Status: Real (unfortunately)
A series of pictures showing a woman crushing a kitten to death with her stiletto heels is causing an uproar over in China. The pictures first appeared on the internet and have recently been published by some Chinese newspapers. The woman in the photos has been dubbed the Kitten Killer of Hangzhou, because the background scene has been identified as Hangzhou. I've been able to locate four of the pictures in the series, but I think there are a few more (far more graphic) ones. Here are the ones I found (I don't have larger versions):
The big question is: Who is this woman? One theory is that the images come from a Japanese shoe advertisement. Another theory identifies the kitten killer as a "37-year-old woman from Hubei province with the internet identity 'Gainmas.'"
The London Telegraph elaborates:
She had registered a website in Hangzhou and - the ultimate evidence - had bought a pair of stilettoes on eBay last year. She was also registered with QQ, a popular Chinese message service, where she wrote of herself: "I furiously crush everything to do with you and me." Before her QQ address went dead, its owner had several conversations. In one, she is coy, saying "So what?" when asked if the pictures are of her, and then, when asked again, replying: "In theory." When confronted by a reporter, she became defensive, saying: "Suddenly hundreds of people are on my QQ and cursing me. What's the problem if I crush cats? It's a type of experience. You wouldn't understand."
The Telegraph goes on to note:
No one seems to have suggested the serious possibility that the photographs could be a hoax - created by picture-altering computer software. But in the face of tight control of self-expression, young Chinese are seeking wildly different forms of sensation or satire on the state of society.
Without having seen all the pictures (and better quality ones), it's hard to judge whether or not they're real. But it certainly seems like this has already become the Chinese version of
Bonsai Kitten (with the added twist that it may be real... in which case it's definitely disgusting).
Update: A "Crush" video is circulating around (you can find links to it in the comments, if you're interested) that makes it pretty clear the woman really did step on a kitten. Also, an article in the
Shanghai Daily reports that the lady, and the guy who produced the video, have been identified. The producer, who is a camera operator at a TV station, has apologized. However, the woman, who works as a nurse at a hospital, has disappeared, leading to concerns that kitten commandoes may have abducted her (or something along those lines).
Comments
Here I go. People eat meat. Big deal. No, people do not need meat to survive, beans and nuts have enough protein, but people have eaten meat for forever and the majority will not stop because you argue about it on a thred. Also, this has NOTHING to do with the kitten killer.
Secondly, people are upset about the kitten killer becaus it's the NEEDLESS (and painful) dying of a BABY DOMESTIC animal. It's dying for no apparant reason, that's #1. It's just a baby, that's #2, and #3 is that it is a domestic animal, like what we have in our own homes. It hits close to home. This is not the place to argue about vegetarianism, this is a place to argue about whether this video is a hoax or real.
I havent seen the video/pictures, and I'm not going to because I'm a fourteen year old girl, and I'd be scared out of my mind, but I'm not going to argue about people's choices in diet. I'll leave that to you.
What can potentially be resolved is how genuine this woman's stunt was. Since there is apparently a video as well as the pictures, I doubt that the images have been manipulated to make it appear that she was stepping on the kitten when she really wasn't. Doing that sort of fakery convincingly to photographs is hard enough; going back and editing the images in a video would be a major effort.
So I think that the woman is indeed actually stepping on something. That leaves the question of what she's stepping on. Is it a real, live kitten? Is it a dead kitten? Or is it a fake kitten?
I would say it s not a trick, definetly not digitally manipulated (way too much effort and too perfectly real for a digital illusion anyway), but probably the cat is whether heavily sedated or already dead, as it doesn t try to run away and/or makes any visible effort of resistance against what that woman is doing. The sound got probably dubbed in afterwards. At least I hope so.
The argumentation that animals are getting killed for food, too, is in my opinion not in any way appropriate, as there s a main difference if something gets killed for food or if something gets killed for fun and for the enjoyment of gruesome cruelty against a (maybe) living creature. Even if for example animals are getting killed for the skin (leather for shoes or whatever) there s no real sense in inappropriate cruelty against the animal.
On the other side (I m shooting my own leg now): football is fun for a lot of people and the ball is made out of leather. So the animal that got killed for producing the football also got killed "for fun".
...maybe it s the wrong place to discuss something like this.
Ain t it a crazy thing that china is censoring western websites and on the other side there s stuff like this swapping into the web from china? Maybe china shouldn t censor the western websites but western websites should censor chinese ones. First time ever that I m thinking of something like this. It s sick sick sick...
Yet I wonder too if all this noise had been raised if it had been a cockroach instead of a kitten.
