PETA Butterball Turkey Video

About

PETA Butterball Turkey Video refers to a viral video put out by the animal rights agency PETA in November 2024 that sparked widespread discussions and reactions online in the following days. The video featured an undercover investigative report filmed by PETA in 2006 in which they claim to have uncovered animal rights violations in a Butterball turkey slaughterhouse in Ozark, Arkansas. The footage shows a shadowy figure talking about the needless animal cruelty he witnessed while working at the slaughterhouse. PETA called for all Butterball turkeys to be recalled, with many internet users, primarily on TikTok, reacting in horror about their families bringing home Butterball brand turkeys for Thanksgiving.

Origin

The earliest notable record of PETA posting its "Butterball House of Horrors" video is an October 23rd, 2008, YouTube^[10] upload that gathered over 100,000 views in 16 years. The video is part of an investigation by PETA that took place between April and July 2006.

The video shows footage from within a Butterball turkey slaughterhouse in Ozark, Arkansas, as well as testimony from an anonymous worker who claims he saw workers brutalizing turkeys at the plant, and saw one worker inserting his fingers into the bird's cloaca.^[2]

On November 5th, 2024, PETA reposted the video to its official X^[1] account, where it gathered over 80,000 views and 200 likes in three weeks on X, with a November 23rd repost to PETA's Instagram^[3] page gathering over 20,000 likes in three days while sparking widespread reactions.

The report was republished in Satya magazine when it was first published in November 2006.^[6] The news was then reposted to the subreddit /r/vegan^[4] by Redditor /u/KnockoutTherapy on November 25th, 2024. The video was also notably reposted by Drama Alert's X^[8] account on November 25th, gathering over 5,000 likes in a day.

Spread

Several internet users reacted in shock after the video was published leading up to Thanksgiving in 2024, with TikToker^[5] @brownsugacakez posting a reaction about the news on November 25th, 2024. The user can be seen holding a Butterball turkey they bought the day before they read the report and saying, "The company Butterball, the people killing the turkeys for us, were 'SA-ing' the turkeys?" The video gathered over 2.5 million views and 99,000 likes in a day.

Also on November 25th, TikToker^[7] @daddy_trump210_aff posted a video about her experience working with Butterball, saying that the reports about workers who allegedly mistreat the birds are not Butterball employees but rather live hangers who deal with the cleaning and gutting of the bird. She adds, "I am 100 percent sure you will not find shizzzzzzzzz in your turkey, the amount of water that runs through the production line while the turkeys are being processed, ain't no way." The video gathered over 1.6 million views and 20,000 likes in a day.

On November 25th, 2024, TikToker^[9] @closetwitch13 posted a video of someone cutting into a very juicy turkey, writing, "Must have been a butterball," alongside the hashtag "#nutterball." The post gathered over 1 million views and 7,000 likes in a day.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References