My 1000th Video: Top Ten Dumbest / Greatest Moments.

hey guys who's been keeping track who's
been keeping count at home this is the 1,000th video I have published on this channel and we had to do something something slightly out of the ordinary to observe or no this is video number 1000 I didn't really know what to do and the concept for this video is we could we could cover two bases here I'm gonna talk about the top 10 dumbest slash greatest things that happen on this channel guys come on what do you mean dumbest dumbest slash greatest do you mean that the greatest dumb thing is the dumbest great things there what do you mean you know being on YouTube leads you to a lot of unexpected discussions unexpected conflicts unexpected issues you end up adopting positions you thought you'd never adopt publicly or privately questioning things and come up with answers and things you thought you wouldn't deal with one example that just came to mind was I had this really surreal dialog with a young Canadian woman who converted to Islam after she moved to Japan so you know I didn't think of this channel as being in an atheist channel or as a channel that would you know debate that sort of thing I ended up but but this is the kind of really interesting I don't know social circle or political climate that being on YouTube draws you into I discovered her channel back when I was studying Japanese she has nothing to do with veganism but she so many did videos about learning the Japanese language and living and working in Japan years later she converted to Islam I made some kind of commentary on that she replied to me etc etc it goes on so in these weird and unexpected ways these are the rewards if you want to come on YouTube for watching this video thinking maybe I also would like to come on YouTube and have some of these incredibly dumb experiences that you've you've had after thousand videos this is the kind of reward is you get this this kind of engagement with your audience with other youtubers with this sort of thing it takes your life in unexpected directions especially especially politically I'm so many who cares a lot about politics and then we could also roll into this video because it's not that long a story to celebrate 1000 I'll finally I can finally give the answer the question when was the first time I heard of veganism wanted to heard the word vegan for the first time and how did I end up becoming vegan so I know melissa has her own her own story on that and I think they're both both stories are only a couple sentences long so don't know don't know if it needs to be its own video so if Melissa before she became my girlfriend she was a she was a fan of the channel you've seen almost every video on this channel out of out of a thousand videos you've maybe seen 899 or something we don't we don't know exactly and I just mentioned some people complained when they look at my channel history from their web browser they don't get the number 999 they don't see the same number of videos this this should now tip it into 1000 that I get I've put up a screenshot of that when I am in the the YouTube uploading sweet it tells me how many videos have uploaded and I assume that's because some of the videos were blocked some of them were censored some of them were unlisted in a couple cases I took a video now you know I think a couple of the videos I did with vegan cheetah or take it off you know there are a couple things that that came offline needs to be online but a couple videos got got censored by YouTube so I don't know or you know I don't know why but for some reason YouTube gives me I think the full and accurate number of everything I've uploaded and you may only get what's visible from your region or so there's some other reason why other listings have the number a little bit lower few videos that have been taken off the list so I'm gonna give you serious here's number one am I on my top ten list and this will give you a sense I'm not just interested in listing these off I'm you know I'm interested should chat about I don't know how these videos got made how the conversation started or what drew me into this but for me you know the number one things that that comes to my mind is I made a video titled your cat hates you you know and I can remember the whole process that led up to making that video you know what I mean I mean look when I started this channel I thought this channel was gonna be about politics of China you know I was enrolled agents that he's major I was learning Chinese came over to Victoria I was in this whole crazy situation and you know I really thought that this channel was not gonna be about veganism or not particularly my veganism come once in a while I knew from the very start there was actually tension in recording the videos and I remember one interview I did with another guy where he did he interviewed me and I knew sooner or later you know my ethical position on pets was gonna come out was gonna have to be said on camera I get a really negative reaction I knew that was coming sooner or later with the audience and if you've been plugged into veganism as a movement for just the past five years things have really changed I mean I don't think it's like a situation where I won the debate on this issue but it so happens that my view has become way more prevalent and way more common in the last five years I think because there's been more rigorous thinking about what veganism isn't and how to move forward but when I came on the scene or even when I first started toying with veganism and vegetarians when I first got interested in these kinds of politics which for me were through through ecology political ecology um the the pet centered narrative the pet care paradigm was dominant in in veganism dominant in in animal rights and that line of thinking went here's the standard for how we treat cats and dogs when there were pets and therefore this is how we should treat all animals this should be the the baseline the moral baseline these days that term all the time and there were movements I mean what I can say within veganism or within animal rights where they wanted to pass laws like a bill of rights for animals that would basically guarantee cats free health care free veterinary care for cats so if some poor or family has a hundred cats or 15 cats or something they don't have to worry about paying for people can just start amassing animals that have to worry about being responsible for their medical costs cuz that the taxpayers all go handle it you can already guess how this might go horribly wrong at least in our in our culture you know but with that that was really the dominant paradigm and this crazy you know unforeseen sequence of political events led to my making a really tough really you know pugnacious video on that titled your cat hates you and the sequel was unpredictably your dog hates you and I just I just looked it up to date those two videos together have reached over 10,000 viewers now it's a small audience but it's deep I mean for a video on that topic yet such a narrow topic for such