Some people have a stereotype of them being condescending, preachy, and self-righteous. Or maybe they just hear about the morons (like the ones who give vegan diets to their carnivore pets) all the time.
Years ago I joined a field trip to the aquarium for my daughter’s second-grade class. While the kids were waiting outside to go in to the aquarium, I noticed a pair of strangers, a man and a woman, walking up and down the line of kids trying to talk to them and hand them something. I rushed over, because it was clear they weren’t aquarium staff (who wear t-shirts and name badges, as these two weren’t). I got between them and the kids and took one of the booklets they were handing out. It was a “comic book” about abuse of fish and other marine life–lots of graphic, gory, bloody images from fishing boats and whaling. Really shocking and over-the-top. They were PETA (the name and logo was on the back page of the booklets). They wanted to tell the kids to refuse to go into the aquarium, where (they claimed) the fish were abused and suffering.
I told them to leave the kids alone and go elsewhere, which they did after some argument.
That’s the kind of tactic that makes PETA so despised. You can have rational arguments about the fishing industry. Certainly about whaling. (Even, I suppose, about public aquariums). But freaking out seven- and eight-year-old kids, showing them bloody and horrific pictures, on the sly and without the consent of the kids’ parents or teachers? That’s just slimy. It’s extremely abusive and unjustifiable.
I get that, though it seems a weird point of view to have about people you’re fairly likely to come into contact with. Most of us just don’t eat meat. Though the OP did say dislike rather than hate, so that’s slightly different.
But if you can understand disliking vegetarians, it seems odd to not understand hating PETA.
PETA and vegetarianism intersect in the place where the reason you don’t eat meat is because animals are just people in fur suits (or scales, or feathers) and it’s the same as cannibalism. But there are many reasons to not eat meat, including religious, dietary, and ecological, that have nothing to say to PETA. Some people are self-righteous about not eating meat but let’s face it, people can be self-righteous about anything.
They do, since they are also hypocrites.
Thing is- PETA doesnt really help animals.They pretend to, and thus they suck up good money and they also give real animal rescue orgs a bad name.
Yes, I concur.
nearwildheaven:
Which knows that billboards featuring naked supermodels (discreetly covered) never fails to evoke a favorable reaction in a significant percentage of the population.
Start here.
This seems to resurface somewhere on the internet every few years. This particular version has links to the claims. It’s a few years old so I have no idea how many of the links still work. Also, I’ve never clicked on any of them, it’s just something I run across from time to time.
None of them do. It’s an image of text, there are no clickable links in it at all.
Scroll down further.
The image you’re looking at has been getting circulated for years. The person who posted it that time, broke it up into smaller pieces and dug up cites for each part. The broken up/cited part is below the top, giant image.
Some charities exist just to exist and are terrible at their stated goal IMO.
Susan G. Komen for breast cancer is one such. PETA is another.
The issues they claim to care about are worthy. If you do care about one and/or the other please find someone else to donate to. There are plenty of excellent organizations that do great work in these areas and where your money will actually help.
I have a friend Steve who is a vegetarian. Every summer (sadly not this summer due to the pandemic), Steve holds a wonderful party where he makes delicious pizzas from scratch. He serves really wonderful food, but no meat. It’s possible to attend and not even realize Steve is a vegetarian. Steve will expound on the meatless life only if you ask him to.
PETA is the exact opposite of that. I remember sea kittens, and a campaign to get college students to drink beer instead of milk, and “The Holocaust on your plate!”. I was annoyed by the first two and deeply offended by the third. PETA is a sick parody of itself.
Gotta say I am kinda ok with this one. 
Is that even necessary?
Anyway, getting back to the question posed in the OP, it’s because nobody likes finger-wagging, self-righteous prigs. They are to the animal rights movement what Carrie Nation and her followers were to the temperance movement.
I don’t mind vegetarians or even vegans, as long as they’re not shoving their views down my throat. Which is exactly why I hate PETA - they try to impose their views on other people.
Also, all of them I’ve ever met are ignorant about animals and their behavior. They have an idealized Disney-esque (old school, Bambi viewpoint) view of animals that just ain’t so. They do stupid shit like try to convince people to put their carnivore pets on a vegetarian diet. They release captive animals that have never learned to survive into the environment which is not going to do anyone any good. They would rather an animal be dead than interacting with humans, they’d rather a species be extinct than preserved. They’ sanctimonious, self-righteous, and have a religious zeal about them of the worst sort. They make real solutions to real problems, like mistreatment of farm animals, more difficult than they would otherwise be. They are uncompromising, dictatorial, and would happily throw human lives under the bus for their cause.