Update & Reflections on the Success of the Fundraiser
17 June 2016 [link youtube]
Youtube Automatic Transcription
good evening the main purpose of this
video is to thank you guys for your unbelievable generosity and resolution in response to my opening up the possibility of sending in donations five thousand US dollars were raised in just eight hours that shows more than generosity that shows I think a kind of resolution a kind of will a kind of desire a kind of demand for change in my prior video in this already reflected on the mixed emotions motivations aspirations that will be bringing people to this event that will be inspiring people to give money in trying to post this short update video I actually recorded an earlier version of this where I was much more elated and surprised and expressing you know my gratitude and you know even though it was a very sincere video I decided to delete it because I did not want to appear to be gloating of course I'm surprised of course I'm amazed and of course I feel gratitude towards you guys but still I think we have to talk about this with some sense of gravity as said before many people's lives have been destroyed and we're resolving to do something in terms of the process of the law in terms of seeking justice in terms of calling for accountability in terms of enforcing minimum ethical standards in a social movement that prides itself on its ethics ultimately with all that in mind in looking at my first video I decided it it wasn't an appropriate thing to to share with you so instead you're getting this relatively boring state would front me up sorry um a few questions have come up many people want to know if I've been talking to lawyers and what the lawyers have to say yes I've been talking to lawyers and what the lawyers have to say is they want me to treat all of their advice as completely confidential and certainly at this stage there is very little I can say after certain hurdles have been crossed I may be able to reflect on the situation more with you there are to be honest many kind of funny and interesting anecdotes I could relate from my conversations with the lawyers some of the lawyers I spoke to in Australia have past experience with during writer himself you know with his prior cases and so they had their own emotional and intellectual attachments to the the situation that I'm in and the potential outcomes for for this legal challenge um but yeah at this time there's almost nothing I can tell you about that and obviously I appreciate that given the information i was able to share i understand some of you have written in saying you don't feel you have enough information donate that's fine I completely respect your decision on the other hand I'm delighted of course that many people have looked at the information you've given them and have decided to make that commitment whether it was for ten dollars a hundred dollars or a thousand dollars several donors were very generous and gave significantly and I of course I appreciate that but I also have to imagine for them they're probably individuals who take this situation very very seriously possibly for their own personal reasons and possibly for the long-term aspirational reasons that have described so we thank you all thanks to people give one dollar and thanks to people to give a thousand dollars I appreciate it all and I think you know all of us are united in the principle of this thing and I've always said you know vegans are a diverse and divisive bunch it's inevitable we're going to be united by this for a short time and then everyone can go back to debating the politics and philosophy of veganism I've said a million times people always people always send me fan mail starting with I love your channel I may not agree with everything you say but of course you don't if you want to hear someone where you know you agree with everything they say you can stand in front of the mirror and make a podcast you know listening to your own opinion you know you come to this channel I'm glad you can respect my opinion you can disrespect my opinion you can agree you can disagree but I know I have always been pitching my message to a small audience who are really seriously interested in these these topics and I have no expectation that in the long term after this controversy my channel is going to you know become an enormous massively popular channel because what I do by definition is is interesting to a small dedicated audience I also want to say i'm racing to get this video wrapped up in five or six minutes because uploading in china has been extremely difficult even with VPN sometimes i spent three and a half hours uploading something sometimes six and a half hours for these short videos at low resolution using YouTube has not been impossible but it has been so difficult so intermittent so unreliable that as I expected when I opened up my patreon invited you guys to join the main format I have for expressing myself and its retching the audience now is uploading podcasts to patreon and I think that's going to continue obviously just lately I've been distracted with lawyers and banks and with studying Chinese i am still you know four hours a day five days a week i'm in class and i have more time studying chinese in many ways i think this year will be tremendously stimulating in terms of the life of the mind for me i hope i mean in many ways i hope this year is a turning point in my life for the better but many people you know um think that i'm now going to step up this youtube channel to take on a much larger role and the opposite is almost true i think that in many ways i'm going to be building more meaningful relationships with other vegans who are on youtube with vegan activists with a small number of people who want to pay the one dollar to join my patreon and hear the updates on my life right now i'm doing a Q&A or i'm answering people's questions about veganism vegan activism and related issues answering whatever questions they wanted to send me of course most of them are about veganism some some of my private life fine too uh but a relatively small audience is coming along with me for that adventure and during this year ahead i do not think i will have the luxury of really being heavily engaged with youtube so that's a funny contrast because many people have said that i'm just a you know self-promoting huckster who's taking advantage of this situation too try to launch my internet fame and really in terms of what's going on in my life right now the opposite is true I've been spending a lot of time talking to lawyers I've been spending a lot of time at the bank trying to handle the transfers I mentioned I've updated in the description that really the target we should be aiming for is about 6500 US dollars when I reach 6500 I believe I can close the the fundraiser I can cease receiving donations and then and then move on because I actually I was very much afraid one of the reasons wet so low why it's 5,000 rather than 6,500 to start with I was concerned that I would get so much money through paypal that when I reach 5,000 with one I would be over with the other and I did not want to be