an audience with such an unappealing titles like you know it's it's really easy to get an audience if you tell people what they want to hear you know if you're out here you know I see that even when I was buying groceries today I was looking at the magazine rack and like every magazine cover was just telling you something you already wanted the year you know some of the magazines are about health and diet and lifestyle but even the ones that are of a politics or something it's all affirming your sense of moral superiority or your own interests that you're a good person and you know this is a video that really came out and said no you think you're doing something morally positive by castrating and declawing a cat and treating it like a toy and keep you in your apartment and you're wrong you know this this is really morally wrong you know inside veganism so yeah for me I mean this is a kind of dumbest greatest moment and I can remember when it clicked I think you know I think it was before I recorded the video I just realized that's got to be the title I've got to make a video where the title is your cat hates it can't be a sophisticated statement about I don't know the wilderness versus domestication of animals no the clips position possible on on pet ownership and nail when I when I especially talk to younger vegans um you know I'm really a guy like ask yourself Isaac on his channel he comes from a totally different background from météo religion framework and he sees that as obvious and he has this whole audience around him of younger people and they're vegan but they see pet ownership as as deeply flawed in this way so other people are figuring it out they're taking their own paths to that to that kind of conclusion yeah I I felt like that too I thought oh oh and believe me go on yeah right move themselves a couple and also for babies there are two dogs and a cat they got so many positive responses they're like oh you're gonna find a wonderful vegan family right seen contrasting that to how you're right right yeah yeah well and and let's just start an aunt to feed other dead animals to their Pat pets to feed dead cows to their pet cat this is still the norm and we still have those justifications which are basically identical to the justifications meat-eaters make for eating meat themselves not everyone shares our perspective that's right that's that's the big justification I love them they love me right right I think that's the sort of thing where it's so unwelcome and jarring for the people hearing it that they hear it now and maybe they think about it a few months later you know what comes back a few months later but in terms of the audience who didn't want to hear that you know yeah I mean it's it's a very unwelcome challenge to their whole you know framework and I I did hear back from some of those people there were people who really seriously devote a lot of their time to rescuing cats off the street and where they feel that's their main form of vegan activism is rescuing and castrating feral animals and then trying to again trying to host break them trying to train them to pee in a box that's what they're putting all their time into and they call it vegan activism so for them to stop and reflect from a different perspective whoa this might be kind of this might symbolize the very opposite of what veganism is supposed to be about you know and again you know it's one of those funny things I mean anyway they wouldn't think that way about horses or something you know I'm training a horse the to pull a carriage or something they they wouldn't see that way but yeah they have all these all these kind of deep-seated justifications so I mean in some ways that the struggling continues but I really do have the impression across the board that in terms of generational change than veganism I you know you can look at the waves of different forms of vegan activism after abolition of some kind of rose and fell the next wave coming up it does seem to me is generally pretty harsh on on the the pet pet care assumptions pet care model of veganism yeah okay so number two on my list do really direct segue was my assault on the animal sanctuary fundraiser from vegan my harsh critique of his his his approach to that so the final video in that series got over 9,000 views now again if a nishan is watching this or something if some big youtubers or they'll be laughing at these small number reviews but get real this is this is within a vegan activism I mean this is a subculture within a subculture within a subculture that you're speaking to with these kinds of videos and when I started this channel I thought I'd be talking about politics in China we have over 1 billion people who are concerned and interested and have a bigger didn't work out no interest basically zero interested any any videos I do but politics is China which is you know surprising but that's that's in some ways the way the internet works but uh uh you know Jo vegan there's a lot of emotional weight in that interaction between him and you know for me I think there is for him to accept chatted with him a little bit since then but you know really like 15 seconds you know but you can you can see all this stuff had a big impact on him Joe vegan you know he talked to my ex-wife he was involved in the durianrider drama he's even something well forgotten or simple we'll never known in the first place his channel started off just being him and his wife talking about their lives basically after they lost faith in durianrider really quickly Joe vegan was guy went to Thailand rode his bike up toy suit app deeply believed in especially the ecological message driver saying he you know he really believed in this is an old slogan nobody remembers now a burn rubber or not fuel you know to commit to always riding a bicycle never using a taxi never using a car you really wanted to live this way and got very passionate about it and when he lost his faith enduring writer he started just making videos talking about his life's it began at that point I reached out to him said hey I'd love to talk to you my channel just there was no comedy there was no drama there was nothing no other kind in the channel and this channel took a turning point the first person he started doing impersonations of or impressions of he started doing comical it was me he started doing a comedy bit where he'd pretend to be me and he didn't person ate my voice and mic off and holding my microphone and people went nuts for it and then all the other voices he started doing the other personality the first couple of minutes of it so there's a really weird situation I remember talking to my Chinese teacher in China about it I was like oh yeah well my channel is popular up to a certain extent but there's this other channel that does parody videos about me and the parodies are more popular than the famous they're making fun of this briefly was a was a bit of a sensation but again you see from the start of my channel I knew that my position on animal sanctuaries was going to be a big deal was gonna be a big source