EAT CELEBRITY MEAT

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

Raz succeeded at being worse than a website promoting cannibalism. I'm sure he's proud.

[P3nT4gR4m]

 

[LMNO]

Raz, you'll find that we may be assholes, but we have this thing about racism, sexism, and homophobia. 



Call it a quirk.

[Raz Tech]

okay.  I'll come out and say that I apologize.  I didn't realize that these things were triggers for people here, and while I don't personally find random stereotypes to be particularly racist, I can see why some people feel that way.  I'll be sure to mind my manners on the subject in the future.

[LMNO]

Cool. Thanks.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I wouldn't consider out a trigger so much as something that's not generally considered appropriate on any context. Anyway it would have been funnier if you said whatever he was slugging back when he interrupted Taylor swift.

[P3nT4gR4m]

okay.  I'll come out and say that I apologize.  I didn't realize that these things were triggers for people here, and while I don't personally find random stereotypes to be particularly racist, I can see why some people feel that way.  I'll be sure to mind my manners on the subject in the future.

There's a hair trigger on the outrage cannon on certain specific issues on this forum and yeah, you don't want to go there.  Especially not while you're still being assessed for acceptance into the hivemind 

[LMNO]

Can it, you filthy Scotsman.

[P3nT4gR4m]

but, yeah, everybody gets a free pass on hating the tartan contingent 

[Nephew Twiddleton]

but, yeah, everybody gets a free pass on hating the tartan contingent 

You get it just as much as anyone else with an ethnicity between Britain and Hibernia. Except those fucking Welsh.

[LMNO]

It's all Belgium, anyway.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Why I cannot tells between satire and reality anymore? 

Is satire. Delicious, delicious satire.

[Junkenstein]

okay.  I'll come out and say that I apologize.  I didn't realize that these things were triggers for people here, and while I don't personally find random stereotypes to be particularly racist, I can see why some people feel that way.  I'll be sure to mind my manners on the subject in the future.

You really are doing rather well you know.

A paranoid man might suspect a particularly skilled long troll.

[Raz Tech]

okay.  I'll come out and say that I apologize.  I didn't realize that these things were triggers for people here, and while I don't personally find random stereotypes to be particularly racist, I can see why some people feel that way.  I'll be sure to mind my manners on the subject in the future.

You really are doing rather well you know.

A paranoid man might suspect a particularly skilled long troll.

Not sure how to feel about that.  I can tell you I don't have the patience for lengthy trolling though, so take that as you wish.

[Junkenstein]

Why I cannot tells between satire and reality anymore? 

Is satire. Delicious, delicious satire.

Allegedly not:
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-guy-who-want-to-sell-you-salami-made-out-of-james-franco-are-100-serious

I'll post the entirety of "Kevin's" emails below, because why not:

Our team is deeply interested in food-culture, celebrity & media as well as thinking about the future. Other than highlighting bioethical issues, we are also interested in the way celebrity culture is consumed and hope that there is some kind of back-handed commentary on that.  To develop Celebrity Meat, we're working with a group of bio-engineers and food designers, most of which have requested to remain anonymous due to the controversial nature of the product. 

As for our current campaign, we are hoping to generate celebrity interest and involvement so that we can develop a prototype with celebrity meat. In-vitro meat has the potential to revolutionize the meat industry, with both environmental, animal rights, and eventually economic benefits. We hope that our campaigning efforts will confront people with the very real possibility of a lab-grown meat future.

As for the response, all I can say is that twitter is blowing up, and we've been blown away.  We estimate BiteLabs has been tweeted about over 3000 times in the past 24 hours, and our site has gotten some 100,000 views at the time of this writing. I believe Jennifer Lawrence and James Franco are pretty neck and neck in terms of who has been tweeted at the most.  We've gotten some responses from people offering us biopsies, but no one on the level of our big 4 yet.  Most of the responses have been very positive, but of course some people are a bit uncomfortable with idea of BiteLabs--we think that's only to be expected when we talk about pushing the boundaries of tech and society.

Again, thank you for your interest in BiteLabs!

Kevin from the BiteLabs Team

bitelabs.org

thndr.it/1o2dG6S

* * *

On the subject of seriousness - we're not sure what the market is for celebrity meat. We're in startup mode at the moment though - our first goal is to connect with our user-base and find celebrities interested in participating. BiteLabs is 100% serious in prompting widespread discussion about bioethics, lab-grown meats, and celebrity culture - this is very important to us. Making celebrity meat a reality from there will all depend on our ability to build a user-base.

We also think that prompting the cultural discussion around lab-grown meats and popular culture will acclimate people to the field. We're treating it as a cultural precursor for when our product eventually hits production.

The product is indeed salami. Each salami will have roughly 30% celebrity meat and 40% lab-grown animal meats (we're currently looking into ostrich and venison but it pork and beef are more popular in our early research). The rest will consist of fats and spices. This break-down comes from consultation with expert food designers and chefs.

Our process is very similar to existing methodologies used to make the Google Burger, just tailored to human muscle instead of cow. For more information, check out the 'process-learn more' section of our website.

It would be amazing to have lab meat in major retail outlets! Our early plans revolve around web distribution at the moment though.

If we receive major interest, we'll talk to investors, but we also think crowdfunding celebrity meat via Kickstarter might be a way for us to bootstrap.

We have reasons to remain anonymous at the moment due to the controversial nature of our product. We're a very small team right now (less than 5).

* * *

In terms of hard info, we are a recently formed startup that is trying to get off the ground to provoke a dialogue around what we see as an emerging market space. And while we are working full time on this, we don't want to misrepresent ourself as an established company that is prepared to bring a product to market.

We still feel like its too early to share anything personal. We understand that this generates a certain degree of skepticism and we're okay with that being expressed. Our primary goal right now is to create a public dialogue about around the potential for commercially available lab-grown meat.

If satire, I've seen worse and much more dull ways to attack celebrity culture.

If serious, it's the path to a horrifically hilarious future. "Side of latest pop star to go" territory. Considering some of our current cultural icons,  I bet some would consider it if the money was right. I've no idea where the relative cost effectiveness and other issues currently stand with cloned meat beyond it's possible and has been done.

Either way, I'd expect more to come sooner or later.