Veganism Declined by 50% in Two Years: A Warning for the Movement.

28 July 2019 [link youtube]


https://www.patreon.com/a_bas_le_ciel

#vegan #vegans #veganism


Youtube Automatic Transcription

there's a misleading illusion that the
vegan movement is growing because more and more grocery stores have packaged products on the store shelf packaged products are not a powerful indicator of interest or the political vitality social relevance meaning and impetus of the movement Paul Bashir is one of the single most successful people in vegan activism in the last five years but look at his YouTube channel and he's not even half as successful as I am and I define myself not as a measure of success but as a measure of failure so let's get real here's the YouTube channel for the save movement the save movement is probably the most respected and the most positively covered in the mainstream press of all these examples they get you know magazines and newspapers writing about them look at the YouTube channel I can get more views than that if I just upload another video complaining that young people are lazy and should quit playing video games if anything what this indicates to me is that the statistic we started with from Google corporation the trending data showing a 50% decrease from a peek into that early 2017 we're now at 50% the level of interest that looks like a conservative estimate there is a dynamic relationship between the level of interest what Google measures and these statistics and then what you could do with organizing that interest to go in and accomplish things in terms of lobbying activism events in the real world let me make my bias clear within the first 5 seconds this video I am myself vegan I am myself an aspiring vegan activist I've been coming here on YouTube for years to sound the warning bell to sound the alarm when something is going wrong in the vegan movement because I want the vegan movement in general to succeed I want to succeed myself it's really easy to take an attitude of shooting the messenger the last time I made a video talking with this phenomenon 100% negative response but guess what there are statistics that backup my perspective on this matter this is Google trend data showing you that interest in veganism is not growing now I'm going to come back to this chart you're gonna see it zoomed in up close we're gonna talk about this in some detail so don't worry you don't have to pause the video now you don't have to rewind for those of you in the audience who are inclined to disregard this chart for those of you the audience who are highly motivated to dismiss all of this data because it's bad news you don't want to hear because it's a canary in a coal mine whatever allegory one is keep in mind keep in mind how you would respond to this same chart this same data if it were showing the exact opposite trend if we're showing you this same chart from the same source I could even take this and just flip it backwards and I said to you hey interest in veganism is going up and up interest in veganism within two years had doubled you wouldn't be so skeptical would you you'd say oh well that's great we have this solid evidence social science research in the internet showing us that interest in veganism is going up and up that the vegan movement is doing better and better okay my formal education is in political science very much including the use of social science statistics the way we learn about trends and public interest approval and disapproval and political issues in political science it's been a big part of my life in the university even in the professional sphere if it in my private life I got to say okay I understand these things work the type of data you get from Google corporation here okay it really is valuable it really is much more valuable than what we relied on in say the 1970s like in the 1970s they literally phone up a bunch of people at around dinnertime and ask them how racist are they okay locally on these days the end of the poem we have a few questions for you this is a polling said senator then you ask them some questions about faces they are okay do you think that really accurately reflects how racist people are compared to the precision we have in measuring their viewing habits on YouTube if you really crunch the numbers of YouTube you can tell how many people in the American public are concerned about illegal immigration from Mexico how many are concerned about this issue how many concern about that issue and you can put them in proportion in one of the keys okay the type of person who's concerned about illegal immigration from Mexico the statistics show just by looking at YouTube viewing habits those same people are even more concerned about the trade deal with China or maybe it shows they're less concerned but you'll have numbers with that kind of precision old-fashioned political science polling data was much weaker than this so it urged you it's good to be skeptical but if you really understand the numbers and the type of data you're looking at here it's really very powerful what we now have to work with compared to what we used to rely on and political science data the type of social science data we get from YouTube we get from Google Corporation it's really powerful it's really meaningful don't ignore it if it were telling you the exact opposite if it were telling you that the level of interest in veganism were doubling and not dropping in half you wouldn't ignore it so don't ignore it now when it's the canary in the coal mine when it's the warning you need to hear what is the warning we all need to hear to get organized get motivated and turn this movement around compared to the peak in early 2017 interest in veganism is now about 50% of what it once was and if that seems implausible to you if you're skeptical keep in mind you can't have a best-selling book every year some years veganism has a huge breakthrough on a mainstream TV show like The Oprah Winfrey Show Oprah Winfrey did the vegan challenge with her and her entire staff writes exposes millions of people to this idea this diet the ecology the ethics for the first time can't happen every year it cannot happen every year if growth in the vegan movement is going to be sustained by having a best-selling book year after year fear then that growth is not sustainable recognize that yes it's good to be