Vaccination & Vapid Celebrities in Politics: Kat von D vs. Unnatural Vegan.

ah the Internet has created two classes
of humanity there are people who cannot make their opinion matter no matter how passionately they want their voice to be heard and then there are people who can't make their opinion not matter no matter how little that wants to be heard the latest example of this to cause a kerfuffle ayah is kerfuffle in the dictionary I ask you is it now what word I don't know to cause a kerfuffle in vegan politics is um makeup impresario Kat Von D taking a stand against vaccinating infants right now I think she doesn't really want her opinion to matter I don't think she wants to be a crusader for this cause I don't think she wants to do a fundraiser or start a foundation or give a deposition for the United Nations all things celebrities do by the way but she is mysteriously in this class of people whose opinions matter no matter what now yeah partly this is just the vagary of the internet of social media taking over the role of the yellow press and partly also I mean I think it reflects the culture of hero-worship admiration looking up to people as role models that still runs pretty deep in white American culture so I got my best girl Melissa off camera here when I grew up I don't I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say there was nobody ie no actual person whom I looked up to right can't pee but look stereotypically for a lot of boys a lot of boys I mean I've seen it they actually like create in their imagination a version of a sports hero whom they were late - you know positively I mean in terms of actually watching the sport you know normally these these athletes don't say or do anything really that meaningful but they're somehow so enthusiastic this spirit of emulation they start to look up to a sports hero and start to care about his opinions on on other matters or what-have-you but whether it's an athlete or an act or what-have-you did you grow up with that kind of relationship to public figures or any public figure or even one you know I've never asked for anything like this by the way you know yeah I mean I look I did have posters on my wall as a kid but they weren't they weren't that sort of thing you know there wasn't uh what right school assignment or something yeah you can go to somebody right I mean the the the the fundamental problem here is just that people become famous for reasons so utterly profoundly unrelated to what it is they're being asked to take positions on now I assume Kat Von D I've seen one video from her talking with us because it was really two veganism I assume she knows a lot about makeup you know I assume she just detailed knowledge cuz I remember talking with that her struggles to actually get all of the ingredients in her makeup to be vegan there was some technical you know chemical changes that had to be made in the formula blah blah blah how to get this shade of red or something without using a dye that's derived from insects and this kind of thing so she knows about makeup why would I assume her opinion matters about about anything else but I mean the American approach to fame and celebrity really seems to be if you are famous for any reason your opinion matters for every reason and you know the reverse as I say there's this other class of humanity who may really care passionately about it may know a great deal about you know a political issue a health issue something very important and they absolutely can't you know get their get their opinion so what look maybe the ultimate ridiculous example of this is Kim Kardashian going to Donald Trump to ask for a pardon for somebody so a what well I'm Kim Kardashian be the person to do this our current culture our current perception of Fame whatever so Kim Kardashian is made into a lobbyist for some political issues and the United Nations themselves you know try to do this you know Nations they I remember them recruiting one of the singers one of the singer dancers for the Spice Girls to be a United Nations humanitarian envoy I remember looking at that thinking wow nobody at the UN thinks this is a this is an all-time low or something so I mean even sort of August international formal political bodies you know play this game definitely US House of Congress plays this game amino American actors and actresses show up to give depositions before Congress famous athletes you know what I think it's cuz Congress they want to feel famous you know it's it's ridiculous but they they want to kind of get into the limelight and have these people you know uh give give formal lectures but me look fame fame as such is utterly unrelated to intelligence I mean who could believe that Kat Von D got to where she is through intelligence and you know why why will you think she would be more intelligent than another makeup artist who may be very good at the craft you never attain Fame ie being good at being a makeup artist being unrelated to thing you might you might know some brilliant makeup artists in the New York area you know who are who have much better informed opinions about health policy public policy on vaccinations but Kat Von D these these things are really grata clear related again someone like Kim Kardashian I mean you know in some ways the ultimate example of Fame for the sake of Fame she's in that nobody can can put their finger on any particular talent that she's supposed to have she can't sing she can't dance and so on but we were going through a period of time where it's absolutely insisted that these are the people's whose whose opinions matter about about everything so you you grew up with two brothers did your brothers have idols and this says role models is really you know people they people they looked up to yeah yeah yeah yeah I know right like bands like one of my brothers really late we're in posters of bands you know I was also into music as a kid but I didn't think of musicians as write public figures or even like people that I looked