Fake Ex-Vegans.

21 May 2019 [link youtube]



Youtube Automatic Transcription

one of the more peculiar tidepools
surrounding the sinking ship of the vegan movement in 2019 is the phenomenon of fake ex vegans now whether or not these people were fake vegans to begin with I'm here describing people who are coming out on YouTube and making videos saying that they're quitting veganism but then they clarify that they're continuing to eat a vegan diet they're either rejecting the concept of veganism or in some even more phony way just waving the flag of X veganism apparently to get a larger number of viewers the most dramatic an attention-grabbing example of this recently was John Venus John Venus who made uh I don't know really controversial video declaring his ex veganism and then he ended up making videos clarifying his position that he's gonna continue to be something like 98 percent vegan while rejecting the word and concept of philosophy of veganism it was a it was a week Dinu mole to what started off as a truly banal drama well John Venus is a guy who can consistently get more than 10,000 viewers on a video and let's just pause to reflect on how many views that really is a large part of my life I've been surrounded by struggling academics professors and people with PhDs who could never give a lecture and expect 10,000 people to be interested who could never publish a book and get 10,000 be able to interested let me just say also I used to work in nonfiction publishing a lot of people published books and never make 5 cents out of it they publish a book with a print run of 500 copies and maybe the maybe 200 copies sell but they sell over a period of 10 years so I can the first year the book is published like not even a hundred copies get sold and people work their whole lives to write those books and a lot of people work their whole lives to get on stage and give that lecture and they care about this stuff pass and they can never reach an audience of 10,000 people so there's a sense in which you could say well gee John Venus should be happy with his audience of 10,000 people but there's a sense in which he obviously isn't his whole life has been devoted to developing his physique lifting weights and giving other people advice on lifting weights and that gets repetitious quick he's looking around he's got a wife and kid and he's saying to himself other people are famous and making a lot more money flexing their biceps why not me well on a whole other level a guy you may remember from about three years ago maybe five years ago Jason Posey know also made his name by flexing his biceps here on YouTube he gave advice on health and fitness and he had his shirt off a lot and this kind of thing oh as you can see from these shots - he he has his girlfriend's chest on camera also trying to get views when I checked his channel before his ex vegan announcement he had several videos that were way down at 40 views 4-0 and a couple years ago his channel was huge his influence is huge he had he had a lot of viewers and a lot of people who knew his name and a lot of people respect him and he worked hard to get that that level of notoriety within the vegan scene but what do you know his channel has I don't know it's part of the sinking ship of veganism he himself lost interest in veganism and veganism lost interest in him and he was getting down to fewer than 100 views per video routinely and what does he decide to do to get some new vitality and interest in his channel being what do you know he goes from being a fake vegan to being a fake ex vegan now yeah sure 5000 views is not a huge number but one you were struggling to get just 100 views I guess that motivated him to make this ridiculous announcement sorcerer murabba old old-school voice in the vegan game also a struggling actress if you look her up on IMDB you can see her rap sheet you can see how many roles she's managed to land in the last five years small roles in small films living in los angeles posting sexy pictures of herself on Instagram she's not the only one she's got competition going to each of those casting calls she's got competition for every one of those roles she's got competition on Instagram she's got competition here within vegan YouTube and what do you know she gets a couple videos in a row there with really low numbers one thousand three thousand two thousand and then Bing she decides to do this fake ex vegan thing she has a video called I'm also no longer vegan question mark and it's it's twelve thousand views guys you know there were times when this movement gets to such a low ebb the whole scene gets so depressing that I start to ask whether or not veganism has a future but I don't think anyone is even gonna ask whether or not Fame whoring through X veganism has a future if veganism has no future anti veganism has even less of a future if nobody's getting famous or getting money or getting influenced or social media status through veganism you must realize what a dead ended counterproductive thing it is to try to chase the same fame or notoriety or what-have-you through X veganism obviously that can only be a very short-term strategy and if you look at a channel like Kasumi Chris there are so many examples people who rejected veganism and briefly got a bunch of views or they made videos talking about their first time eating meat after so many years not eating meeting this kind of thing what they find is not only that they have no enduring relationship with that audience who briefly stopped by to Pat them on the back maybe to pat themselves on the back and gloat that veganism is supposedly an opossum possible or difficult to sustain ideal whatever these people find new excuses for their old bad habits and then quickly move on um aside from that ex veganism and anti veganism is never going to give them the sense of meaning and direction they had in their lives when when veganism was the content that they came on you to preach what is the moral of the story get on the microphone when you have something to say get on camera when you have something to say say things that are meaningful make videos that you would want to watch yourself if you came back after you'd forgotten what they were about five years later and we're rewatching the videos on your own channel these are really basic guidelines oh hey and reach out to people interact with people collaborate with people with the same level of civility sympathy humanity empathy that you would extend to someone if you met them in a coffee shop those are my guidelines for getting on YouTube and staying on YouTube and you know what you'll find that the rewards are much greater than scraping your way through a ph.d program scraping your way into a publishers office publishing a book so on and so forth those are paths I've seen others take around me my ex-wife had a PhD from Cambridge University she could put a lecture on YouTube right now ain't none y'all gonna want to hear it she could she has published books ain't none y'all gonna read them so the beauty of YouTube is you get to find your audience your audience gets to find you but the commitment you have to make is fundamentally to realtalk I mean really people like to disrespect my truth but the fact is that you know my name is I don't know