Peta’s Helena Soh

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is the largest animal rights organization in the world, with more than 3 million members and supporters.

PETA focuses its attention on the four areas in which the largest numbers of animals suffer the most intensely for the longest periods of time: on factory farms, in the clothing trade, in laboratories, and in the entertainment industry. We also work on a variety of other issues, including the cruel killing of beavers, birds, and other “pests” as well as cruelty to domesticated animals.

PETA works through public education, cruelty investigations, research, animal rescue, legislation, special events, celebrity involvement, and protest campaigns.

Meet Helena Soh, Peta’s Social Media Manager and her friend’s rescued mutt, Kona. Helena is beautiful inside and out!

ASIANCE: What is your background (ethnicity, education)?

Helena: My parents were born and raised in Korea, and I was born and raised in Monterey, Calif., so technically I’m first-generation Korean-American. I studied communications and global studies—and, of course, the art of living in paradise—at UC–Santa Barbara.

ASIANCE: What does your family say about your involvement with PETA?

Helena: After my family members learned about PETA’s work, they went from being supportive of me, personally, to supporting animal rights—my parents even went vegetarian to improve their health! I love hearing my mom give her friends tips on how to make Korean dishes vegetarian. The rest of my family has cut down on meat significantly, too, so our holidays are pretty much all vegan now.

And it’s funny, while my dad’s Korean friends brag about their kids being doctors and dentists, my dad proudly tells them about PETA’s “I’d Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur” campaign and how many lives PETA saves every year. My family is more than supportive—they’re helping animals, and I couldn’t ask for more.

ASIANCE: How did you get involved with PETA? Was that your first job out of school? Is it full-time?

Helena: After college, I taught English in Korea for a year and a half before returning to the U.S. and working in L.A.’s music industry. I loved being surrounded by music, but after a few years, I wanted to get more involved in social-justice work. My friend Alison Sudol from A Fine Frenzy is a PETA supporter, and knowing how much I love animals, she invited me to come as her guest to a PETA holiday party. I knew about PETA and was really excited to go, but it wasn’t until I was actually at the party, watching PETA’s “End of Year” video, that I remembered that when I was a child, I’d written in my diary that I wanted to work at PETA when I grew up—something I’d forgotten about until that moment! After that, I met PETA Associate Director of Communications Michelle Cho—also known as PETA’s other Korean tweeter—and the rest is history.

(See our interview with Michelle Cho.)

ASIANCE: What is your job description? What causes do you specifically work for at PETA?

Helena: I am the social media manager at PETA. In addition to tweeting about our campaigns and other animal rights news, I oversee a team of social-media coordinators who manage our social platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, and YouTube—and with the way new platforms pop up every day, you can imagine how that list is always growing. I get to be involved with work from across the organization. A typical day for me might involve launching a celebrity campaign with our communications team, taking over the Facebook page of an airline that ships monkeys for experiments, or brainstorming with the Marketing Department about ways to get a brand such as bebe to ditch fur. I love my role because it allows me to see every day how PETA is fighting for animals from every direction and in every industry. Being the voice that shares PETA’s work with the public is a huge responsibility, and I take a lot of pride in it.

ASIANCE: Which public personas/celebrities are PETA supporters? Who is on PETA’s “shameful” list?

Helena: Working with celebrities is one of the best ways to reach new audiences with the animal rights message. That’s why we love receiving support from a wide variety of people. Some of our most recent campaigns have featured actors http://www.peta.org/features/mayim-bialik-tosses-out-meat.aspx, Alec Baldwin, Maggie Q, Olivia Munn, and Cloris Leachman; pro athletes Amar’e Stoudemire, Terrell Suggs, and Marlen Esparza; musicians Tommy Lee and Tony Kanal; Jersey Shore’s Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino; drag superstar Sharon Needles; TV hosts Wendy Williams and Bob Barker; and many more.

Of course, while most people nowadays are adopting kinder attitudes toward animals, some people persist in harming them. Kim Kardashian, for example, is a notorious fur-wearer, and we will never stop hoping that she listens to her fans and stops wearing animals’ skins. She’d be in good company with kind A-listers such as Natalie Portman and Anne Hathaway, and she wouldn’t hurt for designer goods, either—just look at the amazing vegan boots that Tom Ford created for Anne to wear on the red carpet at the Les Misérables premiere!

ASIANCE: What animals do you have?

Helena: I lost my dear pug, King Kong, to cancer six years ago, and I miss him every day—I wish he could come to our office and play with all the other pups here. When I’m ready, I’ll definitely adopt a new rescue from a shelter.

ASIANCE: How do you deal with seeing animal abuse at your job every day? Does it affect you?