of tension I knew this is someone's gonna have to present one way or another in his case I mean he could have totally talked to me in terms of constructive criticism but you know I broke down the costs how many thousands of dollars per year you're talking about to just keep one pig one horse etc but you know questioning the underlying ethical principles is this the way forward for veganism etc so you know and and we a very strange situation both personally and politically yeah and in the end again tragically I mean I won I'm sorry Joe vegan completely folded he deleted his channel he stopped being vegan he lost faith in veganism I mean you know obvious that's not the way I wanted to win but you know I won to a much greater extent that I could have possibly imagined you know I thought instead he might just sheepishly admit that he really never did the math that he never thought through how much it costs or what's involved in running an animal sanctuary and frankly what I would have liked to have heard from is that he never thought it through from the animals perspective because he know this animals are very briefly guys but the animal sanctuary paradigm the animal is living in a shed on a farm it's it's still living on a farm it's still it's it's different in that there's no slaughterhouse at the end of their confinement but they're still in a period of confinement this is like the difference between you know being on death row and just being in prison as a life sentence it's it's a very very strange thing that we're trying to glorify as morally positive you know if you think that a pig shouldn't live its whole life in a wooden shed you know if this doesn't make sense having you know castrated domesticated animals living with hay and a shed and you know this is exactly this situation you know why does it suddenly make sense we put the word sanctuary on so again those words those are tough questions and it came out again this is kind of the top 10 dumbest things but there was you know there was a dumb person to person you know contest of egos no doubt I mean you know there we said there was a personal you know because I do try to think like well generally like it's I mean we see all these problems with zoos boy you just assume when you don't charge admission when you just ask for donations what what this difference it's not a zoo it's a sanctuary you're right got it what's it's worse though cuz a lot of zoos do not all but many zoos try to recreate their conditions in the wild you know which for smaller creatures especially as possible you can have an enclosure that simulates you know and you know a petting farm or a sanctuary they don't even have that yes I want to say he had a bald wig and everything yeah he was always making jokes about how I allegedly worked for the CIA and this stuff he was kind of you know riffing on the rumors about me and amongst some raw vegans somewhat happy yeah right right well me the other one that's not even on this list I mean another Channel well you know even vegan gains I knew him back when his channel had like 400 viewers like I knew was I didn't know him personally I wrote him and he wrote back you said a little bit of email back and forth kind of thing but right right at the beginning of his channel when he had no significant audience well you know the other one obviously was was vegan cheetah Charles Marlow where I knew him right at the beginning I was in many ways a part of him him rising from zero to a certain level boy was it really there when I knew him he had fewer viewers than I did you know and I saw him come up to this kind of short period of intense fame and then and then collapse so Joe vegans another one of those guys were just kind of that even though there's not so many years involved where I saw the whole arc of their their career and you know but I mean of all of them I mean Joe vegans the one where I was probably the most emotionally invested you know when he's yeah remember he made one particular video where he was saying stuff about my academic situation but my situation the University and it really heard me you know I've told the super far so this is my girlfriend talking to you I probably haven't oldest minutes before but I'm Way more psychologically damaged but my negative experience a university then basically anything else I can name him so I mean my girlfriend was with me when my father died physical I was less upset by my father's death then you were no shade when you you you found a t-shirt that had the stitching company was thinking that I should we juggle there was this one time she had a t-shirt she was especially fond of and she took it out of the dryer and it was coming apart she was really upset about but yeah I was cuz I had complete equanimity you know when my father died when my various grandmothers died you know what have you but no I mean I really do carry a lot of a lot of pain from my ongoing struggle with with the university system I remember that that really got to me hey yo Joe vegan he also was someone you knew he knew me we can't I kids were friends but I Marie sent me emails of appreciation about how meaningful my videos were for his life and changed her life so yeah I was a little bit more involved there you know then I don't know then I am with some of these other channels that rise involved this is a good segue the issue of being emotional to number three on my list the alcohol and caffeine video so I just checked the alcohol that's basically against alcohol the caffeine okay yeah so I was thinking maybe you didn't remember it right I remember that was one of the first things in my my first email to us right right frankly in this way to Britain it's like resonates everything that I've heard from when I was growing up you know learning in in health class that it causes brain damage Lee right is so prevalent why do people do this and why are we making excuses right social lubricant yes so again just just brief uh not to not to derail you but yes I checked as of today twenty-two thousand views for a for a video on that topic it's a huge audience it's basically like a one-hour morality lecture with you know some science and other types of material thrown in but I mean you know it's not telling you what you want to hear it's not telling you you can lose weight look great if there's no silver lining in the crowd clapping you know it's still to this day I get email from people not that often but once in a while I get email from people telling me they quit drinking alcohol the day they saw that video that's great so you know now out of the twenty two thousand viewers yeah I know that's five or ten fifteen people or something but that is really interesting and again I'd say like the your cat hates you video you know I think a lot of people probably saw that video thought about it you know maybe a few months later or maybe a few years later it kind of haunts you like you know gee my excuses or my reasons for drinking alcohol they really don't make sense you know so I just say I think it probably said that kind of creeping impact