We're Not Winning: Veganism is Not Edgy or Exciting Anymore.

in a lot of ways YouTube conditions the
audience to expect people to make extreme and provocative statements that they can't really back up with any kind of substance or depth of real-life experience research information etc etc to some extent people reacted to my critique of earthling IDI and it what's been going on lately in terms of vegan street activism and the phenomenon that I like to call celebrity culture devouring real activism or real politics whatever politics is supposed to be you think about the president future veganism um a lot of people reacted to that as if I was just making a kind of outrageous one-liner as if I were really someone like a stand-up comedian tossing an insult in Earthling heads direction and that had nothing to back it up with and anyone who talked to me whatever medium back-and-forth one of the first things I had to say was no no I've really been engaged in this type of critique it great depth and with good intentions and real sincerity for years including the earlier video I did in real death discussing the political philosophy of Earthling ad and that earlier video is a critique but in some ways very fundamentally it's flattering to Earthling ad and i think it drew people's attention to the fact that earthling ed has a political philosophy which I think even most of his supporters are not aware of as it happens I expressed my opinion that this political philosophy is wrong but I did so on that earlier video in a really appreciative manner that I appreciate this is someone who's devoting his time to getting out in the street and trying to promote veganism as best he can and I think most people engaged in the critique of earthling ed do start with that generally appreciative tone even though all of us at some point or another must must hit our limits but back to the basic principle thing here one if I were just doing what a stand-up comedian did and kind of making a shallow even if it was making a merely satirical set of remarks worth looking at I think that still really would be valuable I think that's something veganism in general needs and it's something that the people who are at the extreme edge of verging into being cult leaders like earthling at I think it's on they really need I think it's a wake-up call they need to have a laugh at themselves have a step back and be willing to look at what they're saying in a lecture like that that I was that I was just some extent criticized in some extent yeah ridiculing and say yeah you know what maybe this is a bit laughable maybe we have to take on a little bit of a different direction in tone and guys if you're watching this video and you've already hit the thumbs down if you're a sincere supporter of earthling it you should really ask yourself why can't he do that why can't he step back and and have laughing himself and on this channel again and again I really do have a laugh of myself part of the original description of what this channel does on patreon it used to be here on YouTube also it still states self parody as part of the Mandate of what we do so you know there's a lot of sincere examination and inquiry and analysis that goes on on this channel but I'm delighted whenever I discover another YouTube channel that's really criticized me and you will have seen this again and again if you've been watching the channel for a while I often directly re-upload people's criticisms of me and often I I don't even answer them like I don't even disagree with them in the video so the three most recent examples I can think of offhand a lot of you will remember this video is really quite funny a guy named Rob an Australian guy with a thick Australian accent made a really vitriolic angry video criticizing me and I just took his video I edited it I mean it's slightly more concise because at one point he just started talking about his own work history he started talking bout his own life he kind of had a digression so I edited that part up but I wasn't censoring it to flatter myself it was all the hardest-hitting criticism that he directed towards me and I reapplied it to my own channel and you know for the most part in that case people just had a laugh at it another guy who's a bit more of a new-age diet guru criticized me again very harshly and in that case I re uploaded his entire criticism to my channel the entire criticism he directed me and I didn't verbally respond to or about anything he said but he did it is crispy to me it was hilarious he insulted the physical condition I'm in so put in a brief clip of me doing push-ups and uh some pictures of me with my shirt off flexing my muscles just like that and then otherwise you know I just let his criticism you know proceed so this this my pointer it's not just that I enjoy having laugh at myself I do engage in self parody and self-mockery I'm actively seeking out and engaging in meaningful critique meaningful criticism when it's directed my way I don't just offer it towards others and never in my life on youtube or in academia or in you know writing formal articles or presenting papers at conferences and whether that was a you know more academic setting or more of a real world conference paper setting like you're presenting a paper to donors from the European Union and other government and semi government officials about what's going on in humanitarian work in Cambodia have been in non-academic situations that I've presented a paper to a bunch of people who are like architects working on a project you know more of a corporate setting I've never in my life once had someone offer a sincere and in-depth criticism of my work in the way that I offered in that earlier video a critique of the political philosophy of Earthling ad so there are two questions there that you can get you can ask about earthling yet you know one is why can't he step back and take a bit of a laugh at himself if someone were on to what he did satirically and a lot of there was a lot of support