Just the Drama (Excerpt from a Patreon-Only Podcast)

so Duncan's second question was why
don't you make videos or podcasts with the well-known leaders of veganism such as bite size vegan etc asking them why they don't speak honestly about during writer freely well I don't know Duncan it's it's been a while since you asked this question I think you've probably seen the answer um it's been wonderful the support that's come out on YouTube a lot of people not everyone but a lot of people have taken the controversy in Chiang Mai's the occasion to stand up and show that they are people of real principal even though as they say it's never convenient to be a person principal and other people haven't other people have shown that it's money more than morality that drives them or they've shown where they stand on these issues for other reasons you know I mean the one guy I really remain disappointed with is Ali tabrizi le tabrizi is known as the friendly activist Ali and I we were not close personal friends but we didn't know each other um it's like vegan gains referred to me as his friend very flattering I I know vegan gains but I wouldn't have said I know him well enough to call my friend but you know thank you you know thanks Richard does nice thing to say but I mean Ali I would have really described as my friend and we knew each other well enough that he also knew a lot of like funny anecdotes about my sex life just funny stuff when I was in Canada you know there was this girl who's trying to sleep with me and I was trying to avoid her and there were funny stories about little things one of my life that way so he knew me personally and he knew what kind of guy was in terms of my my private life and you know for him to do what he did when he did it because basically what what he did was he said well he said he he said I'll phone during writer so I made a phone call to durianrider and then you know he just got in touch with me by text message and just said back to me like no like you know he's forget it he doesn't he doesn't care or during writer can kind of continue playing his game so that was in a situation when I was literally in Chiang Mai dealing with threats of violence death threats to I know of at least one one that's still on the internet were killing me has talked about and were supposedly people were going to drag me to the police station and arrest me and false allegations and defamation and since then it's gone to include daxing and I mean the lowest of the low I mean durianrider went that low against somebody who is your friend somebody you know personally and someone who you know well enough in his sex life that you know the allegations are preposterous me if someone else doesn't really know me I could understand why at the beginning they might think I don't know maybe during writers really onto something maybe detective durianrider got out his magnifying glass and he's really uncovered something especially if you didn't know how long I'd been in Chiang Mai only benching my for about two days when the the allegations made like it maybe it's three days maybe I'm but it was a very very short time it's not sure I had no girlfriend in Chiang Mai nothing was going on it wasn't like you know some other scandals that happened to him I in the past were at least the guy had a girlfriend or several girlfriends least there was some basis for the rumor there was just nothing it was complete fiction but if anyone in the world could have known about that should have known about that and could have taken a stand it really would have been a li tabrizi the friendly activist and yes still to this day it bothers me that he didn't do the right thing when it mattered um you know with people like bite size vegan you know what would they if she did it's great you know I'd be happy to talk to or whatever but you know with these other people you know you just you can't assume they've got any common ground with you or what have you I am as we've seen lately with with a natural vegan a lot of people assumed I had a lot of common ground with the natural vegan I never did I wasn't under any any illusions about that um but you know you get to see what what she's really made of where she really stands in these issues and you get to see just how rapidly she resorts to denouncing me comparing me to durianrider etc when you know there's a substantive difference of opinion there and when I'd already apologized for hurting her feelings both an email and here on YouTube etc you want to talk about the substance of the game but she's playing a very different game and finally look you know what I've learned lately in terms the real divide do people here on YouTube you have to remember i am not a full-time youtuber this is not my job I'm very busy right now studying Chinese I'm very busy with my own chaotic job situation uh you know before I was in University classes writing essays I remember so what one guy one other vegan denounced me he accused me he thought I was lying about being a university because he thought I was spending so much time making youtube videos I couldn't possibly be taking us no no no no i was i was on schedule i was writing my essays and writing my exams all that stuff too um so you know I'm not a full-time youtuber I can't devote that much time and energy that that's one difference between me and a natural vegan or between me and bite size vegan but you know the other difference is who is reading from a script and who is not uh I you know in her personal emails to me I really got a sense of what kind of a human being a natural vegan ants and I think in her unscripted videos you get a sense of who she is also even it's only a little bit but in the scripted videos you do not at all so that's one wake up Cole I've had and again it's nothing against bite size vegan but I think in