Sunday, November 30, 2008

Protest Thingy

I've always been against the use of real animal fur for coats, hats, etc, but I've never actually had an opportunity to do anything about it. I used this assignment as an opportunity to voice my opinion on this subject and hopefully change some people's minds on the idea of using real animal fur for clothing. So I decided to hand out fliers that I made dealing with animal fur clothing outside of A.J. Ugent Fur.
However, I felt like people wouldn't be very interested in another flier about fur since I'm sure everyone has seen fliers or pamplets about it before. So I decided to make it more specific so it would hopefully catch some people's attention. My fliers were about Karakul lamb fur. The truly sad thing about this is that since lambs are born with glossy, tightly curled fur that begins to unravel after a few days, those who are in the business of making Karakul lamb coats have to slaughter lambs right after they are born. Also, since they're so small, it takes several lambs to be killed in order to make one coat.
I think that by using a specific kind of fur, I sparked more people's interest, because more people than I thought asked me about my fliers. Most people, I think, didn't know what Karakul lamb fur was, which was why it got their attention, which I might not have gotten if I had just handed out more fliers just about fur in general. However, there were still a lot of people who I know just took a flier to be polite and probably threw it away as soon as they got home. But I definitely expected that. I also expected it when people just walked past me or declined taking a flier, and I was a little disappointed in them. However, I felt really encouraged and almost empowered when I met a lot of people who were actually interested in my fliers or what I had to say.
So I think that I may have actually changed some people's opinions on buying fur clothing, or confirmed their beliefs against it. At least, I hope that I caused people to think about the consequences of buying fur clothing and hopefully will encourage them never to do it.

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