skeptical but it's not it's not reasonable to look at a couple of years we had a few hit books hit movies you know famous recognizable faces on mainstream television talking about veganism and think oh it's just gonna keep growing and growing like this forever okay not even Star Wars can sustain that not even Batman can sustain that they can't have a hit Star Wars movie every year but even if you did the social political and ethical impact would be less and less with each new movie with each new book that comes out and that's even true of Star Wars okay the 1977 Star Wars film had a huge impact on the culture and you know what I'm sure the first time veganism got discussed in the Oprah Winfrey Show huge impact on the culture for millions of people the first time they saw slaughterhouse footage the first time they saw a documentary about ecology and veganism or about the ethics of animals treat huge impact okay but now that is over it's a short term effect on the culture this is the YouTube channel of Paul Bashir and these are really important to look at as indications Paul Bashir is the respectable face of anonymous for the voiceless I personally am NOT a fan of this organization but they are one of the most famous the most influential the most discussed in newspapers vegan organizations in the world okay so in the last three years this has been an enormous ly successful organization and it has partly been enormously successful because of the dynamic link between their Street activism and what they put on YouTube okay so this is not an example of a failure this is an example of one of the most successful vegan organizations of time look at the numbers look at the numbers look at the number of viewers on that channel it's nothing it's practically zero okay that is a sign that is a canary in a coal mine there's something wrong here what we call success in vegan activism is shockingly similar to failure you don't believe me here's the total number of views per month Paul Bashir gets and you get a little bit of a chart there showing you that you know it's kind of normal a little bit of a decline thirty-four thousand there's the total number of views I get I consider myself a failure I consider my channel on YouTube a failure I consider my attempts at vegan activism thus far to be a complete failure and yet I'm vastly more successful than Paul Bashir on YouTube and Paul Bashir is the only YouTube channel for anonymous of the voiceless look on the right-hand side of the screen there they've reserved basically a blank channel with the name anonymous to the voiceless but the Paul Bashir channel is the YouTube channel for that organization okay what is success and what is failure in this movement there's a real warning here that we should not disregard direct action everywhere okay it's difficult to say who has had more coverage in the mainstream media in the last couple of years and on us for the voiceless or direct action everywhere okay they have both had a ton of discussion on television radio newspapers during this period of time they've had an avalanche of mainstream press coverage they've had controversy conflict court cases and they have had a lot of money look at the number of views they have on YouTube all right many of you will say oh well YouTube isn't real life whether we're talking about Paul Bashir anonymous with voiceless or direct action ever oh well YouTube doesn't really measure the number of people involved really you think so okay I put this on a small scale notice in large scale this is a really misleading misconception for two reasons on a small scale think about how many participants are involved in Paul Bashir's videos think about how many participants are involved in direct action everywhere videos people who were there people who attended the event people said hey that's me in that video and by the way there you know these are kind of professionally edited they're not like my videos a lot more human hands a lot more volunteers or participants are involved and putting these videos together you get a slick packaged product with professional editing and sometimes there were more than a hundred people involved as participants in making this video okay if you have a hundred people involved with making a video and they're all proud hey I was at that protest I was at that event I was a participant I'm in that video you know you know what you have you have more than 100 grandparents more than 100 boyfriends and girlfriend more than 100 and aunts and uncles whom you share that video with or who find that video who see that say oh that's four oh there's my there's my cousin Andrew when he's in that video there's my friend from high school Sarah and she's in that video with your attention for the fact that these have so many participants and so few viewers shows a crippling lack of interest you mean the low level of public interest its significance is exacerbated it's made worse when you consider how many people are positively participating how many people are involved has to be seen that context that's on the small scale on the large scale if you want to disregard this how do you think how do you think today the record industry works when they're looking for a new rapper for a new vocalist a new recording artist you think they don't look at how what numbers they do on YouTube YouTube has some of the most solid numbers in the game numbers on Twitter can be very misleading numbers on Facebook can be misleading these are hard numbers on YouTube they really are and they're directly connected to advertising revenue and everything else you think a record executive isn't going to take the time to look and say oh well you know this person claims that they've been they've been playing sold-out shows like let's say you have a recording artist and say hey in the last six months I did ten gigs and every single one of those gigs had more than a thousand people at them okay that's what you say but you know what I think I think looking at your numbers on YouTube I think the people who were attending those gigs the people who are attending your concerts they were there to see some they're artists they were there for some other reason they were just there because it was Thursday night is half-price beer at that venue those are successful venues or successful shows due to other artists because when I look at your