Comments on: Shh, I'm hunting wabbits...

Shh, I'm hunting wabbits...

nospecialfx — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 10:53:58 -0800

An online psycho (or entrepreneurial genius?) says he's holding a bunny, named Toby, hostage unless charitable animal lovers donate $50,000 to his paypal account. Otherwise, he'll butcher it. So far, he's got $14,000.

By: terrapin

terrapin — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 10:58:54 -0800

Can't prove it, but I am pretty sure this is a double post.

By: squidlarkin

squidlarkin — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:00:00 -0800

Exactly what I was going to say.

By: Bugbread

Bugbread — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:00:20 -0800

I was all prepared to be Outraged (tm), but the guy says he's going to butcher and eat Toby. The thing is just so bizarre. I mean, it's rabbit meat, he's perfectly in his rights to kill and eat Toby if he feels like it. And he's going to take it to the butcher to be killed, not mangle it himself or torture it or anything. And he's got a Cafepress shop selling Save Toby goods? It's just too odd for me to even form an opinion about whether it's good or bad.

By: c13

c13 — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:03:12 -0800

There are at least 14000 idiots out there....

By: fossil_human

fossil_human — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:03:55 -0800

It's either a double post or a copycat; the other guy was asking for Euros.

By: Dean Keaton

Dean Keaton — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:04:26 -0800

I donated some recipes.

By: Epenthesis

Epenthesis — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:04:27 -0800

There are at least 14000 idiots out there.... And one genius. I want to meet this guy. He's even more devious than Karyn.

By: nospecialfx

nospecialfx — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:06:52 -0800

I think this is probably a copy-cat... savetoby.com isn't linked on Metafilter anywhere, nor is "save toby" -- so, there's more than one psycho out there trying this? I wish people would give me money for doing absolutely nothing.

By: lacus

lacus — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:07:55 -0800

I cried, then I pulled out my lucky rabbits foot and said "Don't kill Toby," three times. That should do it.

By: bobo123

bobo123 — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:08:05 -0800

Save Bernd... copycat not repost.

By: tr33hggr

tr33hggr — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:10:02 -0800

What a jackass. Get a job dude.

By: wsg

wsg — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:10:17 -0800

I clicked the paypal link and got a page that says he's no longer able to take payments.

By: brevator

brevator — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:12:19 -0800

hmmm....

By: tommyc

tommyc — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:12:33 -0800

What a cunt.

By: brevator

brevator — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:12:52 -0800

oops, yeah, what wsg said.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:14:11 -0800

Paypal are a bunch of wankers.

By: fenriq

fenriq — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:17:04 -0800

I hope he chokes on it.

By: bondcliff

bondcliff — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:17:17 -0800

File this under "wish I'd thought of it."

By: PinkStainlessTail

PinkStainlessTail — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:18:37 -0800

Registered through Domains by Proxy. Coward.

By: thanatogenous

thanatogenous — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:19:16 -0800

A variation on the National Lampoon's "Buy this magazine or we will shoot this dog". Hes playing on peoples humanity for his own monitory gain. regardless of whether or not he actually does in fact kill "Tobey". I'm merely surprised people are willing to pay 14,000$+. Don't charitable animal lovers have sense enough to donate their money to a much more beneficial cause than to throw it at this guy? It just makes this idea more appealing. I'm just dreaming of the money I could make by holding some cute critter hostage.

By: Bugbread

Bugbread — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:28:34 -0800

I think I'd take a cute little baby lamb hostage, because lamb tastes better than rabbit. Probably wouldn't get as much money, though.

By: thedevildancedlightly

thedevildancedlightly — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:33:11 -0800

RABBIT STEW 1 three pound rabbit 6 small onions, chopped 1 bay leaf ½ cup chopped celery 2 tsp. salt 2 cups diced carrots 3 raw potatoes, cut up 3 tbs. flour 1 tbs. chopped parsley

By: buriednexttoyou

buriednexttoyou — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:37:49 -0800

That is one tasty looking rabbit.

By: agregoli

agregoli — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:39:14 -0800

Stoopid. Not him, the people who would a) believe this and b) send him money.

By: Griffins_posse

Griffins_posse — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:41:27 -0800

If you average out the number of verified transactions (approx.125) with the current total, the average contributor gave +/- $100. How likely is that? I e-smell a pile of pellets somewhere.

By: C.Batt

C.Batt — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:43:57 -0800

I hate these guys. I hate them because they thought of this first. Now I have to go back to "work". Damn.

By: LordSludge

LordSludge — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:51:09 -0800

Back when I was a kid, we raised rabbits, among other animals. Cute little lop-eared rabbits. From time to time, we would take one from its cage, and lay it on a chopping block. I would hold the ears, and my dad would chop its head off with an axe. It was not uncommon for the rabbit to scream as it was taken from its cage, as if it knew what was coming. I was 12 or 13 years old at the time. We'd cook it up in a stew or potato dish -- tastes like dark-meat chicken, maybe a bit more tender. We also would tan the hides; I have no idea why. You'd think this would have messed me up somehow, Silence of the Lambs style. (Silence of the Bunnies?) Still, although that seems pretty messed-up in retrospect, it's pretty mean-spirited to hold a bunny hostage.