in a situation where I had too much from donations and have to figure out how to return money or you know have a vote on giving the excess money to some charity that stuff is always really lame when you do this kind of project funding you want all the fun and you go to the project and for that to be it so the target i'm currently aiming for is 6500 and then i will cut off generosity org so look guys I mean it's it's too early to pat ourselves in the back it's too early to be self congratulatory but you know I think what we really have to celebrate is that there is this intelligent majority of vegans out there who are just largely invisible and largely silent the stupidest twenty percent of vegans make the most noise especially here on the internet and I've said to other youtubers ask me for advice I said you cannot define your channel by the stupidest noisiest twenty percent of your fans you have to make the effort to respond to whether it's the more intelligent fifty percent or the most intelligent five percent it's up to you but you have to realize I mean I've got fans in my channel who watch it once a month because they have real jobs they have real responsibilities and you know the type of people who come on youtube every day who have that time to commit you have to realize they're not normal vegans and they're not even normal representatives of just the population of the country are living in obviously includes from those are a lot of the people I interact with my I've got fans who come on my patreon every day and send me messages and I send them replies and I love that it's great you know you have this some you have this sort of illusion of camaraderie around the world when the reality is i'm living in kunming china yo i mean i'm in very different circumstances of course so that's nice it's you know bring some light and warmth in my life but there's also a sense of what you have to remember there is this largely unspoken silent intelligent majority of vegans who've been standing there this whole time with their arms crossed looking at the circus going on on youtube and maybe only looking at it once a month I mean you know there's so many vegans who have still never heard of durianrider and there's so many who just look at this disapprovingly and in disbelief as say they're just people with real jobs real aspirations a real commitment to veganism but who have never been part of this game about Fame money Beauty sex let alone the game about defamation hate mail trying to destroy people daxing people trying to destroy hbu away exposing secrets in their private you know um and the overall mood for that you know a soft-spoken majority which I think this fundraiser of tapped is what you saw in that one eat video from Jake Eames where Jake Eames you know was just it's the part of the video where he's not saying anything particularly just sort of has his his head in his head of hands and a thing how did it come to this how did we know how is this what vegan veganism has become in 2016 that's a question a lot of us have been asking and i hope this fundraiser this legal case and you know future videos on this channel I hope this marks a turning point where we all resolve that you know veganism should not be a game at its core this has to be a political movement for ecological and ethical change and beauty and diet books and exercise and vacations those can play some role I'm not trying to kick them out but boy in the last five years things really went off the rails and now you know this shows all around the world thousands and thousands of people are making the resolution to UM to make veganism a dignified social movement
video is to thank you guys for your unbelievable generosity and resolution in response to my opening up the possibility of sending in donations five thousand US dollars were raised in just eight hours that shows more than generosity that shows I think a kind of resolution a kind of will a kind of desire a kind of demand for change in my prior video in this already reflected on the mixed emotions motivations aspirations that will be bringing people to this event that will be inspiring people to give money in trying to post this short update video I actually recorded an earlier version of this where I was much more elated and surprised and expressing you know my gratitude and you know even though it was a very sincere video I decided to delete it because I did not want to appear to be gloating of course I'm surprised of course I'm amazed and of course I feel gratitude towards you guys but still I think we have to talk about this with some sense of gravity as said before many people's lives have been destroyed and we're resolving to do something in terms of the process of the law in terms of seeking justice in terms of calling for accountability in terms of enforcing minimum ethical standards in a social movement that prides itself on its ethics ultimately with all that in mind in looking at my first video I decided it it wasn't an appropriate thing to to share with you so instead you're getting this relatively boring state would front me up sorry um a few questions have come up many people want to know if I've been talking to lawyers and what the lawyers have to say yes I've been talking to lawyers and what the lawyers have to say is they want me to treat all of their advice as completely confidential and certainly at this stage there is very little I can say after certain hurdles have been crossed I may be able to reflect on the situation more with you there are to be honest many kind of funny and interesting anecdotes I could relate from my conversations with the lawyers some of the lawyers I spoke to in Australia have past experience with during writer himself you know with his prior cases and so they had their own emotional and intellectual attachments to the the situation that I'm in and the potential outcomes for for this legal challenge um but yeah at this time there's almost nothing I can tell you about that and obviously I appreciate that given the information i was able to share i understand some of you have written in saying you don't feel you have enough information donate that's fine I completely respect your decision on the other hand I'm delighted of course that many people have looked at the information you've given them and have decided to make that commitment whether it was for ten dollars a hundred dollars or a thousand dollars several donors were very generous and gave significantly and I of course I appreciate that but I also have to imagine for them they're probably individuals who take this situation very very seriously possibly for their own personal reasons and possibly for the long-term aspirational reasons that have described so we thank you all thanks to people give one dollar and thanks to people to give a thousand dollars I appreciate it all and I think you know all of us are united in the principle of this thing and I've always said you know vegans are a diverse and divisive bunch it's inevitable we're going to be united by this for a short time and then everyone can go back to debating the politics and philosophy of veganism I've said a