for my more recent video which opened with a little satirical montage then had some meaningful reflections I mean the whole video wasn't mockery but any search the imagination but there's another question there why did he never respond to that earlier longer in-depth critique really talking about his political philosophy that was offered to use to use my mother's phrase my mother likes to use this phrase from the 1960s you know that was an argument in good faith I was engaging with his philosophy in his perspective what he's doing is a leader in the in the vegan movement I was really doing that in good faith and you know you tell me why couldn't he also respond in good faith at the time I made that video he was not yet a celebrity within veganism he was not yet rich and he was not yet famous and of those three statements rich famous and celebrity the two that are debatable are famous and celebrity you know is he really famous he's Mike Rowe famous is he really a celebrity within a certain subculture he's a celebrity but rich is not debatable I mean we really know that he has become wealthy by performing this peculiar script again and again having what are frankly counterproductive hostile conversations with strangers in the street you know you can go to his YouTube channel you can see again obviously he has the best of intentions but this is you know it's acting out the same familiar script again and again for an an appreciative audience but the real function being played by this interaction for earthling at himself for the audience in terms of effective activism you know it's worth questioning and ensure on this channel we're gonna question it maybe sometimes the little bit of satire maybe sometimes in a more sincere and sober way as I did that earlier video I'm pretty sure it has critique in the title um look let's talk a little bit about YouTube and frames this whole thing briefly um I said before YouTube seems to train the audience to have this expectation that people are just gonna make candy and extreme remarks for talkative remarks then have nothing to back it up with and I saw that happen in the comments section uh following after my recent video in which you know I was talking about communism of a sermo communism negatively and if you check my Instagram by the way I have a hilarious picture of myself attending an anti-communist pro-democracy demonstration just a couple of days ago I didn't I didn't even know what's happening it was complete luck I showed up in the right place the right time and I got to participate in that in that demonstration it's way quite moving and quite meaningful to meet and talk to those people um more people should care about democracy more people should care about the terrible history communism has had and the terrible threat it is you know for the future of you know the whole world frankly but of course especially Asia Southeast Asia East Asia etc anyway communism is still out there and those are debates still having I made this video a couple days ago talking about communism of course there were positive comments a lot of people appreciate in support of that video but in the negative comments the majority sentiment the majority conviction the majority assumption of the people writing in negatively they either opened or ended the comment by saying that I don't know what I'm talking about that I'm just making these remarks about communism without having done any reading or research now I don't know what kind of people you know you guys mix with but it's really likely that you will never in your life meet someone who knows more about communism that I do the number of years I've put into studying the history of communism all over the world both both the subject matter being all over the world and my actually living in communist countries you know at this point I mean I have expertise in Buddhist studies it's very likely you'll never meet someone who's more of an expert in Buddhism if you do I'm happy for you that's great there are there are dedicated scholars but there were not a lot of them and you know if you just google my name a + communism I think you're gonna find some of the essays I've written various reflections the life eyelid lived and and how much depth I really have on this topic so there's a strange kind of parallel here where you know you dare to criticize earthling edge you dare to criticize what's going on in the vegan movement the instinctual reaction is and it's just created by this frame right here it's just created by the format of the YouTube video the instinctual reaction is you don't know what you're talking about because you're on YouTube because you're a glittering image in YouTube without even searching within this YouTube channel to see how many videos have made talking about communism without searching within this YouTube channel to see how many videos have made talking about earthling ed or talking about what's going on in in vegan activism so on and so forth ok at this point you're gonna see I'm coming back to my main topic momentarily but this this little digression could almost be a separate video in itself is veganism growing or is it shrinking in a very real sense the true answer is both there is a new Gallup poll out 2018 Gallup poll Gallup is a research company they're famous for doing social science research and surveys they did a very sloppy very cheap telephone survey they interviewed approximately 1,000 people through dialing random numbers it's not a big survey and in the year 2018 you tell me what type of person even answers the phone when they get a call from an unknown number and when that unknown number explains that they're conducting a survey what kind of person just hangs up the phone and what kind of person continues the call so in many ways a deeply biased deeply flawed survey I remember I wrote I've written about these problems before in the past in political science in research of various kinds but with that deeply flawed and cheap methodology ultimately