The video begins with foreboding music, first showing the damage that the elephant has inflicted on the crops of an African village and then following Parsons and his team as they stalk the elephant. According to captions in the video, Parson believes he will "save" the village by killing the elephant.
Then we hear loud noises.
"Bob Parsons fires first," the text says. "Bob Parsons fires again. Both shots hit home."
We see a photo of Parsons standing over the elephant's body, and then AC/DC's "Hells Bells" plays as "hungry villagers butcher the elephant."
In a surprising touch, most of the male villagers are wearing bright orange hats with the GoDaddy logo, and the camera zooms in on the logos as the men descend on the animal's carcass.
"Even though the elephant was huge, there is not enough meat for everyone," reads the text.
Parsons, a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam vet, is the CEO, founder and sole investor of GoDaddy. The video was shot on March 8, 2011, while Parsons was vacationing in Zimbabwe. Parsons posted the clip on his personal blog.
The controversial video, described by the Village Voice as "a strange mix of machismo and colonialist vibes" and "pretty gross" by Business Insider, has drawn condemnation from PETA and other animal rights groups as well as rival web domain registration companies.
Domain.com released a statement saying that "it's not necessary to kill elephants to feed those in need" and offering to donate a portion of profits for new domain registrations to the charity Heifer International, while Name.com is offering to give a percentage of their profits to savetheelephants.org.
GoDaddy has previously courted controversy with its racy TV commercials featuring scantily clad women. Parsons has called the ads "fun, edgy, and a bit inappropriate." I don't know, we might have to change domain host, we cant support this.
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