a fellow sojourner. It’s the reason you talk to your dog like a baby. It’s the mechanism that allows us to function as a society without coming across as total dullards or feeling as if we have to constantly explain ourselves.

Theory of Mind makes the world work. It’s also what makes it so easy for groups like HSUS to solicit enormous amounts of money with heartstring-tugging ads and so difficult to sell a story of animal care based on sound science. Being a science buff myself, I kinda hate those odds.

By the way, if you’re interested in reading it, you can download the CAST paper from that last link for free. It’s a good read if you’re the type of person who gives a damn about the conclusions of logical, critical minds who study these issues day in and day out.

So maybe it’s a good thing we have a heifer from Wagner farm in North Dakota tweeting her story, following in the footsteps of the first four-legged Twitter star, Sockington.

After all, it should be a hell of a lot easier for good-hearted producers and veterinarians, who spend time around them every day, to write a better story about our anthropomorphized animals than the people with all the bucks but none of the science or experience on their side.

So here’s a call to arms. For all the folks out there with the ability to do so, give a tweet on behalf of your favorite sow, hen, heifer or steer. People want to know what they’re eating, but you have to reach them in a way they’re compelled to pay attention to. All the science in the world doesn’t go half as far as a great narrative that exploits the built-in mechanisms of the brain.

Cheers,

jae

That’s an analogy, for my my fellow word nerds. My folks made me do those before I was allowed to play outside as a child. Hated it then. Glad for it now.

Anyway, The idea is, your brand can (and should) be different things to different people. The trick is making that quantum state look like the only one there is to the people observing.

Informative lay science tangent:
Schrodinger’s Cat refers to a quantum paradox of one thing being able to inhabit two different states at once. In Schrodinger’s example, a cat in a box with a flask of poison can be to be both alive and dead at the same time based on a prior random event, but, when observed, be found to be either alive or dead. (wiki your brain)

The root of the problem came in the realization that in experiments on the wave/particle nature of photons (bits of light), these photons could behave as both a wave and a particle, but when observed, chose to behave as one or another. (wiki your brain)
End science tangent

You too can be both a wave and a particle. Inevitably, you’re trying to reach out to an audience that’s anything but monolithic. If you’re smart, you can be Schrodinger’s cat and be one thing to one observer and quite another thing to another observer. It’s a tall order, but if a cat can do it, you have cause for serious concern if you can’t manage.

The trick is to figure out where your audiences are. Different observers have different vantage points. Thus, by exploiting the spaces where they don’t overlap, you can be two things at once.

Of course, in an interconnected world, everyone is going to figure out that you’re two things at once. Funny thing is, observation makes the heart grow fonder.

Your old college friends may love you for the occasional drink-fueled reunion exploits that remind them of earlier days. Your co-workers may love you for your diligence, punctuality and reliable sobriety. One could argue you’re still the drunken debaucher at the same time you’re the reliable co-worker, but you choose to be one or the other based on who’s observing and a previous random event (in my case, usually that first drink). To point, neither group is going to think any less fondly of you as long as the behavior they observe outweighs the behavior they just hear about.

Be the wave-particle duality. Be two things to two different observers. It’s easier than you think, and a whole hell of a lot more effective than treating every audience as if they’re the same.

Cheers,

jae

Thank you, mice, for helping scientists discover microRNA treatments for liver cancer.

Thank you, sheep, for giving us a better model for understanding neonatal immunology. (PDF)

Thank you, transgenic monkeys, for promising leads in the prevention and treatment of Huntington’s disease.

Thank you, hogs, cattle, chickens, sheep and others, for efficiently feeding our nation and much of the world.

Finally, thank you, researchers and farmers, for responsible management and a commitment to excellence in science and care. For every shortsighted, uninformed or just plain crazy HSUS member, there’s someone out here, like me, who understands and appreciates what you do.

Cheers,

jae