YouTube numbers then I know how many people are really interested in you how many people are interested in hearing your voice right if you got thousands of people showing up to events whether their concerts lectures protests and then you have practically zero views on YouTube all right it's a very important very meaningful indicator it's much more powerful indicator than old-fashioned polling data we used to use in political science calling people up on the phone is your fiends repping them in the middle of their meal at dinner and trying to ask them a bunch of political questions they don't want answer what this measures whether it's the trend data from Google Corporation or the views on YouTube it measures interest an interest is the oxygen in this ecosystem if there's no interest how are you gonna get organized to do activism if there's no interest how are you gonna earn people's trust to give you donations to go out and start the products projects you want to do okay there's a misleading illusion that the vegan movement is growing because more and more grocery stores have packaged products on the store shelf it's not true okay packaged products are not a powerful indicator of interest or the political vitality social relevance meaning and impetus of the movement these indicators show you what you really need to know not the fact that you can buy blocks of tofu at the supermarket when 90% of the people buying tofu or meat-eaters who have no interest in animal rights all the vegan foodstuffs are consumed by non vegans it's the tragedy of being in Taiwan right now in Taiwan right now vegan restaurants are everywhere vegan packaged products are everywhere and the vegan movement is nowhere so let's pay attention pay attention to the successes and the failures Paul Bashir is one of the single most successful people and vegan activism in the last five years but look at his YouTube channel and he's not even half as successful as I am and I defined myself not as a measure of success but as a measure of failure so let's get real here's the YouTube channel for the save movement the save movement is probably the most respected and the most positively covered in the mainstream press of all these examples they get you know magazines and newspapers writing about them look at the YouTube channel okay I can get more views than that if I just upload another video complaining that young people are lazy and should quit playing video games these numbers are practically zero and these are again professionally edited well-made videos sometimes with dozens of participants but sometimes with hundreds and hundreds of participants each one of those participants has grandparents boyfriends girlfriends cousins that will inflate the numbers here's an actress you've never heard of called Roger Yates all right Roger Yates the number of views on his videos as he he does tabeling as a form of activism he sets up a table with buttons and posters and booklets and he just promotes veganism directly in a humble way he collects donations that he spends those donations you know doing this form of activism the number of viewers on his YouTube channel is comparable to the number of viewers you just saw for the save movement so if a massively successful vegan organization well you know with a huge level of positive you know promotion in the mainstream media in the press if that is attracting a similar level of social media interest to a tiny nobody you've never heard of who just does tabling in in Ireland this is a really serious warning it's a red flag it's a canary in the coal mine okay how about the single most successful vegan organization of the last decade PCRM at first glance you might think the numbers aren't too bad Hey eighty-eight thousand views per month the numbers are terrible my own channel a complete failure eighty-three thousand views I am just one guy flat broke you know no positive connections in the vegan movement nobody's helping me fighting an uphill struggle divorced single-parent unemployed in a terrible situation struggling to teach myself Chinese in Taiwan at every disadvantage apparently I can compete with PCRM you know what I can compete and I can win that's how much of a goddamn failure PCRM is or conversely that's how little interest there is in their success again these are successful examples but the movement as a whole is failing do not confuse the success of packaged food products with the success of the movement the movement is still a failure okay it's getting repetitive right I could keep going all day we're not running out of examples but how about a counter example earthling ed is a single most successful guy in the past couple of years that I know of eight hundred thousand views per month Joie carb strong 282,000 these four month if you take a moment and look at the little of the little charts there on the left-hand side of the screen you can see they're not really growing I mean they're they're kind of treading water not rapid growth you know in the last few months but still overall successful overall debt so that's a counter example right seems like a positive case study bad news guys freely in August of 2016 12 point 3 million views what has she declined to now by mid-2009 teen under 1 million views it's not just her failure as one creative artist when you're talking about 12 million people disappearing from this category it shows that the whole ecosystem is getting smaller the total size of the audience the total level of general public interest is declining dramatically vegan gains a dramatic decline from 5.3 million to 1.2 million views so my point here is yes you can find a small number of channels that are successful or treading but their success is on a tiny scale compared to the failures like freely and vegan gains and I can go on and on and on I make a huge list we could go through the whole list of everyone who was successful in 2016 and these declines are dramatic so if anything what this indicates to me is that the statistic we started with from Google Corporation the trending data showing a 50% decrease from a peek into that early 2017 we're now at 50% the level of interest that looks like a conservative estimate some of these things indicate that instead there's there's only one-fifth as much interest or less that actually the level of public under system decimated and guys this whole