on on a whole lot of people yeah so again look I mean not a role ever thought I'd play you know not just I mean oh look back when I was involved in Buddhism if I become a Buddhist preacher or something that absolutely was the role I thought I'd play in life but that's that's a really interesting example of an idio of that reaching its audience or the audience finding the video who knows how that happens but I don't know I mean on some level video people felt they needed to hear you know what the video to say even if they didn't want to hear so number four even more even more edgy in terms of the the vegan you know demi-monde mice my videos simply titled use soap you idiots soap and hand washing so if you're watching this video and haven't you have been involved in politics but I mean you know these are real questions do you make excuses for people or overlook the facts say oh this guy's a vegan you know he wants to save the animals he wants to save the planet so it doesn't matter that he has these quote unquote natural hygiene views you know I remember someone like a natural vegan that used to be her view of the world she used to believe that she lost most of her teeth she had a ton of cavities because she gave up using toothpaste she had a period of time where she went forward this you know natural hygiene you know pseudoscience so if you're trying to cooperate and collaborate with other vegans it's really easy to get into a mindset of making excuses oh well he's a little eccentric or you know this this kind of thing but again that was a video kind of coming down hard on the fact that no you know it really matters and there's a there's a very strange kind of hypocrisy involved you know I've gone about this all day there's a really weird kind of white privilege it's just like you know you live a life where you think this doesn't matter you know you think you can get away with it because you don't have really horrible immediately visible diseases like we have in the tropics that you know that come from not not washing your hands you know I've talked to vegans face-to-face about this there's one so again see this is part of the thing that's interesting Republicans why did I make that video what was the background this video might as well tell the story I don't think I've ever told the Steyr before when I was in Taiwan after I divorced my wife and before I moved to this part of Canada I met a vegan a white European vegan guy and he was telling me proudly that he doesn't use any soap of any kind so on and you know look I was not as calm and cool about it as telling the story may suggest but I mean I asked him I said when you when you go to the hospital does it bother you if the doctor hasn't washed his hands does it bother you if they perform surgery and they say no no we didn't clean the the knife we don't you know we don't use soap because he also he wouldn't wash his he wouldn't even wash his forks and knives he wouldn't wash his plates with so if he didn't use soap you know at all you know so again that's in my mind that was the leap to you know the surgeon's scalpel from the forks and knives you you eat your food with and you know I remember he was shocked to the question because he well tell a little bit more of the story um he said some words the fact that he was sure you know it didn't matter to have bacteria on his on his fingers he did his own gardening - so he gardened you know for his vegetables own and I said straight to his face this is face to face IRL this wasn't Skype or anything from the same place in time said to him so you're telling me you come in after planting mangoes in your garden and you put your fingers inside your wife's vagina without using soap and water that's what you're telling me you don't think there's any problem with that like you don't see the hygienic I mean he was shocked but I think this I think I won the argument um you know he was shot but he had never thought about the before and I think low key there was an element of you know wow you're right and then the other thing was this is sorry I said before I wasn't that calm this stuff I'm saying I was calm during it but you know what really made me angry really made me live it really got to emotionally was he said like many white hippies or white Westerners he had been on vacation in India he said oh no no out in the small towns in India quote nobody uses soap and they're all perfectly healthy and fine and nobody gets sick and to me you know I've dealt with that and Laos dealt with that in Cambodia and you know it's sorry it really infuriated me and I said to him have you looked at the Government of India statistics for how many people died of diarrhea of waterborne illnesses of flu burnell's of illnesses that can be prevented or averted by washing your hands have you have you looked up those numbers you are telling me nobody does why not just say nobody dies of snakebites in India do you want to see number four how many people died of snake bites you you think washing your hands doesn't matter you think those people don't eat soap why you know what you know because again there's this weird roll of white privilege you know so that was really where I where I lost my cool with this guy was this claim that you know everyone in India's is funny so yeah that was that was part of the background background of that and you know anyone is I mean anyone has been involved in humanitarian work you know I specifically did health sector research you know sir I mean within the United States of America too and I've even seen this in American movies about you know the the big justification you know there's the SEC what separate-but-equal was one justification for inequality this man but the other one that's deeper and broader was they have their own way of doing things you know like oh don't worry that black people or Hispanic people can't access the medical care system or can't access the school system one of the deepest justifications was they have their own way of doing things you can imagine within Canada you know well First Nations people the creative way the den a they can't access the same services white people do or well don't they have their own way of doing things you know it's it's the coldest form of dismissive racist death sentence you're passing on people and for him from his perspective it's the opposite in his mind it's wrapped up with compassion and all these all these good things all these positive sentiments right so yeah that that that's for me is kind of the emotional and intellectual background to that to that video that just considering what a totally unwelcome divisive polarizing message it's reached you know I think it reached a pretty large audience it reached as many people as we can hope for it to reach [Music] I make you mad was yes because you know you're really meticulous about there was yes I was the value of hand so yeah there was another situation right special brush you know bit of a story I never told you never it never came up on YouTube either when I was in Laos to humanitarian worker there was a guy