There are two ways you can go with the first part of this video from Animals Australia: Total puddle of weepiness over the fate of the poor industrial farm animals, or completely creeped out. For me, animals fake-talking with fake-moving mouths fake-making people words is a one-way ticket to the Uncanny Valley. But on the other hand, pigs and chickens singing “Somewhere” is on par with mice in raggedy clothing singing “Somewhere Out There” in terms of raw tear-jerking power.
Anyway, if you’re too disturbed/emotional, you can always just go “that’ll do, pig” and skip the first two minutes. Then you’ll be treated to a montage of toddlers with puppies, kittens chewing on dogs’ ears, etc., all of which is meant to soften you up for the scenes of crying chickens and sad, wise-eyed pigs. And also presumably famous Australians you’ve never heard of, all saying the same thing you or your friends and family might say: “I had no idea it was so bad.”
Be warned: After about the six-minute mark, shit gets pretty disturbing for a bit, and not in the “uncanny singing animals” sense. If you’re at work and don’t want to sincerely ruin your day, you may want to skip to 7:20 when it starts talking about the way factory farming contributes to climate change. But who am I kidding. If you watch any part of this, your day is probably ruined anyway.