this is cheap low-quality research back in the year 2012 they discovered using this methodology that perhaps 2% of Americans or vegan okay now again this is 2% of the type of person who will answer a random number that never seen before on the phone and when they're told this is a polled you have a minute to answer a few questions will stay on the line 2% of those people and who speak English fluently said they were vegan and then when they did the poll again in 2018 they instead found 3% of people were vegan in the United States of America ok so that would indicate modest growth there's also a sense in which we all know veganism is shrinking veganism is losing its tenacity it's losing its Verve it's losing its edge and this is obvious most of all for those of us who were right here inside this glowing box YouTube I remember discussing this with Charles Marlow years and years ago back before his content turned to garbage back when he was a friend of mine and a colleague in the movement before he did drama videos at all before he did all the terrible things that have now landed him in cord and you know he's become a laughingstock but I remember talking to Charles and saying to him very bluntly he was asking me about the potential for this kind of vegan demi-monde to grow and grow to have bigger and bigger audiences and I said to him look lightning doesn't strike twice something really special happened something really unique in the history of the Western world happened when for the first time people came on YouTube and they saw slaughterhouse footage and they were shocked and appalled and got motivated and googled it and found out all this information and each person has a different story right but whether you think of that as saying that happened in 2012 or 2011 maybe for you personally to happen in 2008 by about 2016 that brief glow of excitement the the shock and horror and excitement that was caused by people watching Earthlings for the first time Earthlings is a documentary film with a lot of slaughterhouse footage from farm to fridge it's another one here on YouTube whatever the particular YouTube video may be that you're thinking of maybe one that's unnamed neither famous nor but some vegan informational video or slaughterhouse footage video this got played out it wasn't new anymore right something parallel has happened in cuisine right there was a time when just the idea of vegan bacon bacon that was vegan was shocking and original and edgy and cool have you said to a meat-eater or even if you said to a feature vegan or vegetarian hey guess what there's this new product vegan bacon oh can you believe it do you want to try it whether you think that was 2008 or 2002 or 2011 I don't care this is now 2018 it's not edgy it's not shocking it's not cool it's not new vegan bacon has become part of the drumbeat of daily life nobody cares anymore I mean I'm old enough I can remember when if someone said vegan yogurt to me I thought they were making a joke like the concept of yogurt with no count but what really and vegan yogurt became part of my daily life it became part of a lot of people's daily lives right what we've been doing here on this glowing rectangle on this screen it went through a peak of public interest it was partly caused by that shock partly caused by mainstream media sitting down and taking notice of veganism for the first time there was the first time veganism was discussed on Oprah so Oprah named The Oprah Winfrey is the name of the woman who makes the TV show it's a famous TV show in the United States of America if you're watching this in Japan or Germany you might not know what I'm talking about Oprah Winfrey covered veganism in a huge way for the first time it was shocking it was new it was interesting to people okay that doesn't happen twice if today Oprah Winfrey talks about veganism it doesn't have that impact okay Bill Clinton became vegan and a lot of people talked about it today Al Gore is also vegan and was celebrity to me the first time you heard about a celebrity beaming the first time a mainstream news network had a vegan person on and did an interview yes there was shock it was something new it was something edgy and then guess what guys the edge doesn't last long at all it becomes boring it becomes hackneyed it becomes the butt of every joke in at some point it's even going to become you know a blood so the subject of nostalgia right Oh remember when veganism was exciting and novel and cool right that's not gonna last Hey so on the internet fads live and die fast and hard in real life on the street there's no doubt there's a much slower process going on where I mean the first people to really do it and this is partly because the technology of the laptop computer became cheaper then later people were doing it with tablet computers there was a girl named Phoebe and her sister in London England and they felt fed up with vegan activism and they decided to do their own thing these two young women I think they were Tina I think they were about 18 years old at the time I don't know there's that but they were they were pretty young women and they decided to put on this plain white mask not a Guy Fawkes mask a plain white mask and to sit with their laptop computer on their lap riding the subway in London England if you've never been to London England it's quite a crowded subway there's not a lot of space you know they nicknamed it the tube you feel like you're stuffed into a tube so people are really crowded together and I honestly don't know if they just did this when they were going from home to school like if they were taking a trip anyway on the subway or if they right from the beginning just rode the subway as far as they could on one ticket you got all the money's worth out of there - I don't know what their plan was initially but they discovered this was a really interesting and engaging form of activism where they were playing these vegan documentaries I believe with the sound off on their screen and holding up