there and he was the second time I bumped into him he was with his daughter so I think he's had his wife and daughter with him and I but we're call he was Italian she was a white European tourist and he had done a little bit of humanitarian work and he met me and we were speaking in English yeah we had Natalia next we spoke English from very well and he said what he said oh so what kind of humanitarian work you doing I said well you know we work in food security which means helping people not starve because there are food shortages and there's malnutrition and starvation here and this guy laughed he laughed in such a self-confident manner and he said it's completely ridiculous he claimed nobody in Laos would be starving its this is a fifth this is a myth and a fiction created by Western powers to justify a division and it's like apart from the fact that I know this on paper I know textbook statistics about you know malnutrition and you know there we had we still had diseases in northern Laos you know you can go blind from lack of certain fat soluble vitamins and things you know like a vitamin deficiency leads to lifelong blindness and these guys that we still had some of those kind of medieval does he think you had sorry another condition where your your fingers don't form properly and that we a lot of a lot of illnesses that have disappeared from from most of the modern world which ultimately caused by deficiencies and so on and we had we had malnutrition of the the simplest kind people just not having enough calories not enough protein stuff and I was involved in trying to something to help and someone and here's this guy laughing at it and I don't just know it on paper I know with the face to face reality of it and you know um you know at the time when he said that to me I you know I did you can imagine I did try it in a very rational way talk through you know the statistics and what the facts are you know no seasonal malnutrition is real starvation is real you know and actually that's right the other thing but I said to Matt that time was um that I knew this percentage I knew what percentage of people were malnourished in that province in Laos I knew stats like that off top my head at that time I quartered in most stats and I pointed out to him I said you know you're saying they have unlimited food provided by the jungle have you ever actually sat down to an estimate how many thousand people can live off of mushrooms and you know berries scavenged from the jungle that could huge area of jungle if you said what scavenging not farming you know bits and pieces gathered this way it can support a very small human population but not thousands of people not millions of people you know it's it's ridiculous this that you know so I remember talking that stuff through with him rationally and then the second time I met him you know was this a village in loves it's a small town there's not a very small town and you know so with some distance across the way he laughingly mocked me and he said there's the man who's gonna save thirty two percent of people from starvation like with his [ __ ] you know humanitarian project you know and you know I can tell you honestly if his daughter wasn't standing right there next to him I would have beaten the crap out of that guy on the street in the middle of that town in Laos and nobody would have stopped me and you know well baby the local communist party apparatus you're coming up now you know these things happen you know so yeah there's a certain kind of but you know I didn't I mean it's his daughter and his wife were there and it's like well I don't there are a lot of there are a lot of ignorant people in the world but it but it's also it's also the person I'm talking to is wrong and they're morally self-righteous about it they think they are the one on a walker say they're the person who's against hand soap the person who thinks starvation isn't about right yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah right right right yeah gee what a shame that surgeons are washing their hands boy yeah you know so yeah I mean you know but in with this bigger this is the darker side of my psychology you guys are getting a haircut of this video I got two notes here on my top ten list for weeping on camera I asked Theo if he had Theo as one of my super fans supporters on patreon I asked you if he had a list of all the videos in which I've broken down weeping on camera I don't I don't think he does several times I've broken down weeping on camera that was that was something I imagine I do on this channel when I first started it always seemed to me you know if you're keeping it real if you're really keeping it real all the thing you're gonna they're thinking you're talking about things that are worth weeping about think you're gonna weep on camera first time ever there was a hilarious reaction from Dom Bower Dom Bowers a small but well-known YouTube channel where he played the clip where I just start to weep and he sits sits there saying in his Scottish accent he says this is a grown man this is a grown man tough-as-nails can do Jordan push-ups he's done humanitarian where he spit over this is a grown man weeping over the death of a chicken you know which it was it was it was describing chickens dying in particular or circumstance when I was doing humanitarian work in laws and that video it's still a great video it's a very very long video with me talking - sorry - 69 Zaria is no longer on YouTube - to my knowledge she's no longer if you can activist yeah yeah yeah but to me at that time I remember after we wrapped the video chapter stop recording I was seeing that was like this is the best video ever on my chant this is the best video on vegan YouTube this is amazing I just thought it covered a lot of really meaningful ground the agony of activism is the the title of that we can we can put links and the number two thing that turns me on camera the one the the single most viewed video on my channel of all time was when I broke down weeping you know talking to durianrider sorry sir sorry talking about durianrider in response to his kids his allegations yep and you know so one thing some people don't pick up on there's a why that was so emotionally intense you know I was jet-lagged I got up after a nap I sat down to that video and I mean okay look I could in terms the background of this there's a lot I could say that's kind of interesting as never been said before had this conflict with Darren Ryder and up to that point there were really kind of two there's a fork in the road there were two different two different tactics I could I could take with it and said well either I'm gonna commit to you know really keeping it real this way or I'm gonna act like it's no big deal and it doesn't bother me you know I'm gonna kind of dismiss it that way and you don't want on that other road the pretending that it's it's no big deal there were other ways to seek redress or settle the settle the score between us you know put it that way off camera you could you could make it clear to him just what