her in her scripted videos you get no sense of who she is what she's about and by contrast you know bite size vegan ages ago she gave an interview to vegan revolution shout out to the man in the mask vegan revolution my number one luchador my number one favorite professional wrestler and the Mexican wrestling league vegan revolution did a very casual one should be with her and that's where she's not on a script and I think you you do get a sense of what kind of person she is there and so on so you know that's been another wake-up call but look I mean at the end of the day different people are motivated by different things one of the questions I used to get nobody asks any more people used to ask why do you talk about during writer at all your channel which is meaningful question and you know for somebody like bite size vegan she may not have an answer she just may have no reason to deal with this it's just not part of her life but the answer I've consistently given for a long time when people ask that question or questions like it why would I talk about durianrider on my channel the answer is my channel is about my life and I talk about things that are a part of my life period you guys may not have noticed but this channel is not called intro to veganism or vegan point of one title channel it doesn't have veganism a name at all uh this is about my life period now veganism is a big part of my life he can activism etc and debates within the vegan YouTube demi-monde as part of my life it's not my whole life I talk about my daughter my divorce my career my struggles at university some of you guys are just knew you haven't looked through the channel I talk most of my content is not intellectual it's emotional what I do here is really defined emotionally rather than intellectually I see no reason to reproduce the defects of a written essay on YouTube I see no reason to produce the defects of a formal academic lecture on YouTube those are things I'm very good at very good at writing lectures I'm very good at writing essays good at writing lectures and good at delivering lectures I've deliver lectures in formal academic settings I've delivered lectures in business settings to boardroom meetings corporate contacts I've done that whole gamut corporate NGO charity context you know but academic context high level academic context I've done that stuff I never wanted this YouTube channel to resemble an academic lecture I very intentionally come on and try to do things in an emotionally porous emotionally immediate way reflecting also some of my early experience in the theatre as a young man um stuff I've talked about so you know I mean uh that's why I that's why I ever talked about during writer freely one of my videos about them that talked about their diet it began because I just finished talking to a young woman you know just by email but a young woman who had dropped out of veganism gone back to eating meat because she had been on the raw till 4 diet and she'd gained weight and she was miserable about it I talked to her a little bit later and you know you find out more about her life obviously she had other problems you know I throw other issues but you know it was a very spontaneous very emotionally raw video where I was upset saying look you know this is not just a theory it's not just in theory that people get on this diet gain weight and then that get disillusioned with veganism itself instead of getting disillusion of the particular diet and that I mean again anyone can present those facts but to me uh it's not just about the facts it's saying this is part of my life I'm someone who's a vegan online I talked to a network with a lot of other vegans and I've just gotten back from talking to someone who's going back to eating meat and she's miserable about it she's not happy about it because this diet didn't work out for her and she's gained a lot of weight and she's unhappy about it and it's it's you know it's messing up her life so that's you know that's it for me and that's also why an answer this question I recognize that other channels don't want to touch it don't want to handle it whether it's bite size vegan or anything else if you feel it's not part of your life that's fine I totally respect that but the thing is man when you're talking about someone who's a personal friend of mine someone who knows me like that someone like Elly tabrizi dude it is part of your life because I'm part of your life I was your friend and what it mattered when the chips were down when people were saying they were going to come to my apartment and beat me up in the hallway in front of my apartment when people said they were going to beat me up and dragged me to the police station with false allegations when people defamed me doxxed me tried to humiliate me try to ruin my life professionally personally privately for no good reason when you knew both of us I was your friend I was part of your life and of course Ali tabrizi he knows freely enduring writer face to face if you haven't seen it there's video tape footage online dude that is part of your life oh and for him to do what he did at that time yeah that really let me down but hey at the same time other people stood up and show that they were men of principle I was never expecting the light twins stand up they don't know me like that now they do it's great i'm happy another light winds never expecting richard to do that vegan gains I mean in some ways like like in a subtle way I really wonder if this is a turning point for vegan gains where he thinks about the game differently thinks about what he's doing and how he plays the game differently because for a lot of people for a lot of people what went down in Chiang Mai is a turning point and I've said it before I've said it again look man youtube is game but veganism should not be a game