up to right I like the music but I didn't right yeah I mean you know partly it's growing up Canadian partly it's growing up communist my parents were extreme left wingers I am NOT I'm not a communist at all but I grew up with that it would have been impossible for me to relate to any mainstream politician that way you know I kid growing up in Canada your politicians they just don't matter they don't have the kind of impact on the world stage that an American politician does but I mean nevertheless I mean you know the idea of really looking up to an admiring Bill Clinton of really looking up to an admiring george w bush or you know a bunch of Canadian politicians most people watching this will have never heard of I mean even that's you know it's very alien to me it's something I can't relate to it's something I can't understand at all right but I've been through this I've been through this in vegan politics most obviously in my confrontation with durianrider right what the the psychology had to deal with again and again was of people basically this guy was famous for no good reason I mean what he doesn't sing he doesn't dance there's no great talent there he wasn't in a movie you know he's not great at riding a bicycle he didn't win a race he's not an Olympic athlete or anything he didn't fight school race he's basically famous for no reason and I dealt with you know to some extent face-to-face to some extent via email or other or other media hundreds and hundreds of people who idolized and idealized this one person and then disregarded you know the content of what he was actually saying and just sort of so much evidence to the contrary that he wasn't trust or that he wasn't worth listening to you know he was however briefly in the class of people whose opinion mattered on all things things he had no expertise in you know experience with or what have you you know why does it matter that Kat Von D you know is against vaccinations I think that's that's the fundamental problem and one of the fundamental you know puzzles of our time there are two classes of humanity you know I guess the internet gives everyone the illusion that their opinion matters and that maybe has its own kind of corrosive effect on social and political discourse but then there's this other sense in which they're the people whose opinions matter on everything and the people whose opinions matter on on nothing how many people you know have managed you say a master's in public health policy and know infinitely more than Kat Von D and what they have to say just just doesn't matter in the least how I do you believe in because again it is one in a million but a very very small number of people have negative consequences from vaccination their stories are also interesting and some there's still Pro vaccine they say well I'm the one person in a million who actually had medically real health consequence of this but I can still recognize this is this fundamental you know advance that you know even though I may suffer the consequences this still matters those stories are out there I mean you can find them googling around I've heard one story like that the internet here you're on YouTube you know that that really matter um I did so I mean I have a daughter she's now five years old when she was a newborn baby I did do the reading on which vaccine she was getting when and the vaccines do have an immediate effect on the child's health they have a reaction they become very unhappy very disconsolate they're in a real discomfort they don't sleep properly for several days they normally need to be treated with a mild painkiller like baby aspirin so there's a form of the analgesic asmath special for it's not normal aspirin but they normally do need to be helped through those couple of days after they get the shows it's a big deal and it can be very traumatic and disorienting for the parents because they see before they're new they're familiar with the behaviors of the baby then they get this ejection and then it throws the baby's mood and behavior all in a whack there's this really extreme you know reaction to it you know so sorry so two things when I did the research one of the main things that was paying attention to was just the order of the vaccines because some of the vaccines they were for illnesses the baby couldn't possibly get though they were three years old so I actually I said to the doctor I'm in France you're given a little booklet for the vaccinations it's like getting stamps in a passport to make sure you got them all and I said well look I'm actually really concerned about these illnesses there were some I wanted move earlier I said I need these right away she can actually get them now and I said but some of them it seems to me we could do four months later when we come back for another round of vaccines you know just moving the schedule slightly because they already was spread out though for year and a half or something when you get the vaccines and the doc this particular doctor really liked me well I said very few words to him but he really responded possibly to the several couple of things we discussed and he really looked at me with great admiration and he said do you know what you've just proposed that was the schedule we used to follow just four years ago you know he said that was and and the government changed it the government changed the schedule and I always thought the schedule four years ago was better that this is a kind of minor you know minor technical change but um you know look the response to this from unnatural vegan I thought was incredibly shallow stupid and just kind of aimless if you sit down with someone and show them a videotape of what it looks like to have an infant died of or suffer with pertussis so pertussis is generally called whooping cough we took infant pertussis if your baby gets pertussis you are going to watch it and hold your baby and be trying to comfort your baby while it dies long slow painful death and if the baby survives it's quite