a big deal it is but it's like okay either I do it this way and we're doing things man to man face to face or I'm gonna be really real with the audience I'm gonna do it this way and we're gonna make a legal issue of this we're gonna you know press the case we're not actually ask for donations I'm gonna get a lawyer and do this properly so there are you know different you know thought when to that and you know you know the the path I chose so I kind of made that decision I get up from this nap and I really am trying to be you know pour my heart out just be emotionally you know real and vulner talking about this ridiculous situation and the electricity is flickering on and off at least once that video you can see that where the lights briefly go out but as I recall so you know I didn't have a laptop then my computer also blacked out for half a second and then came to so you're pouring out your heart and like it yeah I know if the power cuts and this video is lost I'm never gonna be able to do this again like it's not it's not gonna be the same you know there's no take two for this it's you know look you know my daughter and my divorce and like child custody case and my employments and you know all the impact this is having on my life so there was that was really part of the part of the background to it but also emotionally it was like okay this is the commitment to doing this all above board to not you know not settling anything off-camera we're gonna do this in a publicly accountable way we're gonna you know do it on the books we're gonna you know get a lawyer and do things properly in terms of the future of the vegan movement I'm sure I made you know the the right decision but you know the the other path was to basically be snide and insincere on camera and get even off-camera and I think that's what most people either would have done or would have fronted like they were gonna do but for me that was a very very cerebral the same so I mean I've mentioned to you too so our that wrapped after I left Chiang Mai I was then living in Kooning toreno ryder was still living back and forth between Chiang Mai and VN Chen Jian Chen which is the capital city of Laos so I mean there was nowhere easier for me to hunt him down and confront him there is nowhere easier to be blunt for me to get away with confronting durianrider face to face then the capital said I still speak loshon I know how to cross that border by bus I know how to cross that border and not have my passport stamped I can be in and out of there and I can find you and you know there there are no civil authorities will say you as a tourist in Laos there's nothing there me neither you know what sir I'm in Laos is still the wild East you so you know there was that temptation there it's like well you know but like like I've said before I said under that heading I'll say again now you know I'm not a tough guy I just happened to be tougher than these guys and you know in terms of my own sense of justice I think there are very very few justifications for that kind of you know mmm you know that that kind of resolution to a situation so I did the white did it with all the disappointments that then entailed in terms of the Thai legal system the lawyers and everything else yeah yeah yeah I wept several other times yeah right right right oh yeah did I wait for one of those okay oh wow really okay yeah yeah yeah there are several others yeah yeah there was one that was just a question from a viewer a question from a patreon supporter boy I'm really for but something about you know dignity and hope and politics and I broke down weeping and yeah yeah but all meaningful stuff I don't regret any of it I'm not weeping for no reason not weeping because my diet and weight loss didn't work out [ __ ] sorry but is what you see on on YouTube you know no no yeah I'm happy to have immortalized those moments to the world and you know if you can't look I've said many times here on YouTube honesty is the only currency we've got so okay so look maybe this is partly under the the dumb partly under the great heading there was also a next number on my list here the confrontation with Ryan from happy healthy vegan so Ryan is the host of a BLT vegan I was gonna say a few words about that in terms of what built up that situation and I don't know sorry I don't have the number written down several thousand people ended up seeing the main video that spun out of that was titled stop treating yes stop treating women like infants you know so that was the the crux of the thing but you know it was a really weird that the the situation for that conflict was Ryan was live streaming and everyone in the audience was saying oh wow aisel is here you know Ryan talked out so obviously everyone doesn't mean if one many many people in the typewritten comments are saying I was there a lot of people were happy to see me and excited and saying oh wow ranch duct ties well this is great so a part of the bag that I made a few comments he very much knew I was there and he knew I was in the queue of guests to to wait and talk to him and I think for 30 minutes there's something he pretended I wasn't there he had this paper thin nobody was buying it like as if he just didn't see me the queue he actually said things like oh let's see who else is here in the list of guests it says expert say there was really a lot of shade and people other people noticed the audience and pointed out like come on Ryan you're you know you're you're you're avoiding yeah yeah yeah you're you're avoiding dealing with with ISIL here so when he finally did acknowledge I was there which was unexpected I thought oh maybe you'll just do this and then wrap it up it's fine he brought me on and you know I did really at first try to be conciliatory and positive with them I talked about the one thing I thought we had in common which was Buddhism I was like well you know Ryan Ryan you may not know this about me but you know I was a scholar of Buddhism for more than 10 years actually know a lot about the religion and so when I asked him about his own practice and faith and what his symbol when the religion is now his reply was predictably complete [ __ ] I mean Ryan knows less about Buddhism that I know about Star Trek he's not a part of any temple or any tradition he never has been he has no connection to the Buddhist faith I mean he has less connection to Buddhism that I have to Star Trek and I I don't get why I mean people don't seem to do that with Islam people don't just casually tell you they're Muslim when they haven't read the Quran when they've never joined a temple or never been to a sermon or they don't go to prayer several times a dance on I mean there are some standards but Ryan is indeed you know one of those dudes and I know I mean later what he said of me you know behind my back when I wasn't there I know he denounced me later and saying that I'm not a real Buddhist you know I don't have the traits of being real close and it's you know I I identify as a nihilist but I mean that kind of thing it's off I mean even when other Jews say about