By: tittergrrl

tittergrrl — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:52:09 -0800

(sorry, self-link image. Seemed appropriate. I won't do it again.)

By: sciurus

sciurus — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 12:02:32 -0800

The German girls are still pretty.

By: robocop is bleeding

robocop is bleeding — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 12:23:28 -0800

I, on the other hand, would pay cash money for someone to cook my beast of a bunny up for dinner. This would soon be followed by Banjo cutting off and roasting parts of me that are very important to my sense of identity.

By: lobstah

lobstah — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 12:29:50 -0800

PRANK

By: damehex

damehex — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 12:37:47 -0800

The Save Bernd page has a little giveaway at the very bottom. Couldn't find the same on the Save Toby page, but I didn't dig through too far. By the way, Griffins, the verified transactions are only those btw the seller and other "verified" users -- a status any paypal customer would avoid if possible, since it means giving PP the keys to your bank acct. He could easily have gotten many thousands of $1 and $2 donations from regular PP users. I think Toby's a fake, but wouldn't it kind of chill your funnybone to think that an inspired joke site had inspired a real-life horrorshow? I think the real question should be: Is there any version of capitalism where it is not natural for mercy to become a commodity?

By: rtimmel

rtimmel — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 12:52:45 -0800

Everything is derivative.

By: Luke Pski

Luke Pski — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 12:57:02 -0800

Yeah,stupid capitalism! I think people shouldn't be allowed to do what they want with their money. That should solve the problem..

By: Bugbread

Bugbread — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 13:28:20 -0800

Yeah,stupid capitalism! I think people shouldn't be allowed to do what they want with their money. That should solve the problem. I can hear your sarcasm, but I can't figure out what you're trying to say behind it.

By: papakwanz

papakwanz — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 13:28:55 -0800

When I was an undergrad at the Univ. of Texas, one year someone ran for president of the Student Body on the "Lobster" Ticket. His platform was that if he wasn't elected, he would boil and eat his pet lobster. If he was elected, he would fly up to Maine and let the lobsters go. Well, he wasn't elected. It came time for him to cook up his lobster, which he planned to do in public. The university kicked him off campus, because he had an open flame on his big portable boiling pot, so he went across the street and cooked it up. Some PETA activists were protesting, carrying signs saying "Don't boil lobsters, boil Cody!" (or whatever his name was). The whole situation was pretty ridiculous, even a little sad, because the guy cried a little as he cooked and ate his pets.

By: damehex

damehex — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 13:30:30 -0800

Mr. Pski, I maybe you are pretending to be a mutton head to deflect the fact that the question makes you uncomfortable. The question is not about what people want to spend money on. Let's take as a given that people want to spend money on every single thing that has value to them. The question then is: what's for sale? I don't think you can sell love. You can't decide to love somebody (maybe I'm wrong). You can certainly sell sex -- that's a popular product throughout the history of money. And (the fact that Toby looks like another prank aside) it seems perfectly feasible to sell mercy. When people denounce the lotto as a tax on the dumb, I point out that while their chance at the prize is vastly overvalued at a dollar, the value of going home with a ticket and falling asleep dreaming about being a millionaire until the drawing takes place may well exceed the ticket cost. There is a huge industry around selling hope, and for lots of folks those nice dreams are genuinely valuable. So my question, again: are these things -- anything we value in our hearts that can be provided by others at will -- always going to become commodities? Is that a natural effect of the market? And is there anything wrong with selling mercy?

By: davejay

davejay — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 13:33:06 -0800

RABBIT STEW 1 three pound rabbit 6 small onions, chopped 1 bay leaf ½ cup chopped celery 2 tsp. salt 2 cups diced carrots 3 raw potatoes, cut up 3 tbs. flour 1 tbs. chopped parsley Great. Now I'm hungry. Dammit. It was not uncommon for the rabbit to scream as it was taken from its cage, as if it knew what was coming. It did, if you killed the other rabbit in front of it. Or perhaps the rabbits watched these other rabbits get taken out and never ever returned, and were screaming about something unknown that would prevent them from ever coming back to their home. Animals are quite smart about environmental and non-verbal cues.

By: fenriq

fenriq — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 13:34:25 -0800

papakwanz, sounds to me like he didn't deserve to win the election anyway. And I know its cool to keep weird pets and all but lobsters?

By: papakwanz

papakwanz — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 13:55:42 -0800

fenriq- well of course he didn't deserve to win the election. His entire campaign was "vote for me or I'll eat the lobsters"!

By: Specklet

Specklet — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 14:03:17 -0800

Homer cried as he ate Pinchy...

By: Dreama

Dreama — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 14:13:33 -0800

You know, if Toby balanced cool things on his head, that guy would have his $50k and then some.

