Football World Cup Dogmeat Campaign
Fifa (World Football Association) made a request to the Korean government to ban the eating of dog meat during the 2002 World Cup in Korea. Eating dog meat is an old tradition in Korea. Kim Daewoo went on the offensive and fictitiously opened tasting stands at the football stadiums and had a dog meat cookbook written so that the West could understand what a fine delicacy dog meat is. He also opened a branch of his dog meat butchery in Zurich, where Fifa’s headquarters are located.
The Dogmeat.org Project tries to test user reactions and reduce prejudices by means of media reports, forums, e-mail contacts and a poster campaign. For this purpose, the website (www.dogmeat.org Version 1) in three language versions (Korean, English and German) with the design of a Korean dog meat sales company serves as the starting point of the action. The headquarters of the dog meat sales company is given as Seoul, with one branch each in Zurich, London and Toronto. Online meat sales of 46 dog breeds and direct sales on site with access plans are offered. The website also lists the drop-off points for dogs that can no longer find a place in an animal shelter. The website also contains texts on the history of dog meat eating, a forum for dog meat recipes and a forum for user opinions and suggestions for improvement.
You can learn a lot about prejudices and postcolonialist attitudes from the project.
E.g. the forum entry by Giusi and her answers:
Why don’t you eat each other “F.. Koreans”
The Dogmeat.org Project became a success.
Despite millions of websites, “Dogmeat.org” has succeeded in attracting great attention and appealing to a broad public.
Dogmeat.org was the subject of over thirty print and press articles.
There were seven requests for radio interviews. Three radio interviews were broadcast Marc Lee talks with SBS Australia.
In one year, 544167 page hits were achieved, from users in 106 different countries. In addition, 190 emails, 840 forum posts and 257 meat orders were received.
Legal objections
Fifa, the Swiss Animal Protection and several private individuals tried unsuccessfully to take the site off the web. The letter from the HGKZ prorector Prof. Dr. iur. Mischa Charles Senn also helped.
The lawyer of celebrity chef Oliver Jamie threatened with a fine because a user had published his or her dog meat recipe with Oliver Jamie’s name in the recipe forum.
The Dogmeat.org project was a one-year project. The website was taken offline in May 2003. The domain name www.dogmeat.org was immediately taken by a domain speculator company.