ecosystem this whole economy is hanging by a thread vegan gains has the same number of patrons as I do vegan gains relies on a hundred and fifty eight patreon supporters it's mind-blowing I have only a hundred and forty two but Wow I guess I'm not doing so badly bite size vegan big name in the game three hundred and nine supporters so if I managed to double the number of people supporting my channel I would be in the big leagues with bite size vegan right this is showing how small the big leagues really are those annoying vegans relying on only 39 supporters Joey carbs strong very successful again he's one of the few exceptions to the rule only 584 these are small small numbers but the smallest numbers of all are reserved for the people who are the most respectable the people with PhDs so if you think that YouTube channels that offer a combination of activism and entertainment are not indicative of what's really going on in the marketplace of ideas guess what the YouTube channels that are just about activism with no entertainment at all they're doing much much worse here's Gary Francie on a Francie on a redefined the game in many ways his name is synonymous with abolitionism the abolitionist approach to begin activism his YouTube channel basically as viewers but even on videos with a huge number of people collaborating with a huge level of institutional support funding like this legal symposium which is doubtless in many ways the culmination of his life's work he's a professor of law as well as a vegan activist okay he is getting basically zero views zero public interest on that and you can compare suits that's in a year a year ago that was uploaded that video okay not yet 100 views by contrast within one day I upload a video with no links to anything of me just complaining that people ought to quit playing video games and they should read books and do political activism instead and I get vastly more refuse than that okay I got no special effects I got no cut no script I got no plot I got no interns I have absolutely no support from any vegan organization anywhere in the world and guys this failure on social media it is reflected when you see the number of people who show up for protests on the street I recently made videos that were controversial but enlightening for many people where I really looked at how few people were turning up for major events promoted by all the big organizations in Ottawa Canada before preparing this video I looked at how few people show up for vegan protests vegan political events in Washington DC USA I didn't want this video to be an hour long so we're leaving that out but yes there is a dynamic relationship between the level of interest what Google measures in these statistics and then what you can do with organizing that interest to go in and accomplish things in terms of lobbying activism events in the real world I mean really people like to disrespect my truth but the fact is that you know my name is I'm going to end this with the depressing reflection on what I would do if I had more patreon support when I lived in Vancouver I wish I had the support whether it's in cooperation with other vegan organizations or support from viewers here then I could have gone out and run a pancake stand or a hotdog stand or a soup kitchen could have had something like a vegan free food foundation I wish we could have taken that to really impoverished parts of Canada and filmed it where you set up you know a soup kitchen in effect giving away free vegan food do it on First Nations reservations do it in you know dead-end post-industrial towns like Hamilton Ontario go out there and tell people and show people you have a choice even if you're poor you can buy lentils instead of beef you can improve your health you can take ecologic allah tea you can do the right thing ethically by the animals go out and do a soup kitchen giving away free food veganism I wish I had the support to do that instead my experience when I was in Canada Western Canada was so negative that I decided I had to give up on vegan activism entirely I had the money at that time I had a very small inheritance of my father I ended up spending all the money from my inheritance going to visit my daughter because again I'm divorced to the kid but I had a small inherits my father and it said to other vegan activist look let's do a conference at a specific topic in mind let's get seven people together each present a paper on this topic then bind the chapters together and publish it as a book I would have done some more academic things like that - the number one thing I would do right right now if I had the level of support and again I know these people don't have that much more than me if I had the level of support of bite size vegan I would have an illustrator complete the illustrations for my series of children's books I would get involved with writing children's storybooks to support the future of veganism and adapting those storybooks into cartoons the cartoons could be here on YouTube that could be your on Netflix we have to get involved with cultural production to produce a new culture that is going to replace a culture of excuses a culture of cruelty a culture of ethical and environmental irresponsibility that has become normal that it's completely invisible the ultimate tragedy of what veganism aspired to do in the last five years try to do and fail to do is that we tried to shake this culture out of its sense of unquestioning conformity to those social and cultural norms and instead we have ourselves become yet another invisible part of those social and cultural norms vegan options on airplanes have become normal vegan packaged food in the grocery store has become normal the vegan diet be promoted on Oprah and NBC and mainstream television has become normal we've become part of the easily ignored drumbeat of everyday life the same way that people with peanut allergies and people who are lactose intolerant did we don't want to just be a genre of restaurant we don't want to just be another fad diet the point is to form a movement a movement that's going to make everyone else in this society uncomfortable and it's ultimately going to lobby for legal change I guess I kind of realized in a way that even if I can inform you know a thousand people and maybe make some people just like me in the process that it's worth it to me [Music]