me that I'm you know I'm not I'm not a Jew it's on what I know I know the sense in which they mean it when they're really dehumanizing you that way saying well you know here you know you're it's not that you're subhuman but your sub buddist you know your your button beneath this pail so there was actually a lot of a lot of kind of content to that that part the the setup of the of the confrontation and and frankly I think it's still there and frets are White's we're talking about I think that's the fissure between the kind of hippie yoga mat rock crystal worshipping side of veganism and everybody else I think there are I mean you can wrap up anything in the name of compassion you know you zero with my compassionate way I'm denigrating but it's another four or whatever it is I mean you can you can wrap up anything that you can wrap up you know what I what I thought was basically a misogynist position it was ridiculous thing these are twenty seven-year-old women or something and you're dismissing what they have to say you're dismissing and defending what they have to say as being just young girls and so on you know when he misrepresented what I said in my video and his video reached a much larger audience to the mind so I'm it was it was damaging its way but for me the other interesting issue is is how you know how we're actually criticizing and addressing women would you talk about a twenty seven-year-old man the way you're talking about a twenty seven-year-old no you wouldn't you know those to me are really are really worthwhile topics to to discuss but also in this case the surrounding scenario that led to this dumb genuinely dumb confrontation between right it's just it's a stupid video it's on the greatest dumbest list you know I think that has that's something a lot of vegans are gonna go through because if you're trying to put a movement together and a lot of the people have yoga mats and have a what is it a salt lamp that's the current fashion crystal and are practicing visualizing manifestations this whole kind of pseudo religion that you know to some extent is is infesting veganism in 2018 yeah this this kind of confrontation is inevitable maybe if you guys watch the whole video and confronting where I am you'll you'll feel some of that vibe to this line you can really do that the short answer is no but I mean the long answer is you know he knew durianrider and everyone was leaning on him to take a position on that controversy and you know he exactly was one of these people who tried to get famous writing on writing on the coattails of whoever that was to ride on you know including durianrider and he finally made this really wimpy video saying look man just cuz I've been in a few videos that doesn't mean I really like him or support him and you know he made this really strange evasive video there was a contrast to what a natural vegan had already done what vegan Gates is already done and so on so I think that was part of the part of the background to it for him for am definitely okay may be the dumbest video on my channel of all time but totally sincere and totally real cuz you know my conflict with Ryan in some ways is pretty insincere and pretty unreal totally sincere until the real Ted Carr worst human being ever so that that is the first and I think only video to have been banned from my channel for bullying my rousing denunciation of Ted car if you search the video was rieta did I did censor it a few little bits whatever I could find that was bullying I did actually delete so a few comments about his appearance courts that's it out of that but you know that was a really sincere video and so it's now up as three or four shorter videos but that do basically cover the same the same content but that was you know that was me sitting there on the microphone and you know I don't know I think all of us can relate to take our it's it's easy to imagine the decisions he's you know no I don't know I mean you know uh so I'll relate this back even to what I just said about about Ryan oh and and I can relate this also to I met one of the fans of the channel face to face my complete chance here twenty year old guy from Toronto but he was here visiting Victoria you met me he met me in a vegan restaurant while he was watching videos from my channel about veganism oh you know that's him so he was a little bit freaked out to meet me under those circumstances but you know he told when he told me he was 20 years old he was talking about the decisions he was making about University in his life I said yeah it's hard being 20 years old when in 20 years old you're just old enough that nobody's making excuses for you anymore and you know part of the problem with what Ryan was doing in relation to these female youtubers he's making excuses for is you may think you're helping people but I say saying to someone who's 26 27 years old oh you're still young like don't worry about it you don't have to take life seriously you don't have to worry about the consequences you have to worry don't worry you can you know nothing matters trivializing your whole existence because you know you're you're still young you know I think it's a sickness in our society that especially for for women you know that seems to not end until when until 29 and a half when do we stop making excuses for women that way when do we stop making excuses for young men that way when do we stop inviting people to make those kinds of excuses for them for themselves and yeah I mean Ted Carr Canadian guy and you know III just really genuinely reacted to its in in one way it's similar to what during Ryder you know was saying what I was really reacting to was him saying you don't need to have an education you don't need to have ambitions you don't need to try to make a positive difference in the world you don't take anything seriously should just you should just live for self-indulgence you should just live your own happiness so I have a really dumb but really sincerely you know kind of angry set of videos you know denouncing him that I don't I don't regret it all but yeah I guess is that a much character you don't see that often the show is there anything you want to add to the list babe I have one more thing on the list it's a bit of a downer well Wow yeah vegan Ava how to get ass right yeah yeah yeah so you saw that stuff before you ever met me or thought you'd ever meet me did that make you think I was an idiot or no yeah that was that was the last thing on my list right yeah yeah no but so I mean you know I'm Cory McCarthy and the whole anti racism thing I just say I never thought it had that kind of content on my channel I you know might come up in passing on my channel but you know the day I made the first video laying into Cory McCarthy which is still one of my most watched videos one of the most influential videos one of the biggest deal videos on the channel it's had a huge impact a lot of ways despite the fact that this is again like a subculture within a subculture within a subculture it's a really small you know subsection of a potential audience for