Hello All! We are happy to see you!
The team is alive and well, but has been forced to undergo some re-structuring and re-allocation of duties. We have much more to report to you, regarding Hartz Mountain Corporation’s shady activities but, for the record, we are still currently in hibernation mode; however something occurred a short time ago, necessitating a prompt response from the BH camp.
Throughout the course of our mission, Broken Hartz has had a bit of a back and forth with a group of Twitter users operating under the hash tag “#NipClub” (for readers unaware of what a hash tag is, please click here).
We’ve watched this group and have been unsure of what to make of it, specifically, its leadership… until now.
What is #NipClub?
#NipClub is a large group of people on Twitter, known as “anipals”, tweeting as their cats and dogs. These animal lovers attend #NipClub’s virtual Twitter “pawties” every Thursday as well as one Saturday per month. They pass out virtual drinks (such as “niptinis” and “bacon beer”), eat virtual appetizers, “dance” to music provided by “animal DJs” and socialize with other anipals, all toward the goal of raising money for no-kill animal shelters and rescues. You can read more about #NipClub on their website.
To be clear, we weren’t planning to post anything about this or other incidents surrounding #NipClub on our blog for the simple fact this group seemed innocent, though a bit misguided; however, Shayna Cat (#NipClub Public Relations, “wife” of King Tutti Fruiti, motivational guru and singer for the Black Eared Peas, among other distinctions) saw fit to post a faulty blog entry last week after an exchange of words was had between our groups.
What was at the center of this exchange?
#NipClub is proud to call Hartz Mountain Corporation its corporate sponsor.
That’s right, #NipClub’s mission to stop the unnecessary deaths of countless shelter animals each year is fueled, in part, by prize donations from a monstrous corporation known for causing the unnecessary injuries and deaths of countless dogs and cats annually with their negligent flea & tick care products.
To our knowledge, Hartz is the club’s only corporate sponsor. What makes this go from a case of mere ignorance to one of pure hypocrisy is the fact #NipClub’s founder, @KingTuttiFruiti (aka @FlaCatLady) has openly admitted to knowing Hartz is bad. She simply doesn’t care because they help her mission.
Shayna Cat’s hastily constructed post, which was promoted heavily to the #NipClub community, creates far too many omissions and misleading statements, intentional or otherwise, for Broken Hartz to allow to go unaddressed, but first…
What led to this point?
As many of you know, we popped onto the Twitter scene in January of this year and started checking in on @HartzPets. Among other things, our affiliates noticed Hartz was engaging with others, using the hash tag #NipClub. The @HartzPets Twitter account has done this almost consistently, every Thursday, as long as we have been paying attention.
We reached out to people we saw talking to Hartz through this channel in order to fulfill our mission of warning the public about the dangers of this company. Although some welcomed our information, we were astonished to find more often than not we were merely chastised by the individuals we were trying to help for apparently misusing the hash tag #NipClub. We were told this tag is only to be used for the “pawty”. There was little concern from the “animal loving” individuals contacted regarding the fact they were happily speaking with a manufacturer of negligent animal “care” products. Surprised by this action, but wishing to not commit further faux “paws”, we backed away from #NipClub for quite some time.
In the months that followed, Broken Hartz experienced great success with the Twitter end of its mission. Great contacts were made, our We Iz Anonymous Cats and Melinda Wants Money videos trended for nearly two weeks straight, we started the hash tag #BeTheWave in association with the Tiny Timmy Organization and watched our follower numbers surpass that of @HartzPets. Our mission was growing faster than anticipated.
There was one thorn in our Twitter-side, however. We noticed animal-loving, trusting #NipClub attendees were still blissfully chatting with @HartzPets while the rest of the Twitterverse had clearly been starting to get the message. Over time, #NipClub members became the only Twitter users left truly engaging with the company.
Eventually, despite being in hibernation, this fact left us with the decision to reach out once more to #NipClub, even though we had been told to go away. Shortly after our return to the #NipClub front, our group finally had interaction with one of NipClub’s founders, @KingTuttiFruiti, in August.
This started a very long, public conversation between our groups.
During this conversation, we learned several things:
- The whole time, Hartz had not just been a participant, but a monthly sponsor.
- King Tutti Fruiti was not only aware of the dangers surrounding Hartz products, but claims to have known for years and even warns people at the grocery store to avoid Hartz flea and tick products.
- King Tutti Fruiti claimed to only accept pee pads from Hartz.
Here’s a highlight reel.
We also had a private conversation with Shayna Cat. In this conversation, it was suggested we attend #NipClub events but refrain from mentioning our mission while networking with attendees. We felt this action would be misleading and not in the spirit of our mission to keep our intent clear at all times. An agreement was reached during this discussion that, seeing as how #NipClub was only accepting Hartz pee pads, we would yet again back off this organization. We stated if Hartz can make anything, it’s a product worthy of being peed on. A good laugh was had by all and the matter was dropped. We also offered to assist #NipClub in finding alternative sponsors for their events.