I have to agree with Acci. Also, I mentioned before I'm allergic to dead animals. When my Guinea Pig died, it would have been left in it's cage for a week before my husband came home from a training trip. Luckily (for me) my sister & her boyfriend were visiting & were able to dig a hole & stick the thing inside. I don't mind animals dying...and I even helped kill a rooster (to eat). There's just something about their dull eyes, limp bodies...ICK.
I would be just as grossed out by a human body as an animal being squished to death.
And LaMa...cockroaches don't really make noise while being crushed - but *I* personally would be grossed out by a yucky squished body with guts coming out of it. If I knew it was just crushed & could not see it - I would not be upset at all.
i do eat meat & enjoy it but i am really againts cruelety to animals of any kind
my two cents to the moral-discussion: a lot of posters have mixed up something here. it's not about killing a animal, it's a about torturing an animal to death. if you don't see the difference - well go fuck yourself, heartless piece of shit.
but now for something completely different:
i can't go to sleep until i really know if it's fake or real.
something is clear: a normal, healthy cat wouldn't react like this. it would try to escape. the cat in the video doesn't - the quesion is why.
some have assumed that the cat is on some sedatives (or perhaps on drugs). that was also the first thing coming in my mind. other assumed the cat to be already dead. but then, how do you explain the cats moves.
in fact, the movement of the cat looks very strange. this brought an other horrible consideration to my mind. look closely at the legs at the beginning of the movie, when the women carries the cat. they look very unnatural.
i have absolutley no idea abot anatomy - but could it be possible to break some specific bones to circumvent that the cat can flee? do you understand my question, my englist is very bad, sorry. i would be very happy if someone could give me an answer.
i really hope my speculations are wrong - if not, it would be even more horrible. i really hope, the cat was sedated.
also strange are the eyes of the cat, they look like the eyes of a dead cat to me. and the sound is odd too, sounds like overdubbed.
some 'experts' should take care of this, i really need to now the truth.
but she has disappeared, i hope some fanatic animal lovers took care of her.
i really must admin, that i wouldn't wait one second to give a headshot, if i had the chance to.
may sound hard. but it's indeed ethically acceptable, as it isn't possible to punish her because china hasn't any animal protection rights.
well whatever, read this:
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/art/2006/03/11/248818/Cat_stomper_found_to_be_nurse.htm
Personally, I don't give a f**k if she stomped a real cat or not. If the typical 'righteous indignation' hypocrites are offended, well so what?
It's sh*ts like this we need less of.
An act like this is just continuing this shit in the same way it started. Probably this woman also got some thousands to act in the video. Now you want to give some thousands to someone to find her to send someone to "talk" to her. Afterwards her lover gives some thousands to someone to get you killed. Then an upset crowd of american tourists will have a demonstration in Peking against chinese contract killers and cruelty against cats. Then the chinese authorities will send some tanks to crush them. Somebody will take a video of that and sell it to a video company in afghanistan that will sell the shit worldwide as an act of political propaganda. USA will then already have started to throw bombs onto China, because they ve crushed those american tourists...and all that shit because someone stepped on a cat. I don t want that.
The video is sick-sick-sick, but hey: calm down. You don t need to get no f***ing contract killer, you know?
Repeat slowly: calm blue ocean, calm blue ocean, calm blue ocean ...
the crush video scene is involved in the threads about the catkiller, and tries do calm down people.
they want relativize the case, like ('uuuh, what's so hard? western civilization kills animals all the time; don't we all eat meat?; there's much more cruel things going on,; etc. - you know it).
of course, those people don't tell you that they're from the crush video scene.
but it's obvious; David B. and the rest of you, fuck you, and go to hell.
"the crush video scene is involved in the threads about the catkiller, and tries do calm down people."
"aeiou: what else should we do, besides calming down?"
...if you intend to connect me to any weird crush video scene, then please read the posts that I been writing right after I ve seen that sick video.
What else should we do? I f***ing don t know. Am I god or what!? I don t see any sense in personal revenge, like that guy who wanted to pay 10000USD to find that woman and then send some "friends" over to "talk" to her. If someone finds enjoyment in doing or watching shit like this that person should be taken care of in legal ways. If there s no laws against cruelty against pets then it s time for some pressure of some animal rights movement. maybe this video even can do something good by convincing people to join something like peta for example. any coin has it s good and it s bad side.