By: LordSludge

LordSludge — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 14:18:06 -0800

It did, if you killed the other rabbit in front of it. Or perhaps the rabbits watched these other rabbits get taken out and never ever returned, and were screaming about something unknown that would prevent them from ever coming back to their home. Animals are quite smart about environmental and non-verbal cues. Well, we did The Deed outside, so yeah they must have known those other bunnies never came back. Struck me as very perceptive of them. I suppose there's a special place reserved in Bunny Hell just for me.

By: Oriole Adams

Oriole Adams — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 14:48:26 -0800

Lord Sludge, that was for more info than some of us needed. Ick. It reminded me of the one bunny scream I've heard, and that was when I was at the vet with my cat, and a rabbit was getting his shots in the next room. Maybe you're not having a Silence of the Lambs moment, but I am now....

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 15:13:57 -0800

...there was the time my sister said "Hey, look, Peter's hop-hop-hopping across the table" as we sat down to our bunnychops. My mother turned seven shades of green. That pretty much ended The Great Bunny Experiment.

By: koeselitz

koeselitz — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 15:17:46 -0800

This is great about 1/2 of you want the rabbit to roast the other 1/2 want little rabbit donation boxes with annoying bells outside supermarkets. What a great reminder of an old Saturday Night Live episode with Eddie Murphy and this lobster that would either go to dinner or become dinner. Please call 1-800 blank if you want Mr. snappy to live or call 1-800 blank if you want him to boil in a vat 400 degrees then served on an silver platter (in other words die)! Now who of you, while sitting deliriously on your couch, managed to grab the phone with a mild feeling of public duty and call the number that sparked your palate? Yes, yes at the impressionable age of 12 I tried it too, although, the episode must have been filmed around 1988. What a disappointment.

By: obiwanwasabi

obiwanwasabi — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 16:57:12 -0800

Rabbit stewed with prunes in kriek.

By: drezdn

drezdn — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 17:35:51 -0800

I can't believe so many people think this is awesome, but were disgusted by people who would make money off restaurant reservations.

By: Bugbread

Bugbread — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 18:17:32 -0800

That's because when it comes to paying for restaurant reservations, not only are we the payers, but we're the rabbit.

By: abcde

abcde — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 19:37:29 -0800

If he didn't get $50,000 but didn't kill it anyway, would that be cheating? Hmm...

By: VulcanMike

VulcanMike — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 20:41:39 -0800

I think it would be like those two virgins that were supposed to "lose their virginity on camera" but magically decided to wait until marriage at the last minute. It would just be another page in the book of lame interwebbery.

By: kindall

kindall — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 21:02:11 -0800

I don't think you can sell love. You can't decide to love somebody (maybe I'm wrong). You can certainly decide not to love somebody, and you can decide to let yourself love somebody. Close enough in my book.

By: agregoli

agregoli — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 09:53:35 -0800

I can't believe so many people think this is awesome, but were disgusted by people who would make money off restaurant reservations. Um, how are we supposed to take an obvious scam seriously? I bet 10 million to one he doesn't even own a rabbit.

By: exhilaration

exhilaration — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 12:23:18 -0800

It did, if you killed the other rabbit in front of it. Or perhaps the rabbits watched these other rabbits get taken out and never ever returned, and were screaming about something unknown that would prevent them from ever coming back to their home. Animals are quite smart about environmental and non-verbal cues. Two comments: 1) In Blood of the Beasts (a documentary-style film about a French slaughterhouse from the late 40's) there's a scene where a group of sheep are freaking out, climbing against the walls, trying to escape as they are taken one by one and slaughtered in front of each other. 2) According to Islamic Law, you can't slaughter one animal in front of another:

The prophet (peace be upon him) also taught Muslims neither to sharpen the blade of the knife in front of the animal nor to slaughter an animal in front of others of its own kind.

By: davy

davy — Sat, 19 Feb 2005 17:00:43 -0800

I'm waiting for the day when some Mefite'll hold Quonsar hostage like that. Preferably one of us five-buck n00bs. Who's got recipes for stewed Overlord?

By: ember

ember — Mon, 21 Feb 2005 19:35:35 -0800

Web sickness is catchy, and if Toby is not a hoax, I'm sure this idea will catch on, at least briefly, in various forms. Next time we'll see a site that intends to torture an animal unless it receives $50,000 from a corporate sponsor. Perhaps a company like State Farm insurance will pay out the ransom in return for the publicity. A demonstration that "just like a Good Neighbor, State Farm is there."

By: Spacey

Spacey — Tue, 01 Mar 2005 10:32:04 -0800

Shameless, low, disturbing, yet completely impressive. Look at the account balance (assuming it's real). *shrugs*

By: madman

madman — Sun, 06 Mar 2005 23:59:13 -0800

This is a hoax. See snopes.com entry.

By: agregoli

agregoli — Mon, 07 Mar 2005 12:14:25 -0800

Don't gotta check Snopes to know that on this one.