a sign explaining what they were doing and I remember the very that was new at that time and I remember the very first time I saw anyone imitating them so that was brand-new at that time I don't believe they were even on YouTube and I wasn't either they put that on their blog I knew them you know as much as you know someone of the internet I knew their blog they knew my blog I was just talking to Phoebe a couple days ago you know it's nice to hear from her um she's moved on she's doing other things but of course she still invested in vegan activism um I remember I saw a video of I think an even younger girl in Toronto and she and her friends tried to imitate this on the Toronto subway and the very first time they did it a guy just freaked out and started screaming at them and they had that you know there's really negative hostile reaction so remember the first faltering steps in that experiment of showing slaughterhouse footage taking the experience on YouTube out of the living room or out of the office out of the privacy of your own home with the computer and wanting to take it out into the real world and share it with people and at one point that was something authentically new and edgy and thrilling and strange that people tried to do right and as I say fads don't come and go in real life as rapidly as they do on the Internet but you have to recognize after this has happened a thousand times ten thousand times after it's become something you walk past on your way to work every day if you live in Sydney Australia and these protesters with the video screens and the masks showing slaughterhouse footage if that's something you have to see every day when you walk between your office and your parking spot when you walk between your office and where you go to eat your lunch this becomes part of the drumbeat of daily life right at least you have to say the thrill is gone but what's not gone right now the moment were in in 2018 I think one thing that powerfully motivates people he's wanting to reach out to strangers and share the same thrill and horror the same conversion experience they themselves felt the first time they watched slaughterhouse footage on YouTube whether that was from farm to fridge or the Earthlings whatever it was I mean for different people is different I just mentioned really briefly one of the only youtubers I've known in real life face-to-face of I've met a few in real life she converted to veganism because one day she opened a box of chicken they bought a box of what should be you know separated chicken breasts you know little pieces of meat neatly wrapped up for you and there were feathers there were feathers inside the box by accident obviously at the packing plant or the slaughterhouse or whatever they have you accidentally left some feathers in and she felt so horrified and so disgusted that she dropped the box she probably cried but she stopped eating meat immediately and then what did she do she didn't go to her priest she didn't go to a Buddhist monk she didn't go to a library she went to the internet and started searching for this information she searched and she found YouTube videos she found slaughterhouse videos she found out about where chicken really comes from and I think I think she became vegetarian that day and she ended up becoming vegan about 6 days later because of this process of information right like at first she didn't figure out all the stuff about dairy and eggs but like within a week or two weeks she was totally committed to veganism and she was struggling with this huge emotional impact this had on changed the whole way she view the world she immediately started trying to convert her boyfriend to veganism her mom her grandmother her sister there was this constellation of people in her life where she then took this experience part of which is horror right and was really trying to impress that upon other people you know in her orbit right and today in 2018 it's gotten old it's gotten old for the general public it's gotten old for the viewing the viewing public you're on YouTube which is a much smaller group of people but it's gotten old for us as vegans within anyone else because we have to hear this and deal with this all the time day in day out but there is a nostalgia that partly drives the street activism that partly drives people to donate money to earthling ed there was a nostalgia for wanting to relive the drama and dynamism of that period whether for you that was in 2008 or 2012 or maybe was in 1992 whenever it happened for you that you made this connection and of whether it's going on in the street or in some other theatrical format trying to take that YouTube experience slaughterous footage the moment of realization and then all the questioning of the facts and suddenly looking at cultural traditions and your own culture differently in this we read this grand re-evaluation of wanting to go out and share that with other people and you know what sometimes it happens I the friend of mine or a colleague of mine in the movement I saw she had a photograph and she wrote up her own experience recently doing this type of activism in the street and she got this gratifying and I think a nostalgic experience of seeing this family I think was a family of three people maybe three or four people and they stood there as a family and saw this slaughter s footage and their jaws just dropped and they suddenly had all these questions and they wanted this information exactly the same stuff people Google whenever they went through the but she got to stand there with them and she got to basically say yeah it was like this for me too maybe 10 years ago I forget how many years ago she became vegan you know enough years ago but not not very recently but whether it was five years ago or eight years ago or ten years ago she said yeah you know what the first time I saw this I had the same questions you had I wanted to know and I had the same feeling of injustice and what can I do and how can we stop this now can we