million times people always people always send me fan mail starting with I love your channel I may not agree with everything you say but of course you don't if you want to hear someone where you know you agree with everything they say you can stand in front of the mirror and make a podcast you know listening to your own opinion you know you come to this channel I'm glad you can respect my opinion you can disrespect my opinion you can agree you can disagree but I know I have always been pitching my message to a small audience who are really seriously interested in these these topics and I have no expectation that in the long term after this controversy my channel is going to you know become an enormous massively popular channel because what I do by definition is is interesting to a small dedicated audience I also want to say i'm racing to get this video wrapped up in five or six minutes because uploading in china has been extremely difficult even with VPN sometimes i spent three and a half hours uploading something sometimes six and a half hours for these short videos at low resolution using YouTube has not been impossible but it has been so difficult so intermittent so unreliable that as I expected when I opened up my patreon invited you guys to join the main format I have for expressing myself and its retching the audience now is uploading podcasts to patreon and I think that's going to continue obviously just lately I've been distracted with lawyers and banks and with studying Chinese i am still you know four hours a day five days a week i'm in class and i have more time studying chinese in many ways i think this year will be tremendously stimulating in terms of the life of the mind for me i hope i mean in many ways i hope this year is a turning point in my life for the better but many people you know um think that i'm now going to step up this youtube channel to take on a much larger role and the opposite is almost true i think that in many ways i'm going to be building more meaningful relationships with other vegans who are on youtube with vegan activists with a small number of people who want to pay the one dollar to join my patreon and hear the updates on my life right now i'm doing a Q&A or i'm answering people's questions about veganism vegan activism and related issues answering whatever questions they wanted to send me of course most of them are about veganism some some of my private life fine too uh but a relatively small audience is coming along with me for that adventure and during this year ahead i do not think i will have the luxury of really being heavily engaged with youtube so that's a funny contrast because many people have said that i'm just a you know self-promoting huckster who's taking advantage of this situation too try to launch my internet fame and really in terms of what's going on in my life right now the opposite is true I've been spending a lot of time talking to lawyers I've been spending a lot of time at the bank trying to handle the transfers I mentioned I've updated in the description that really the target we should be aiming for is about 6500 US dollars when I reach 6500 I believe I can close the the fundraiser I can cease receiving donations and then and then move on because I actually I was very much afraid one of the reasons wet so low why it's 5,000 rather than 6,500 to start with I was concerned that I would get so much money through paypal that when I reach 5,000 with one I would be over with the other and I did not want to be in a situation where I had too much from donations and have to figure out how to return money or you know have a vote on giving the excess money to some charity that stuff is always really lame when you do this kind of project funding you want all the fun and you go to the project and for that to be it so the target i'm currently aiming for is 6500 and then i will cut off generosity org so look guys I mean it's it's too early to pat ourselves in the back it's too early to be self congratulatory but you know I think what we really have to celebrate is that there is this intelligent majority of vegans out there who are just largely invisible and largely silent the stupidest twenty percent of vegans make the most noise especially here on the internet and I've said to other youtubers ask me for advice I said you cannot define your channel by the stupidest noisiest twenty percent of your fans you have to make the effort to respond to whether it's the more intelligent fifty percent or the most intelligent five percent it's up to you but you have to realize I mean I've got fans in my channel who watch it once a month because they have real jobs they have real responsibilities and you know the type of people who come on youtube every day who have that time to commit you have to realize they're not normal vegans and they're not even normal representatives of just the population of the country are living in obviously includes from those are a lot of the people I interact with my I've got fans who come on my patreon every day and send me messages and I send them replies and I love that it's great you know you have this some you have this sort of illusion of camaraderie around the world when the reality is i'm living in kunming china yo i mean i'm in very different circumstances of course so that's nice it's you know bring some light and warmth in my life but there's also a sense of what you have to remember there is this largely unspoken silent intelligent majority of vegans who've been standing there this whole time with their arms crossed looking at the circus going on on youtube and maybe only looking at it once a month I mean you know there's so many vegans who have still never heard of durianrider and there's so many who just look at this disapprovingly and in disbelief as say they're just people with real jobs real aspirations a real commitment to veganism but who have never been part of this game about Fame money Beauty sex let alone the game about defamation hate mail trying to destroy people daxing people trying to destroy hbu away exposing secrets in their private you know um and the overall mood for that you know a soft-spoken majority which I think this fundraiser of tapped is what you saw in that one eat video from Jake Eames where Jake Eames you know was just it's the part of the video where he's not saying anything particularly just sort of has his his head in his head of hands and a thing how did it come to this how did we know how is this what vegan veganism has become in 2016 that's a question a lot of us have been asking and i hope this fundraiser this legal case and you know future videos on this channel I hope this marks a turning point where we all resolve that you know veganism should not be a game at its core this has to be a political movement for ecological and ethical change and beauty and diet books and exercise and vacations those can play some role I'm not trying to kick them out but boy in the last five years things really went off the rails and now you know this shows all around the world thousands and thousands of people are making the resolution to UM to make veganism a dignified social movement