Shh, I'm hunting wabbits...

February 17, 2005 10:53 AM

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.
posted by nospecialfx (59 comments total)

Can't prove it, but I am pretty sure this is a double post.
posted by terrapin at 10:58 AM on February 17, 2005

Exactly what I was going to say.
posted by squidlarkin at 11:00 AM on February 17, 2005

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.
posted by bugbread at 11:00 AM on February 17, 2005

There are at least 14000 idiots out there....
posted by c13 at 11:03 AM on February 17, 2005

It's either a double post or a copycat; the other guy was asking for Euros.
posted by fossil_human at 11:03 AM on February 17, 2005

I donated some recipes.
posted by Dean Keaton at 11:04 AM on February 17, 2005

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

And one genius.

I want to meet this guy. He's even more devious than Karyn.
posted by Epenthesis at 11:04 AM on February 17, 2005

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.
posted by nospecialfx at 11:06 AM on February 17, 2005

I cried, then I pulled out my lucky rabbits foot and said "Don't kill Toby," three times. That should do it.
posted by lacus at 11:07 AM on February 17, 2005

Save Bernd... copycat not repost.
posted by bobo123 at 11:08 AM on February 17, 2005

What a jackass. Get a job dude.
posted by tr33hggr at 11:10 AM on February 17, 2005

I clicked the paypal link and got a page that says he's no longer able to take payments.
posted by wsg at 11:10 AM on February 17, 2005

hmmm....
posted by brevator at 11:12 AM on February 17, 2005

What a cunt.
posted by tommyc at 11:12 AM on February 17, 2005

oops, yeah, what wsg said.
posted by brevator at 11:12 AM on February 17, 2005

Paypal are a bunch of wankers.
posted by delmoi at 11:14 AM on February 17, 2005

I hope he chokes on it.
posted by fenriq at 11:17 AM on February 17, 2005

File this under "wish I'd thought of it."
posted by bondcliff at 11:17 AM on February 17, 2005

Registered through Domains by Proxy. Coward.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 11:18 AM on February 17, 2005

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.
posted by thanatogenous at 11:19 AM on February 17, 2005

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.
posted by bugbread at 11:28 AM on February 17, 2005

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
posted by thedevildancedlightly at 11:33 AM on February 17, 2005

That is one tasty looking rabbit.
posted by buriednexttoyou at 11:37 AM on February 17, 2005

Stoopid. Not him, the people who would a) believe this and b) send him money.
posted by agregoli at 11:39 AM on February 17, 2005

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.
posted by Griffins_posse at 11:41 AM on February 17, 2005

I hate these guys.

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

Damn.
posted by C.Batt at 11:43 AM on February 17, 2005

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.
posted by LordSludge at 11:51 AM on February 17, 2005

(sorry, self-link image. Seemed appropriate. I won't do it again.)
posted by tittergrrl at 11:52 AM on February 17, 2005

The German girls are still pretty.
posted by sciurus at 12:02 PM on February 17, 2005

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.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 12:23 PM on February 17, 2005

PRANK
posted by lobstah at 12:29 PM on February 17, 2005

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?
posted by damehex at 12:37 PM on February 17, 2005

Everything is derivative.
posted by rtimmel at 12:52 PM on February 17, 2005

Yeah,stupid capitalism! I think people shouldn't be allowed to do what they want with their money. That should solve the problem..
posted by Luke Pski at 12:57 PM on February 17, 2005

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.
posted by bugbread at 1:28 PM on February 17, 2005

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.
posted by papakwanz at 1:28 PM on February 17, 2005

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?
posted by damehex at 1:30 PM on February 17, 2005

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.
posted by davejay at 1:33 PM on February 17, 2005

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?
posted by fenriq at 1:34 PM on February 17, 2005

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"!
posted by papakwanz at 1:55 PM on February 17, 2005

Homer cried as he ate Pinchy...
posted by Specklet at 2:03 PM on February 17, 2005

You know, if Toby balanced cool things on his head, that guy would have his $50k and then some.
posted by Dreama at 2:13 PM on February 17, 2005

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.
posted by LordSludge at 2:18 PM on February 17, 2005

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....
posted by Oriole Adams at 2:48 PM on February 17, 2005

...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.
posted by five fresh fish at 3:13 PM on February 17, 2005

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.
posted by koeselitz at 3:17 PM on February 17, 2005

Rabbit stewed with prunes in kriek.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 4:57 PM on February 17, 2005

I can't believe so many people think this is awesome, but were disgusted by people who would make money off restaurant reservations.
posted by drezdn at 5:35 PM on February 17, 2005

That's because when it comes to paying for restaurant reservations, not only are we the payers, but we're the rabbit.
posted by bugbread at 6:17 PM on February 17, 2005

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

Hmm...
posted by abcde at 7:37 PM on February 17, 2005

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.
posted by VulcanMike at 8:41 PM on February 17, 2005

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.
posted by kindall at 9:02 PM on February 17, 2005

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.
posted by agregoli at 9:53 AM on February 18, 2005

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.

posted by exhilaration at 12:23 PM on February 18, 2005

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?
posted by davy at 5:00 PM on February 19, 2005

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."
posted by ember at 7:35 PM on February 21, 2005

Shameless, low, disturbing, yet completely impressive. Look at the account balance (assuming it's real). *shrugs*
posted by Spacey at 10:32 AM on March 1, 2005

This is a hoax. See snopes.com entry.
posted by madman at 11:59 PM on March 6, 2005

Don't gotta check Snopes to know that on this one.
posted by agregoli at 12:14 PM on March 7, 2005