In October, our fears were realized.
A regular #NipClub supporter applied a Hartz flea and tick product to her cat and the animal died. A notice was put out on Saturday, October 13th during the monthly #NipClub “pawty” by a friend of the victim, using the hash tag #NipClub. We received a flood of tweets from #NipClub supporters to the @BrokenHartzPets account, informing us of the situation and asking us to provide information.
For those who were previously unaware, assisting victims is what we do on a regular basis. We cast no “I told you so” comments toward #NipClub Management as we provided the information and consolation needed to #NipClub supporters while we waited to see how #NipClub Management would choose to proceed.
A #NipClub attendee put this tweet out in honor of another #NipClub attendee whose cat died from a reaction to a Hartz flea product.
Things seemed quiet until a month later. We noticed #NipClub Management had not only continued their support of Hartz after one of their own supporter’s cats died from a Hartz product, but they began giving out more Hartz products than King Tutti Fruiti had claimed to accept. Penny questioned King Tutti Fruiti about the new prizes and received no response.
Please note the Hartz products in the bottom-left of the photo.
On Sunday, December 2nd, our kitten on Twitter patrol, @bhpenny, brought some more evidence to the team and it was decided action was needed. The @BrokenHartzPets account sent a few Tweet missiles at #NipClub and @KingTuttiFruiti. King Tutti Fruiti decided to respond from her @FlaCatLady account, several NipClubbers jumped in to blindly defend #NipClub with seemingly no knowledge of the situation and we went back and forth with the group for hours.
The following day, Shayna Cat posted a blog entry entitled, “If You Have a Problem at #NipClub“. In this case, Broken Hartz would be considered the “problem”. As mentioned above, there were many misleading statements which we would now like to take the opportunity to correct.
1) The following screenshot is the first bullet under Shayna’s “What #NipClub Isn’t” section of her misleading post.
Broken Hartz does not conduct fundraising and has never asked #NipClub to assist with raising funds for Broken Hartz.
All Broken Hartz affiliates are volunteers. We do not seek funds at any time and do not profit in any way from our protest of Hartz Mountain Corporation. Plus, we operate anonymously so we fail to see how anyone could ever misconstrue our words into thinking we have interest in creating a paper trail through fundraising.
2) In the point “Campaigning”, Shayna Cat says this:
First of all, #NipClub has already resorted to reporting us as spam. As a matter of fact, as evidenced by the screenshot below, they put out the call to report us as spam one day before posting their blog entry about the incident.
Second, we do not spam the #NipClub hash tag. Addressing the fact Hartz Mountain Corporation is a sponsor of #NipClub, while itself being a danger to animals is not off-topic and, therefore, not spam.
We believe the true issue here is obvious. #NipClub Management does not appreciate the fact we are exposing their hypocrisy so they seek to lure their followers into thinking we are the troublemakers instead of swallowing their pride and making a tough, but proper, ethical decision for the good of their trusting anipal followers as well as allowing their mission to keep a clear conscience.
We also wish to point out others in #NipClub have used the #NipClub tag recently to promote a Hartz toy blog giveaway, which is completely unrelated to #NipClub’s goals of raising funds for animal shelters. Following Shayna Cat’s #NipClub hash tag abuse logic, shouldn’t this be considered spam as well? King Tutti Fruiti even promoted the unrelated Hartz giveaway using the #NipClub hash tag.
For those umaware, Hartz Mountain Corporation is the manufacturer of the Angry Birds toy line for pets.
Side Note for BH Warriors: We thought Hartz would be promoting their Skelanimals toys by now. Hmm, we wonder what happened to this other disastrous collaboration.
Continuing…
3) Here is another remark in Shayna Cat’s blog post we must address:
The fact is, #NipClub Management does oppose us through their willingness to involve #NipClub in Hartz’ cause, the cause of deceiving the animal loving public with philanthropic smokescreens. #NipClub Management’s actions, not ours, are hurting those they’re attempting to help.
We’re not asking #NipClub to be part of the solution. We’re simply asking #NipClub to not be part of the problem. Allowing Hartz to sponsor such a well-meaning cause hurts those #NipClub is trying to help far more than us warning others about the true, serious, heart-breaking and costly danger surrounding Hartz and its products every once in a while with a #NipClub tweet.
In fact, the Hartz sponsorship has, and will continue to, put many animal lovers off from #NipClub events due to the fact they partner with a negligent monster.
Moving on…
4) Shayna Cat seems torn on the tact she wished to take with us in her post, as evidenced by these conflicting comments:
Shayna Cat’s polite comment of us possibly having “the best cause in the world” seems a bit weakened when combined with the assertion we are abusers, don’t you think?