BTW: When I was a little child some kids in my age I knew thought it was cool to catch flies to tore off their wings and then watch it crawling over the table. I thought it was gruesome but it s actually the same thing. Only that a kitten looks more cute.
to torture a fly is not the same like to torture a cut. and the difference is not only, that a cat looks more cute to us. the nervous system of a cat is much more complex, so a cat can receive much more pain than a fly. it's important to see this difference.
still, torturing a fly for no other reason than the 'fun of turture' is unacceptable.
i agree with you, that 'personal revenge' is in fact a very problematic thing. still, as china doesn't have animal rights, it's ethically acceptable to 'make it on your own'.
still, i agree with you, that 'pressuring china to get some animal rights' is far more intelligent.
and that's what's actually happening.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitten_killer_of_hangzhou
Be warend, as the video is very disturbing. After viewing it, there is no doubt in my mind that it is real and that some sick fuck DID kill a defenceless kitten for no reason.
ONLY CLICK ON THE LINK IF YOU ARE PREPARED MENTALLY, as the video is very disturbing.
PAPER8
a) ever seen a cat like that hanging around in the hands of that bitch? it looks like asleep/dead or heavily sedated
b) the cat s front legs are twitching when she steps on the hind legs. but still the cat doesn t seem to make any effort of running away. i don t know too much about medicine, but couldn t it be a reaction after death (like headless running chickens)? if you ever stepped on a cat s tail by accident you know what i mean ... this cat s definetly NOT full consciuos.
i don t want to euphemise anything here, but I just cannot sleep anymore as long as I m not sure that this cat was sedated or dead.
General anaesthetic is made of of two components, one part to paralyse your motor system and the other to knock you out, so your not awake through the trauma. There are other medications that also render the body paralysed where the brain still is fully functional, and it being china, im sure they could have gotten a hold of something anywhere with no real hassle. Also being that she was a nurse, she could picked some up on her way out. I believe it was a mild paralytic drug, as its legs arent quite twitching, the action is larger more distressed, as if it weakly did try to run away. So basically if they wanted to get a real reaction out of that kitten then and there without it fighting back they could, and it probably felt every step of that vile womans heel!
Dubbing the film from an earlier recording could have also been used, dubbing is not hard, any joe average can do it with the most basic software. and ive used mobile phones with better quality mics that those of digital cameras, even outdoors and noisy bars, so he might just have a good mic. The sounds are definately from a real cat in pain or distress though. So guess its up to you whether you believe the voice is from that kitten or another. It coould have even been recorded from them torturing it when it was fully conscious before hand.
Once again it is china and people disappear by the thousands, so I sincerly hope that some extreme chinese activists did pick her out of the population, and give her a taste of the "type of experience. We wouldn't understand."!!!
http://media.snuffx.com/x/red-gru65fhfgrh/mar20/snuffx-dot-com-peta-investigation-in-china.wmv
my fren showed me that vid when i was eating and i puked =.= (anyone could)
one day a sadist would go after her and do the same thing
crushing this and that and popping her eyes out plus squishing her head
(from wad i see in the vid, yeah, its like that)
unsound people go after unsound people
but there' the problem that china has no animal rights, and that's innacceptable. and to mention that is in no way racistic.
Lord Roboboy: in fact, the woman is from china, not japan. 😛
just? is that right??? so if i were to stomp your child in the eyeball...and then use my heel to crush its
body..and crush their head until their eyeball pops and squishes out...it must be a good experience?!?! is
that right??? common comment here!!!!!!
Here's the video...
http://www.consumptionjunction.com/content/detail.asp?ID=54748&type=1&page=2
i seriously dont mean to be rude or techified but its really getting on my nerves. Using a computer to create anything similar to that movie would be highly inefficient for the filmakers/producers, mundanely time consuming and so goddam costly i doubt anyone bar big buck blockbuster standards wud pay for it. it would take months, 24/7 to photoshop a moving image perfectly. and you wouldnt use photoshop, there are hundreds of applications that would do the job.
You got some serios issues if you hate a person just because the color of their skin. How can you judge a person before even seeing them or getting to know them.
What you said can be seen as pretty racist to be perfectlly honest, but at the same time I feel sorry for you because you are narrow minded and from your comments it does seem that you live in your own little world where the majority of chinese people like to torture little animals in their spare time.
China does not have animal rights, but does that mean that just because they have animal rights people won't do it! Don't be stupid. Rape is against the law people still do it, robbery is against the law people still do it. There are just bad people and bad people will just do shit like that.
Anyway I'm not gonna comment on this anymore because there's no point in trying to explain anything to anyone who has ideas set in their heads already.
What heppend in the video is bad, I'm not denying it, but there are worse things happening in the world for us to get so worked up on this few minutes clip. What has been done is done, it can't be erased and it will happen again, so just wacth the clip and just understand that shit like that happens and not turn it into a race thing, as shit like this happens everyday! NOT JUST IN CHINA!
I'm in the U.K and the other week there was a picture in the papers of a dog chained to a tree and set alight! Shit like that just happens.
you're not seriously saying you think bonsai kittens are real are you??????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!