it I sent an email to a number of vegan youtubers definitely includes including a privileged vegan Marnie is her name Maureen sorry definitely cluding including marine as a recipient and basically said to them look you know you you know whoever it was you you know you say you know your channels about racism and eighty racism why aren't you tackling you know this kind of issue it's kind of big issue within within vegan YouTube within the demi-monde they're these finally eat this is huge as you know what he's tackling it so you know so will that positively and I sent them the links to the video saying look I really think somebody needs to to tackle this issue and then i sat there five seconds after sending the email and i realized if i don't do it nobody is gonna do it and still to this day i'm right nobody did it i mean nobody else stood up and took on cory McCarthy Tom McCarthy it said not within not within veganism now you know um I'm one of the thing about that that's really interesting and and memorable to me they had a video on their channel a few people may remember this I forget if this was in the title but one of the main issues in the in the video was what is the difference between the far left and the far right sort of thing what is the difference we've left us and whatever version of of right-wing they identify themselves and what they insisted on was the difference was that they had honesty and courage and integrity right that they really felt this was the difference they didn't lie about what they really thought and really felt and so this is a common thing in politics right where you think might so at their racist and they're basically saying the other side is really secretly inwardly shares their views they just won't admit it because they're a bunch of hypocrites or they're too weak they lack the courage or honesty or integrity to say the things that they say openly about about racism racial inequality and and what have you so that's that's pretty common but immediately after I posted my my first video criticizing Tory McCarthy in which it doesn't even really contain criticism it's just presenting quotations of Kim and Terrell McCarthy stating their position and there's an intro and there's Arthur there's not a lot of commentary analysis there I pretty much say look I don't have to refute any of this it all kind of refutes itself you know here's here's what he has to say about you know history of colonialism genocide racism and when immediately after that first video almost their entire Channel they deleted the videos the videos disappeared you know including including that one the video of Tara McCarthy sitting with the census map census data for the United States of where black people white people lived and she was explaining to the camera that she was gonna choose where she live based on these race the scripture looking I'm at it anyway it was ridiculous of course every place worth living in America is you know cosmopolitan and as is multics mixing the places that are white only are these really awful redneck backwoods parts of America that are economically dying and where nobody wants to live so you know it's funny looking that map was like are you really gonna live up to this you sure you wouldn't rather live in New York City or something okay um so they handle this really overt racist material and they suddenly deleted it all and then there was another wave rose and fell where they started uploading so they were silent for a while they started uploading race material and then again covered their tracks and deleted it and denied it and so on so that for me was also a search that was showed the impact that I had they did they made they made a response video and then they deleted it almost immediately responding to me I've seen them react in different ways yeah but yeah uh whether you think it's stupid or not and whether you think this engaging in this kind of discourse is a waste of time or not again I bring this back the very first example that I got into a debate about Islam with a young woman who converted to Islam not a conversation I thought I'd ever have but once you're in YouTube once you're in the demi-monde you can see the sort of social function it serves that you know okay this is gonna mean something to a couple hundred people which is let's face it a lot more meaningful than going to an academic conference and presenting an academic paper to maybe twenty or thirty people who don't really want to be there you know what totally want to hear it the fact that you know this is meaningful even if it's to 100 people you know that is you know that's the motivation to deal with these things and and also that motivation of hey I've really got sinus a this is thing I'm passionate about sign know about this something I feel I can I can share my my two cents on yeah okay so we're coming up on on one hour I think to keep it short babe I will just do my first time I know it's to kill us look yours is so short let's - yours - no separate video okay all right all right so that's a wrap UH one thousand videos one 1000 videos and we can do we give you a really subtle reveal something that's never been mentioned on YouTube before we're recording videos now in exactly the same room in Canada where I probably recorded like 300 or 400 of the of the early videos this is the exact same apartment I used to live in and that over there that is the same wall what you see there that is the same wall where I used to have the poster that was just so I was gonna say that was just I was gonna say we had we didn't even forget we filmed so many videos in front of that same poster this blue poster that says citizen 4 and it's a portrait of an American political dissident on the poster I had that poster up for hundreds and hundreds of videos I took it with me from Canada to China I hung it on the wall of my school when I was learning Chinese in China right went through all these phases got rolled up it got a little bit ripped up took it to mongst and so on but when we packed up to leave my show we didn't even notice it we did so easy to send it there on the wall so it remained up on the wall for the next person who moved into that apartment when we left but this is this is the same room the same shower in the same kitchen new carpeting new carpeting new paint job new deck a few other things yeah you still count as new but yeah but yeah so this this actual room where I filled so many of those videos is a really strange continuity in my life even though obviously every single piece of furniture in here has changed every other single little thing is different and indeed those who can really remember back on this channel will remember the video where I was ripening bananas in the Sun I had bananas on my my laundry one lot of drying rack doesn't were the earliest videos on this channel and there this is still the same this is the same well it's not the same laundry drawing right though the same porch and we still do sometimes put out or put it over bananas together yeah there you go plot twist thanks tuning in guys