We are especially offended by this remark considering the inordinate amount of personal time our team dedicates to helping individuals who have lost animals to Hartz, and we do it without the aid of a sinister corporate sponsor, to whom we turn a blind eye.
Now that we’ve addressed Shayna’s innaccuracies…
Here are a few things that seem to come up between us and #NipClub attendees that we would like to take the opportunity to address:
1) Is this about animal testing?
While we are certainly not fond of animal testing (especially after many long nights reading EPA flea and tick product testing reports), our specific mission has nothing to do with it. No official Broken Hartz affiliates are, or ever have been, members of any animal-related organization.
Our issue is with the damage Hartz causes after their products have been sold to consumers.
2) You’re not who you claim to be.
King Tutti Fruiti made this paranoid and bizarre claim publicly last August to the @BrokenHartzPets account:
The “King” never clarified this absurd comment, but this was brought up with Shayna Cat in private messages. In these messages, Shayna mentioned she believed King Tutti Fruiti was referring to some incident that had occurred previously which King Tutti Fruiti was seeming to attribute to us as well.
Attention #NipClub Managment:
- Our mission was not started to mess with you.
- We had no prior knowledge of #NipClub before starting our mission.
- Our only accounts on Twitter are @BrokenHartzPets and @bhpenny.
- We don’t work for anyone in animal industries or any other related industries.
- We’re not sure who you think is behind our mission but, we assure you, you’re wrong.
- Get over yourselves.
We work anonymously because we report on a multi-billion dollar corporation notorious for bullying its detractors. We have a negative impact on the corporate image they pay a lot of money to maintain. Remaining anonymous offers us and our families a small amount of personal protection. Call it what you want, but it is the best approach for our mission.
3) Why don’t you go after retailers/tell people at the grocery store/protest somewhere else?
The assumption Broken Hartz doesn’t do these things is quite ridiculous. We do plenty outside of Twitter and to assume all you see is all we do is painfully ignorant.
Twitter is but one small part of our organization’s activities but, for those who haven’t realized, Twitter is the equivalent of standing outside thousands of grocery stores at once, clearly making our acts of protest through this chosen medium a worthwhile endeavor. Just as #NipClub and Hartz use Twitter and other services on the internet to further their causes, we will continue to use the internet to further ours.
4) NipClub doesn’t give out Hartz flea products.
Duh.
Shayna Cat said this to us last week and, yes, we know this. We have never stated that #NipClub gives away or even promotes Hartz flea and tick products directly. On a side note, @KingTuttiFruiti favorited our “admission” to Shayna Cat, as if this was some kind of profound victory.
Our point is it’s not caring or compassionate to take the attitude #NipClub Management takes.
@KingTuttiFruiti (@FlaCatLady) and @ShaynaCat have spent years communicating a message to their followers, that boils down to something like this:
We’ve taken the time to verify these carefully selected causes so you can rest assured your donations are going to worthy charities.
#NipClub Management has trained its followers to blindly trust them, but then carelessly throws out pro-Hartz marketing messages for “pawesome” giveaways and kudos for helping the #NipClub mission. When questioned about this, #NipClub Management’s response basically amounts to:
Not our problem. We know that shit is bad and we’re surprised others don’t. Don’t they research?
No, #NipClub Management. They don’t because you’ve taught them you will do the thinking for them. We’ve also noticed a surge in your Hartz interactions since our most recent altercation.
Allowing Hartz to sponsor #NipClub makes Hartz look like a “good guy”. This is a very common marketing technique used by many corporations to mislead the public.
In conclusion, as the title of the song suggests, perhaps “vampires” is a bit strong; but the following song (with lyrics beneath) is dedicated to #NipClub Management:
————————-
I’ve seen your eyes as they fix on me.
“What is he doing? What on earth’s the plan?
Has he got one?”
You better give me some pointers
since you are the big rocket launcher
and I´m just the shotgun.
Well, I’ve got no dollar signs in my eyes.
That might be a surprise but it’s true.
Said, “I´m not like you
and I don’t want your advice or your praise
or to move in the ways you do
and I never will.”
Cause all you people are vampires
and all your stories are stale
and though you pretend to stand by us
I know you´re certain we´ll fail.
I´ve seen your eyes as they fix on me,
full of confusion.
Your snarl is just so condescending.
Trying to explain that we´re on to a win
if the fee we get in
near recoups what we´re spending
He said “I can´t believe
that you drove all that way. Well how much did they
Pay ya? How much did they pay ya?
You´d have been better to stay round our way,
thinking about things but not actually doing things.”
(2x)
Cause all you people are vampires
and all your stories are stale
and though you pretend to stand by us
I know you´re certain we´ll fail.
All you people are vampires!
————————-
We again request #NipClub Management end its Hartz partnership.
=^..^=