change and she got to hold their hands metaphorically speaking not literally as they went through this and she said the whole family by the end of it they were more or less committed like look we gotta we gotta try to be vegan or something like vegan we it happens and I understand the emotional function that serves okay but nevertheless my fundamental commitment is to the truth I didn't get involved in veganism for emotional reasons I'm not going to applaud forms of activism or specific political theories that I know to be wrong because they make people feel good I'm not out here chasing a feeling and I think it's important to recognize that as much sympathy for that scenario as I may have that's all it is it really is chasing a feeling and as such it's important for someone like me to engage in analysis and critique and hold it up to that comparison we say okay compared to PCRM compared to other forms of activism and engagement where we could be putting the same amount of time talent and money ultimately about money financial resources are we really doing the right thing and most of you already know my answer is no it's a hard answer it's an inconvenient answer it's an emotionally starting a startling answer for a lot of vegans who are not used to hearing this from their fellow vegans but you know what my recent video show I'm not the only one I'm not the only one asking those questions I'm not the only one coming to those conclusions gonna read you an email I just received from a patreon supporter please click on the link below this video support this channel for one dollar a month I'd love to hear from you maybe your videos maybe you'll write to me and your letters also will inspire a long video like this a long set of reflections okay so my supporter who uses the name no meat no dairy writes as follows quote I was previously impartial to add I respect that he has made a huge impact particularly in England a couple of friends have said to me that they have learned so much from him yet well I think he's pretty good in a debate he's far from the pot pardon me he's far from the polished article and he misses opportunities that being said he puts in the work and is dedicated so my hat is off to him I've never felt this need to hurt me so I'll just foreshadow he's responding here to my criticism of earthling heads region recent speech his speech at the rally that allegedly had 10,000 people attending and in London England he says I've never before felt the need to speak negatively of him I have always thought of him as genuine but then came this speech I hated it period it's not just cult-like because it's cringe-worthy but because it is a lie period it is the personification of a cult leader preaching to his followers and lying telling them that they are on the verge of a new dawn telling them that the world is going to change and that they are the catalysts that they are the chosen ones I heard this just as a return from a holiday in the southwest of England I assume you means a beach vacation there are some beaches there in southwestern England at the holiday resort I didn't meet one vegan there were no vegan options on any of the menus at any of the restaurants who went too many people had no idea what veganism was some did and it was obvious what they thought of it by the expressions on their face when veganism was mentioned back home my daughter is the only vegan in her school they still serve milk at all of the receptions for the kids as standard as part of a quote unquote healthy diet in my opinion these rallies where the vegan celebrities give sermons to their Facebook and Instagram fans these rallies are doing nothing to bring about a real change in England why not spend this time and effort launching a campaign to challenge the school milk scheme so meaning challenge the fact that schools are giving unhealthy ecologically irresponsible and cruel products to children such as milk you know and they're giving disinformation about the health benefits of milk and a lot of other things they're certainly not telling these kids more milk comes from they're certainly not showing kids slaughterous footage or footage of how the tech industry really works they're explained is it right what so why not spend this time and effort launching a campaign to challenge the school milks milk scheme all the money that goes into funding the celebrity culture and rallies could be put into hiring a lawyer to take the education authorities to court to hire nutritional scientists to present the hundreds of studies showing the negative health effects of milk consumption and you don't depress some kind of charges to press some kind of case against the school boards because they are misleading children on how this stuff is produced on its health benefits he doesn't mention ecology ecology could be thrown in there too right there is so much to be done but instead it's becoming like war propaganda the leaders are telling the people at home that they're winning but the reality on the ground is quite different moreover I don't believe the statistic being bounded around that allegedly 7% of England is now vegan so I haven't examined that statistic earlier in this video I scrutinized the very dubious statistic claiming that even 3% of people in the United States of America are vegan indeed there were a lot of dubious statistics around proclaiming victory okay where are all these vegans we can barely get a group of five together for a local meetup where I live and it's a big town not far from London I would be happy to support real initiatives that seek to educate children on the effects of animal agriculture on health and the environment and that challenge those in power to justify their support of animal agriculture and poor dietary advice okay I've been challenged on my role in the vegan movement you know many many times and those challenges all seem to boil down to people asking how dare you okay and the answer I have to give ultimately is just as simple as saying I dare