I'm not a nice guy, veganism is not just instagram models and hippies.

29 October 2017 [link youtube]


And this isn't an academic lecture. I guess this could have been titled, "I am not a hippy".





This video is comprised of excerpts from a longer video titled, "Life isn't fair, save the planet anyway." You can still see that video here: https://youtu.be/qDQa-DcDUco


Youtube Automatic Transcription

I have never wanted my YouTube channel
to resemble an academic lecture I want to give it to you raw I want to add whether it's my daughter watching this or - whether it's something else that I'm really going for here I'm not trying to reproduce what you get the business meeting or an academic lecture no you shouldn't curse all the time you shouldn't be out of control you shouldn't be insulting to people all the time but there's a time and a place for those things - and that's all part of the rough-and-tumble of life I've got to say to you guys my mo and running this channel still hasn't changed I'm still making these videos so that one day my daughter can see them I do not want my daughter to grow up without knowing how to swear without knowing how to curse without knowing how to fight I don't I don't want to grow up thinking her father is an angel I don't want to grow up thing your father's a hippie there's a time for coarse language and there's a time for business like formal appropriate language there's a time to give academic lectures and as I've said recently I have never wanted my YouTube channel to resemble an academic lecture [Music] if you want to be an actor here's what you have to know and I know this because I have this much experience in the theater okay if you want to be an actor it doesn't mean you want to act it means you want to go to auditions it means you want to wake up in the morning memorize the script stand in a room in front of a bunch of strangers who are bored and you've already seen 50 other people reading exactly the same script and you want to present yourself to them heart and soul say am i good enough am I pretty enough am i right for this part and you're gonna here know again and again and again that's what it is to be an actor okay being an actor isn't about acting it's about auditioning it's about having the strength of character adaptability vivacity whatever you want to say to go through that addition process a hundred times or a thousand times and even if they tell you that you don't get the part because you've got a c- body that you get up the next morning and you go to an audition again okay I have actually no delusions about my own looks or appearance I remember a casting agent once came up to me and was interested in putting me into the movies I could tell the whole story but I'm just keeping it really short here a casting agent said realistically enough he thought he could find parts for me as a villain he specifically said he thought I would be great as a corrupt lawyer he had a few other examples now I know I know why that guy came up and and talked to me actually wants really different circumstances remember once a guy in the in the record industry in the music industry at a karaoke bar he actually asked me if I was if I was interested in getting involved with with singing or what-have-you that situation was not it's not that flattering uh for one thing that guy he was legit but he was he was very drunk he was I think both drunk and smoking marijuana that night but he was really impressed by my my performance on stage you thought I was really charismatic and he was he was hit arrested in meeting with me however that I didn't go to our dish I didn't follow up with him but I figured out really really soon that there's there's no talent behind the charisma I have no background it's say sure or playing music um look the world of acting is full of people who have to sit there and say look you're good-looking enough to be a comedian but you're not good-looking enough to play a romantic role oh you're good-looking enough to be a villain but you're not good-looking enough to be a hero and maybe that's nasty and brutal and heartbreaking and maybe a lot of you people playing this game on YouTube are too sensitive your your delicate emotional butterflies whatever it is you can't take the heat well that's one of the most crucial differences between YouTube and real television isn't it none of you people had to go through an audition to get this right and now we're seeing all this fall out seeing people have a [ __ ] emotional meltdown because they feel they're not pretty enough or they're not smart enough or someone dared to say something so terrible them as to say that they're stupid or even not even that they are stupid but that one argument they made is stupid one video and they have an emotional meltdown and freak out and start lashing out and start doing unethical things like taking private emails and denouncing people and making pseudo psychological you know character assassination videos the whole point is to maintain your poise and dignity even when you face to face that stuff okay even when you get the bad news even when you fail the audition I've got to say to you guys my mo and running this channel still hasn't changed I'm still making these videos so that one day my daughter can see them you guys think I'm a jerk but you got to be a jerk to some extent to survive in this world I got one piece of hate mail from a woman who I assume is vegan I don't know saying to me that she teaches her children never to use the word stupid that that's just such a terrible hurtful thing to ever say that another human being is stupid so her children are never allowed to use the word stupid how do you think that goes down for your kids on the schoolyard how do you think you're preparing your kids even to deal with the schoolyard fight let alone what I just dealt with in Chiangmai let alone what you're gonna chill with in a in a jailhouse let alone what you're gonna deal with in the workplace there's a lot of rough-and-tumble in this life let alone what you're gonna deal with if you actually go to an audition whether it's as a musician or a model or an actress okay I do not want my daughter to grow up without knowing how to swear without knowing how to curse without knowing how to fight I don't I don't want to grow up thinking her father is an angel I don't want to grow up thing your father's a hippie you know what there's a