Helena: It’s definitely difficult and can even be heartbreaking at times. But the way I like to think of it is: This animal suffered so much—was beaten and forced to perform in a circus, had his or her throat slit in a slaughterhouse, or was left to suffer at the end of a chain in someone’s backyard—and the very least that I can do is witness the animal’s suffering, remember his or her pain, and do what I can to make sure that the story gets told, with the aim that no other animals will suffer the way that one did. And it all pays off—one day I might be heartbroken by newly released photos of animals suffering at a disgusting breeding facility, and the next, I’m doing a happy dance because J Brand ditched fur and President Obama signed a bill to protect goats from being stabbed and killed in military training exercises. The victories give me hope and inspire me to keep on keeping on.

ASIANCE: What is something you could tell the audience that they might not know about animals?

Helena: Pigs are smarter than dogs—smarter in some ways than even 3-year-old children!—and can even play video games!

ASIANCE: I really like Ingrid Newkirk. I think she is doing a great job of exposing new areas of animal mistreatment not previously known: factory farming, horse slaughter, etc. Is there any area that you feel needs more attention at this time? Which area has the most lenient laws for protecting animals?

Helena: Personally, I would love to see mandatory spay-and-neuter laws. Six to 8 million dogs and cats end up in U.S. animal shelters every year, and half of them have to be euthanized because there just aren’t enough homes for them. And because people aren’t fixing their animals—and because puppy mills and breeders keep churning out puppies and kittens for profit—this cycle continues every year.

In terms of U.S. laws, a few cities—such as Los Angeles, where it’s illegal to sell cruelly produced foie gras or to sell animals in pet shops, and many cities where it’s illegal to chain your dog up outside—are ahead of the game. In contrast, a few states, including Wyoming, are trying to pass “ag-gag” laws—which would criminalize undercover investigations on factory farms, preventing groups such as PETA from gathering the evidence that law-enforcement officials need to make a case against animal abusers—but fortunately, bills like these have been defeated or dropped in many states.

Internationally, the European Union just banned testing cosmetics and household products on animals, which is great news. On the other hand, there are no penalties for abusing animals on fur farms in China—and since China is the world’s largest exporter of fur, that means it’s likely that the fur jacket that you see in the store comes from an animal—possibly a dog or a cat!—who was caged, electrocuted, and even skinned alive.

ASIANCE: Anything else you would like to add? How can someone get involved with PETA besides just becoming a member?

Helena: We’d love for people to become members or sign up for our Action Team (or, if they’re students, the peta2 Street Team) to get involved with events, demonstrations, and campaigns in their areas. And never underestimate the power of social media! Everyone can help animals simply by retweeting, sharing, and posting animal rights videos, vegan recipes, tips for cruelty-free shopping, and more.

ASIANCE: What other celebrities did you get for your social media campaigns?

Helena: We’ve been extremely lucky to have people such as Miley Cyrus help us reach millions of people in a single instant simply by retweeting PETA’s posts. We’re huge Miley fans here at PETA and couldn’t be more grateful to her for using her social-media platforms to advocate animal adoption and to shed light on the cruelty of the dairy industry—and she even mentioned on Ellen that she follows PETA on Twitter! These actions make a huge difference for countless animals.

ASIANCE: What are your goals or what do you hope to achieve in your social media campaigns?

Helena: PETA’s social media is our online megaphone for all animal-related news. More importantly, our social-media campaigns directly call on the public to help us win victories for animals—and people are eager to jump in and help as soon as they hear the call. I could be tweeting back and forth with the University of Wisconsin–Madison, calling its researchers out for mutilating live cats in experiments, and before you know it, thousands of people are signing our action alert to cut government funding on experiments at the school. PETA even used Twitter to take over a NASA Twitter conference a few years ago, urging it to cancel plans to use monkeys in a harmful radiation experiment. And it wasn’t long before NASA announced that the experiments had been canceled!

Social media also opens up a window into the organization. While PETA grabs news headlines with our undercover investigations and our ads featuring celebrities who would “rather go naked than wear fur,” we’ve got a lot more going on than that, which our supporters get to see on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. For example, @PETA will tweet photos of PETA staffers delivering straw and doghouses to dogs who are chained outside with no protection from the elements. While we always encourage people to bring their animals indoors and make them a part of the family, we are also pragmatic. The straw that we deliver won’t freeze in the winter, as blankets do, and our doghouses protect dogs from the bitter cold of winter and the sweltering heat of summer.

Anything else you’d like to add?

Helena: Head over to PETA.org for delicious animal-friendly recipes for all your favorite dishes, and be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram!