You don't need to be brilliant… you just can't be a crackhead.

I got some negative feedback on my
recent videos and I'm not talking get a feedback up the restaurant reviews I raised aisel insisted I posted intro the Detroit restaurant review to Detroit vegans Facebook group and now people who write you and they sincerely ask the question like what's the point of a review if it's not positive well why would you even say anything if you don't have something nice to say you're like yeah I don't know why do we why do we publish movie criticism you know why don't we only publish positive movie reviews what why does this exist how about how about the war how about the only published positive articles in the newspaper about the Iraq war that way people won't get the wrong idea I know what's the point of criticism in politics politics or restaurants or a movie I don't know what's the role of routine see that's that's come up again I've already done a bunch of videos like on on critique the meaning of critique its own yeah well this is maybe your first experience with this side of Internet I think so conviviality hmm I got negative feedback under under another heading so you know I've been lately saying basically I'm a kind of positive juncture in my thoughts positive terms fell open to this to new possibilities and new directions negative in some other ways but in from my perspective I have a gap of maybe six months here where I could take on new projects new collaborations new forms of activism we could actually do the paperwork and create an NGO we could host a conference we could start a publication either a unique publication like a blog or something like a magazine could take on southern or or I could start a new YouTube channel you know it has crossed my mind do a youtube channel that's more kind of news and politics focus there are different things I could do in this window of time and then approximately in September I think that one at what time is gonna close right and by the way there are other things I could do unrelated to YouTube activism but the same period of time so gotta think about balancing those priorities a little bit so I've kind of been putting out feelers various ways and also in these videos saying okay who wants to you wants to jump aboard so one of the types of feedback I've gotten maybe this will shock you maybe no that's up this other versus within his video one is I must be an idiot to think that I could ever do activism with the type of allegedly worthless people I've met through YouTube and one guy was just ready to me he keep this specific example he was like oh what did you actually think you were gonna get something organised with somebody like tofu goddess which very much surprised me as a comment so because tokars was mentioned in one of the one of the recent videos I think more at least in the discussion with flim face and stuff as somebody I was trying to you know do real-world activism with now there are other people who are probably more damning examples like you could ask did you think anything positive was going to come out of trying to collaborate with Hania vania vania or Jason of Hannya mania or you know all these other people I mean in the world so the this is like you've thought a lot about but haven't dealt with it hands on real-life reality that much but look you've heard me say recently under under very different heading I don't think you've got to be brilliant to understand the message of veganism I don't think you've got to be brilliant to propound or promote the message of vegan like there are a lot of hard limits in terms of what kind of person I don't want to work with right now like I think I've had to think about a lot since the start of this channeling I never thought a lot advance but like okay how much racism do you tolerate before you draw the line and say I can't work with this person in politics but obviously because of the meeting and interacting with other vegans and some of them turned out to be a little bit racist and some of them turn out to be extremely racist you're really then you know that it forces you to stop and reflect those things but um terms the work ahead anything I want to do in real world you know vegan activism you know being brilliant being especially intelligent or something I mean I guess it must make life more more entertaining but I just don't think this is that kind of cause it I'm not even trying to recruit like the finest minds in terms of in terms of art and illustration you know I mean the arts are like that someone could be an idiot but they're good at drawing I mean you could be an idiot and still make a really positive contribution it seems to me to the president of future of being as I think about other things to do but sure I think you could be intelligent and make absolutely no cost contribution that's probably a lot of what's going on but yeah you know in terms of what you're looking for which is trying to avoid like when I first got involved in the in the vegan scene there were a lot of what I could just call false ideas that were prevalent or popular you know in the movement that like I really do think they're false you know you just give example I don't think it's cool to promote veganism through pet adoption you know what I mean you you already know everything I've say about that now most people when I meet people in real life is the face at like a vegan event they don't know my YouTube channels never talked to me before you know as soon as you meet go on they're vegans that this is after me they're vegans and they're doing a fundraiser to castrate dogs you know I mean they see that as a form of charity to like you know capture and write or offer free castration for people so so pets I say oh actually you know I'm vegan I don't think that's a ethical and that's moral they say oh wow well you know I'm vegan too but you know I've never heard that never thought about that before the funny thing is most of these kind of ethical problems or like hard limits or me or false views that are prevalent veganism they put us like within veganism vegan a vegan in the same situation that you're normally in with meat eaters which is that most of the time people just they've never really thought about it for five minutes but you meet people who've eaten meat all their lives if you ask them why do you eat meat it's because their grandmother did it they were shown to do it as can they never questioned it yeah but likewise in veganism I feel there are all kinds of things including even the style of street protests there are people have never sat down in question like okay so now you know what it's like to walk down the street and chant Meat Is Murder where's that gonna put you five years from now or you know what how do you think that's even proceed from the side of the road by those people what do you think the impact is on government look at the history of different kinds of movements different kinds of activism difficult a lobbying how do you think can you use your time better look when you start to open those questions with people a lot of times it's not that they're hostile it's that they've never they never thought in those terms before they've never questioned what they're doing but none of this I don't think any of it is really like a you know an intelligence test you know what Sam Harris is a big fan by the way I despise Sam Harris I have several videos saying how much you despise them earth you know he likes to quote the idea of you know being morally lucky the idea that that kind of having the right ideas or the right values might to some extent be luck like you're lucky you grew up in circumstances where you asked some of the right questions became some of them came to some of the right answers and chose to live a NASA career virtuous life you know um you know it's so much a matter of happenstance that it seems more like luck than intelligence when you meet people who happen to agree with you put these things um look so I had another guy I won't say who another guy you you were here on this app but he gave me a phone call on skype trying to collaborate with me and trying to set up cooperation with me and I told him very honestly why I didn't want to collaborate with him and like the main reasons were look I know you're someone who's really into playing video games like there's a big part of his channel and you're really into like magical beliefs about amethyst sand rock crystals this kind of hippy spirituality and yoga and chakras and this kind of stuff um you know people who believe that stuff I you know I don't take it as some kind of easy indication of stupidity either you know I mean I think it I think it reflects just people who make bad choices you know the people I met who passionately supported violent forms of AK Judaism like Gary Yourofsky style or direct action every style or other or a LF even more violent forms of activism what-have-you terrorist I'll you know animal rights activism there it's not a really simple thing about being smarter being being stupid you know oh your response to those guys criticism of your video is saying why would you look I mean I think I think the reality of these people criticize me this one is on the one hand they're saying well what kind of worthless person did you expect to meet through YouTube like you can't expect to meet ya people say that like you know if you're on YouTube you can't expect ok somebody you said recently I I'm forgetting the context right now but they're like you know why would you be on YouTube if you care about your job your ability to get a job like why would you be yeah what I think don't care about your job prospects because you're on YouTube right so that that means that anybody on YouTube is destined to be jobless like I don't know uh there are four people on YouTube or just the scum of the world is like IEC I think it's really I can't say 180 degrees own I think it's more than a hundred percent wrong you know before was involved with vegan activism I was involved a lot in Buddhism and you know but putting my really honest opinions about photo SEM on the internet it meant that I didn't waste time meeting up with people who were hippies or flakes or who you know literally worshipped rock crystals was very I'm sorry it's common I now can do with white Hinduism you know whether you know people you know people were just into massage she believed that some like massage isn't even a religion with her into massage and they rid of magic London you know one friend from my high school that she was obviously intelligent we went to the same University yeah and now she should meet someone oh she's into crystals and stuff like that now yeah I know she's not stupid right she sometimes I mean smart people just make bad choices and they uh a sense they become victims of false beliefs so they just they play the game with false assumptions you know uh anyway sir I was just saying about the role of YouTube like before was on YouTube book publishing stuff on the internet really being honest about what my values were my research was in Buddhism meant that I traveled all around the world and I met people obviously a small number of people but who were real scholars of Buddhism really cared about what is no Buddhist research of one kind or another and we're not the kind of hippie stereotype or the flakes there to wherever it's it's a filter on the other side soon I mean so like I can really say the same thing here like by coming out on YouTube and saying yeah I'm about veganism and I'm not a hippie I'm not into this that the other thing I really want to meet people who want to do real things in terms of advocacy and activism what-have-you I feel that I'm filtering out and other people get to filter me too and that's fine because there are other people out there who are just looking for other vegans who are into rock crystals in yoga and great as the world's your oyster or at least Vancouver British Columbia if your oyster Seattle zero oyster I mean you'll meet a lot of people who have those things in common with you you know in the vegan scene so you know yeah I don't get it I don't get it and I I don't get the kind of false assumption that that the YouTube itself is going to instead be filtering out all of the people with real talent and real potential yeah I I just don't think it's true and when I look at someone like tofu goddess I had her on a bunch of videos on my channel I think she's a totally smart sharp interesting person like why like nothing in those conversations the conversation corkboard with her made me think wow you don't have what it takes to present a deposition at City Hall so if those go to deposition just means give a formal talk at City Hall like you don't like I think there are there are limits some people are too stupid to do that absolutely there are hard limits some people are too stupid or too mentally disabled or too emotionally disabled or you know whatever it is see it as an unprofessional thing to be on YouTube and yeah I think a lot of people do you're comfortable with telling people when you get walk into a bean restaurant yes I have a YouTube channel that's right channel and I think maybe people get the sense that it's going to be they have expectations for what a YouTube channel is gonna be like you know right when I first got with you I didn't want to be in your videos because I didn't want to be on YouTube that's true general and like sheer out of it yeah yeah no it's true I remember yeah um but maybe that expectation I think that's interesting because I think over the last three years it's not that people live up to that expectation I think I've seen a lot of people leave down to that expectation I think Hania is an example like Kenya started doing YouTube in large part because she was pissed off with she'd lost patience with doing street protests the main form of her activist in the past was being on the street chanting marching and you know in Israel they have demos were they I don't know if they hold a real that dead animals or make-believe than animals we have they've read red ink pretending to be blood they do a lot of real street theater it's really kind of you know agonizing Street Theater and this very emotional style of a demo and she said you know she done it a hundred times just hit her limit so I totally sympathize you know you want to move on to do something more meaningful but I think in a lot of ways she's living down to like what the YouTube stereotype or what YouTube demands of you we didn't want to say no she's not challenge self and it's a shame because she totally could do something way more positive well again I don't know like how intelligent look how I told you do you need to be to be Gary Yourofsky how I told you need to be to be to be Joey Carm strong I'm sorry I don't think Gary Ross you're Jory Caron are terribly bright but they're they're bright enough to do a bit too bright enough to get themselves into trouble gets out of trouble you know talking about Venus in front of Eunice and I believe now I think we can do better I have videos criticizing Gary Yourofsky you can click below to see a playlist of them or whatever you know what you say I guess I was sorry I was warm do it when I was gonna save them now again I don't know why I can't think of the right term but when I heard that you edit tumblr I was kind of expecting something like you know just just what you think of when you think when somebody says oh yeah I have a tumblr like most people are too ashamed to even say that they have like its secretive and like you know I know I only know like through the grapevine that a couple of my friends do have tumblers but like they didn't tell me they were like you know like Facebook is a different thing where everybody has one and everyone's okay with adding you as a friend but tumblr it's like just seems automatically illicit or just like a place to journal like talk about your real feelings that you wouldn't really talk about your real feelings that you don't want anyone to read except anonymous people just feel like reblogging photos you think are cool when I actually saw your tumblr I was like oh well it's like his YouTube channel it's actually substantive and yeah right so it's I guess what I'm saying is like you know a lot of people judge by what medium you're using right not what the actual content is okay but but it's stupid because if you met this person in real life if I met Hannah mania in real life and neither said a youtube channel if I met tofu goddess in real life if I met Jason Posey no you know any of these examples even if I met Charles Marlow in real life you know he didn't have a youtube there I'd never you to like just parallel universe where none of us got YouTube channels yeah why would I judge that person think no you don't have what it takes to be in vegan activism what do you guys think it takes like again there are some false ideas out there that create hard limits I don't want to work with people who are pro violence I don't want work people who are neo-nazis or racists you know you can make a list but once you've got those limits out of the way what does it take I just don't think this task and it's an enormous task it normal enormous task of logging for cultural change for political change yeah even for the food side of it and the health side of it and the ecology so there's so much work to do whether you do it at City Hall or the school board or whatever and let's do it and no if I met if I met Charles if I met the man formerly known as vegan she chose with his face I don't know you you know you can talk you can breathe your nose you can play guitar like duh mean you can play guitar you can talk a good game like I you know I I don't know if the guy actually is dyslexic or he just has terrible spelling but whatever I mean he's got limits you know but I would totally try to work with some of that if I'm in really high standards wouldn't be different in real life than they are with me in these people me too but it's funny people think of me as such a snob because I openly grovyle people for being idiots and so on fine I'm a snob but like you know maybe I'm maybe I'm Way less snobby either meet these other people in the game they just one minute they just don't admit what they're you know what their standards and biases really are yeah well you're willing to talk with these people and which is what surprising to me that ya talked with cheetah yeah but yeah no I don't think it takes that much intelligence it just takes dedication and time right and motivation yeah and make it a priority like I mean it does take a certain level of intelligence to know how to go about making social change you know like knowing how to conduct yourself when you're at a town hall meeting right something okay I agree but how are you gonna learn without trying first yeah manly that's the other side and like you know Eve so someone else I was criticized for talking to because talking to people is such a big deal well you know the light twins and they're now heavily into like crystals and you know no but you know but look you know why wouldn't I think those guys have the potential to make pause the difference mm-hmm and again like so starting from the assumption they have some potential you know if someone like me doesn't give them a chance you know whatever take them to City Hall and let them give a deposition let them see how friend it is to give a deposition at City Hall as opposed to making a YouTube video they may have potential they don't know they have themselves but also you know yeah so cute it's like just recently we were watching Julie carp strong's interview and I just remember being like wow he's come so far because we had watched his I didn't know much about Jovic Armstrong but you showed me right videos from two years ago on his channel and where he's following during right now he's really come a long way three years is not that long a time that's somebody that can be on a talk show and be presentable and somewhat professional and you know it's great so yeah today he is definitely doing more good for the pachinko fintan arm yeah no he's not perfect he's screwing some things up but so what make mistakes learn from your mistakes yeah he's somebody that I think you probably could work with if you were in the second country the same hemisphere but yeah anyway but I mean you know these are all deeply flawed people but you know at least they're trying at least they're trying to do yeah that's like positive um I think the other the other thing that's really sad I want to say this earlier this bridged obviously you said earlier but that assumption that there's some s like juvenile about like the Internet itself yeah like because something is a blog therefore its revealer because something is on YouTube is trivial mm-hmm look if I had come on YouTube when I was 16 years old and I had videos from that period yes I would nail in a sense regret though and I would just look back on them I would don't even that I was stupid when I was 16 it was just wrong I was ignorant and I was wrong about a lot of things yeah I see that I still have writing from the time of my life you can read some miles write read some stuff I wrote back when I was your age back when I was in my early twenties it's not can see how my views have changed become more nuanced and more reasonable in other ways you know so sure you know those 16 year old more radical and discontented me you know didn't get immortalized on YouTube but okay so we all know that on some level why would you leave YouTube to be the domain of only angry teenagers you know what I mean I think it's yeah I think it's so important that middle aged people get on you - but make a positive contribution even if the contribution is you know just again letting other activists know that you're here and you want to make something happen or you want to find out what common ground you've got and so on yeah I agree I find out who else there is for you to for you to work with you know yeah yeah I definitely agree and not try to imitate the 18 year olds on YouTube you know like just because right that's what's popular um yeah I remember seeing a YouTube channel the vegan neurologist and she's like she's a middle aged person with kids and no I don't usually watch her channel but I was just like wow that's great like I'm glad just someone with a real yeah using YouTube then there's another really small channel like his I think his channel name is just like vegan Chris but again he's just like a middle aged guy that's talking about veganism and like like that's great that's cool like I'm happy to see that as opposed to somebody who's talking about diet advice or I don't even yeah yeah someone who's imitating an imitation of durian right yes I want you to ride your bicycle and eat bananas till you barf away and so on had be a song he you said earlier you said you know this people are ashamed of having a tumblr or ashamed of it you too Jim you know don't you you know if you're ashamed of what you're doing maybe you should change it yeah that's subtle a sign that you know I'm not ashamed of of my contents you know I'm not ashamed of what I'm putting on the internet and you can whether it's one of my blogs or my articles or what have you and you don't mean there's a price for sure there did there are disadvantages but um yeah I mean what I thought was the advantage again really briefly you know doing YouTube isn't mutually exclusive with doing real world activism but now when I show up at a place to do real world activism I can meet people and they they already know I mean often don't already but know know me or recognizes already know or I stand on a bunch of different issues yeah I don't want to tell the same story again and again it's a great thing but when you get middle-age you get tired you don't want to throw the same stories over and over again you know Berlocq I can I go to a vegan event and legitimate you can meet because they've never thought about this didn't ever you never thought and they're just shocked to hear that I'm actually against Gary Yourofsky right oh no yeah I have a youtube video about that and now I don't tell straight yeah you can see what I've said without you - no I don't want to stand here in monologue the same story you know at five different the vegan picnic vegan meetup eating vegan gathering right no I know something funny you said about like I don't want to I don't want to do anybody else in the future yeah it's a real drag I'm tired of telling my own life story and she'd already watched pretty much every video on my channel never tell any of those stories again but I know other stories really first when we first stuck together yeah that's right and look this thing is gonna say is so they're people who meet me at an event like that they've never seen my channel before but that's still a useful thing for this filtering they can filter me out I can filter them out is this someone I want to work with there's it oh you never heard of me ever heard my jump for oh yeah Gary Yourofsky controversy or oh yeah castrating dogs controversy well check out my channel you know and those of the stuff you know yeah whatever they might see it after they meet me face to face in real life and on the other hand yeah I get to go to a vegan events and they're people who already know me or know of me or have some sense oh yeah he's that guy and you know you know where the common ground is to be found so I can only see it as a positive tool for organization and activism yeah but like you know yeah beyond that it's funny I do call people idiots on the internet and some of the people are called idiots have a PhD professor will can look up talking about you know human rights for rats yes sir we have a video with this talked about in more detail it's stupid you know I don't again okay so what's the point what's the point of having restaurant reviews if they're negative a meal I think it's really important to talk about some of the core ideas quite easy beam is sometimes are stupid I'm wrong no I don't believe in civil rights for rats I don't you know I don't think it's anyway you know we gonna produce wheat if we have to farm wheat without killing rats again and that's another issue that you've heard this before on this channel that Gary Francey own as he calls himself or Gary from Co fun coa as he would be called nidalee Gary fritzy on Monday uh he you know really has trouble dealing with that but yes actually farming fruit and wheat when happy involves killing animals cuz this position is not in Torah blah blah blah okay yeah it's a role critique is important for that it's a port for letting people know who I am before they meet me or after they maybe an event blah blah blah but the bottom line is I've said this recently in the conversation with flan phase I do think veganism is a simple enough message that children can understand it and children can profound it and you don't need to be brilliant I mean I think in a sense like I said Sam Harris is idea being morally lucky it's almost luck if you happen to have the right set of user assumptions coming into this so I think you have an advantage if you start off coming into it from a position of ecology as opposed to say traditional Hinduism there are lots of vegans who started off as Hindu then they realize where milk comes from and then they become vegan instead of vegetarian and believe me in the next ten years next twenty years they're gonna be more India's gonna become a warm for in place reviews you know but sure you have certain advantages approaching in a more scientific way or more ecological way and again I don't think I don't think it has anything to do with intelligence you know the people who believe in rock crystals and so some ways they're just we could be be say unfortunate you know but yeah what I'm when I'm trying to recruit for these things uh yeah what you know I don't know I don't know the Internet's funny the internet makes it possible for us to all seem like were cooperating and collaborating when really were not we're living totally separate lives that you know I've worked at newspapers have worked in magazines and an old-fashioned newspaper or magazine you really work together you know like cooks in a kitchen you know in a way that never happens in the Internet and now everybody in the kitchen has to be brilliant you just can't be a crackhead you don't want anyone of the kitchen staff who's a drug addict or you know what it means strung out or something it's a problem you know there are minimum standards but I think I think you can have a brilliant newspaper or a brilliant magazine or a Brian kitchen working and I you know a lot of that work it doesn't take a lot of brilliance takes good intentions and you know sir it's free decor