possible it's gonna have permanent brain damage basically from asphyxiation from lack of lack of oxygen the the throat swells up and they you know they suffocate to death it's on mean it's unbelievably awful and when it's your baby when it's not just a baby you're watching on film when it's your but I mean apart from you know yes you know you could be struck by lightning and your baby dies instantly yes I mean this is much less likely but possible if you have an unvaccinated baby that dies of pertussis not just unfortunate for the baby I think you will be psychologically scarred for the rest of your life and you'll be psychologically scarred in a way you wouldn't be by being struck by lightning or you know having your baby die being struck by lightning some kind of airplane crash or some of these things that are fast and out of your power it's not out of your power apart from the the visceral experience of holding and comfort of your baby while it dies a long slow painful death you would be doing that with the awareness that you made the decision that doomed your child to die that you read some [ __ ] on the internet that led you to refuse the vaccinations for pertussis which is an amazing breakthrough in human history that we can take that decease off the list and now you're you're sitting with your baby Willet well it goes through this I heard an interview with a woman and so when she was a child I forget how long ago this was what was used she was an elderly woman says maybe a hundred years ago but you know she and her sister got the vaccination for polio the polio vaccine and they went swimming with two boys who were brothers who hadn't gotten it yet wasn't even that the parents were against it they were their parents were busy and they were gonna do it two weeks later or something and swimming the two boys got polio one of them died and one of them as ever called he was he was reduced to living and what's called an iron lung you know yet he was completely disabled he had the use of one arm but he lost you know most of the ability in most of his body so in effect she never saw too little wasn't she she heard about it you know this is this kind of effect in your life um so I mean the other broad question that asked her that a natural vegan raised was of how do you actually talk to people about this this is the vegan mind track side of it I've actually doing outreach or engaging people and she rests on this really stupid lazy self-congratulatory thing of talking about about push back like oh well if you tell people the truth there's gonna be pushback it's really worth questioning what is push back this is an excuse it's an excuse for inaction or what have you I I don't know if you show someone that videotaped this is what a baby dying of pertussis looks so I can talk that through this is the situation you you could be putting yourself in or indeed it could be could be someone else's kid dies of it because your kid didn't get this didn't get this you know this treatment this this vaccine you know what does pushback mean in that in that context I have engaged Socratic ly in conversations with people vegans who were anti VAX and when I just talked through the adult reality of well you know if my adult daughter was gonna go to Cambodia in the future the first thing in Acts about is do you have the vaccines you need to be going to Cambodia when you ship out with the US Army to do service and the tropics even Japan there are few vaccines you may need to make sure you got for going to here are you up to date on your vaccine card is is the first question you ask you know and I asked about you know remember talking to this particular vegan vegan parent so you know if your son or daughter were going to Africa do humanitarian work you wouldn't be interested in you know their resistance to these tropical diseases that they're that they're gonna be exposed to over there and what you got on the other end was doubt knowing self wake up and push back you know and the guy did give me some answers he didn't just sit there completely in stunned silence but these were questions he hadn't asked himself before I think that is because the whole platform the stage on which this little unfolding is basically white privilege in a very real sense is people who live in the suburbs of Wisconsin and who think diseases don't touch them or don't touch anybody they know because they live in a society where it's possible to have that delusion and in Cambodia in most of Africa nobody has that delusion everybody knows somebody whose child died a long slow terrible death you know from disease or a grandparent or an aunt or an uncle everyone's kind of aware of the danger that's in the air in the water in the mosquito is you know you name it and until not too long ago I think most people in Europe and North America you know had that had that awareness too but when my mother was a child which is again approximately a hundred years ago they still literally had posters that the government would plaster onto the door saying quarantine you know when you had certain communicable diseases the government would literally quarantine your house that nobody was allowed to come visit you or you know they weren't allowed to deliver the newspaper to your door because you had a disease that was under quarantine it's a very literal meaning of quarantine that today we don't even we don't even think about so she could remember that walking past houses that had a quarantine notice you know how else do you cope Hutton just 100 years ago with tuberculosis or you know many other you know communicable diseases it's it's still a real question I mean this is one of the effects I mean I know the term white privileges it's proposed I know it's used for a lot of things but I mean this is a real example of a privilege a set of presuppositions that become invisible in all of our lives where we start to take these things for granted and then people make terrible decisions that have terrible consequences