time for coarse language and there's a time for businesslike formal appropriate language there's a time to give academic lectures and as I've said recently I have never wanted my YouTube channel to resemble an academic lecture I want to give it to you raw I want to add whether it's my daughter watching this or - whether it's something else that I'm really going for here I'm not trying to reproduce what you get in a business meeting or an academic lecture no you shouldn't curse all the time you shouldn't be out of control you shouldn't be insulting to people all the time but there's a time and a place for those things - and that's all part of the rough-and-tumble of life this tremendous hollowness in terms of what's being broadcast about veganism today that is something in a really broad way I'd like to counter but also this timorousness this this lack of confidence you know come on I want you I want us to have what it takes to get up and go to that audition to do real things I want us to be a movement that consists of people who are capable of standing up at City Hall and giving a deposition of pursuing a real legal case hopefully not one that's about defamation or threats of violence but legal cases that are about water pollution and air pollution and animal rights and food safety standards and trying to change government policy and trying to get public education campaigns going I want to roll with a bunch of highly effective individuals who are really trying to save the planet we're really trying to bring about you know those those first painful steps towards veganism being a meaningful movement vegans being a meaningful community be vegans being a dynamic you know ethically motivated minority in the world in the in the 21st century that's what I'm about and sub-second other videos can I have it this year no can I have it next year no can I have it within my lifetime maybe but we're not gonna get there by flattering each other we're not gonna get there by telling each other you're so beautiful when you're not you're so great when you're not you're such a great athlete when you're not oh you could be a model when you can't not everyone can be a model you know and even with even with language study all the time you have to tell people look you think you can do this in five years but you can't you know having realistic goals giving people realistic expectations down-to-earth feedback that's an issue even when we don't have the kind of you know pursuit of fame money sex etc on the Internet that of course is fueling a lot of what people pretend is activism veganism we have models who are not really models beauty icons who aren't really beautiful people who never get past you know ondition process we have filmmakers who aren't really making films activists formerly activist we have intellectuals who are not really intellectuals there's a lot of holiness you know to what's going on in the in the movements the movement itself is not really a movement you know okay that's what I got to say to you guys this afternoon in China and you know as I said before none of this stuff I'm not ashamed of this and not hiding this I hope my daughter one day has the patience to watch this kind of material for me and know what kind of guy I am because when you look at my resume what do you got veganism Buddhism Asian languages First Nations First Nations aka American Indians native people it'd be really easy to imagine the type of guy I am when you just look at the facts about me and think I'm some kind of soft hippie and I'm not that's not who I am I'm not the kind of person who would refuse to call you stupid in a private email straight to your face when I'm explaining to you that the reason why I don't want to talk to you anymore the reason why I'm giving up on you is that you're too stupid for me to spend the time doing it I'm that honest with people and I'm that real when I give them compliments as well and I'm the sort of person where would I get death threats I don't back down and I'm not scared and so on there's a hard edge to me that I don't exaggerate and I don't glorify but no I'm not a hippie I never have been a hippie I'm not a victim of a fad diet I'm not a victim of a weight loss craze I don't do yoga you know the kind of guy I am the reason why I want to be so real and raw with you people whether I'm talking about ethical issues political issues or otherwise is partly because my ultimate objective here is just friendship I want to make friends with real people who I can get together with and do real things in this movement one day I hope it is a movement and I wouldn't want those friendships to be on on a false basis either I wouldn't want you guys to think I'm somebody I'm not or I'm some other kind of guy and also yeah bottom line whatever ten years from now my daughter can watch these videos and she herself might imagine there's that stereotype oh my dad's a hippie my dad's one of these guys who goes around talking about peace and love and non-violence I do I talk about non-violence all the time non-violence is a huge crucial issue for me but my vision of non-violence is not based on an unrealistic hippy detached view of reality it's based on a really deep appreciation for the history of political violence and it's also based on the desire for all of us fundamentally to do the best that we can that's actually a concept that's really gone at a fashion people like to talk about good and evil but you know doing the best that you can is a very humble way to approach the world because you can recognize that there are better ways to do things but sometimes you got to look in the mirror and just say this is the best I can do so this is what I am gonna do so I close this by saying to all of you guys again ask yourselves if you really were trying to save the planet what could you do you're dead right there are all kinds of situations in which human beauty is irrelevant and in which having a c- body or an a-plus body is irrelevant selling diet books is not one of them selling permanent vacation and lifestyle activism is not one of them the whole fantasy of running away and becoming an Instagram model it's not one of them matter and of course I would love to see more of our time and attention and effort going into those types of activism where the fat and ugly people can rule the world and where it nothing could matter less than how fat or how ugly you are a baddest yen