Unnatural Vegan: Reading & Replying to Criticism (in her defense)

hey guys as this channel is rolled on
and on past 1000 videos in total and now past 3 million viewers in total not 3 million subscribers about 3 million 3 million views I get fewer and fewer poison-pen letters I get less hate mail but in the past one of the most common complaints that receive was that I didn't receive or didn't respond to criticism which I do all the time in the video you vote to see right now as an example of that and I just note I'm I'm taking some time out of my my day reasonably busy day to answer this in a hotel room you can tell I'm not at home this is not the first time I've made a video in a hotel room when I'm on the road it's not the first time I've responded to what's basically a hostile critical email sent to me I have many videos I could make a playlist where people wrote in to me quite unreasonably and many many times I've sought out and engaged in conversations people via Skype by a telephone via some other Internet chat medium people who are my critics people who disagree with me substantively I do not think unnatural vegan has ever done any of the things on that list not even one can you remember one video of hers that was an interview or a debate with someone who disagrees with her on any of these issues I maybe there is like I haven't seen every video on her channel I've probably seen the thumbnail for every video on her channel I do not remember her doing that even once I do not remember her ever taking criticism of course I've written criticism but err taking criticism and actually responding to that criticism um some people say she's done that covertly that there was one of her videos dealing with animal castration and animal decline of pets and that she was indirectly responding to criticism to that level at her without naming me so she does not engage with critics she does not give his criticism most youtubers don't and I really do take the time do this now why I am genuinely passionate about these issues this whole YouTube channel reflects my sincere passions in life and I use the word passion advisedly passion includes contempt hatred outrage passion is not a you know and passion is not entirely positive thing especially not from a kind of Buddhist perspective you know um the love and care and consideration are not the only passions I've said this to be able for if you're really passionate about Shakespeare and you start a YouTube channel and you're reviewing and discussing what's been going on in in the theatre lately different attempts to reinterpret and mount Shakespeare it's not possible that every video in your channel is going to be cheerleading is gonna be positive reviews you're not agents some criticism there's gonna have to be some level of of critique and complaint if you're passionate about it we're gonna see the full range of passions on your channel if you start a Shakespeare you say oh you know this year this production of Hamlet was a great disappointment and last year this other production was better you're gonna make those kinds of contrasts so there has to be a little bit of acceptance in my role here whether you think of me as a as a critic or as someone who's trying to mount his own interpretation of Hamlet someone who's trying to contribute to the artform in his way there's there's a lot of hypocrisy in terms of in terms of how I'm perceived within the vegan scene but over the course of five years in 1,000 videos and three million views it's gotten better in a lot of ways I feel I've won many of the fundamental fights many of the fundamental disputes or debates that have transpired around me in some cases debates I was merely involved in and in some case they really were debates that I that I started that I initiated that nobody was was talking about in the digital vegan demo sorry I'm wearing a lot of layers guys cuz it really is cold here I am in scenic Detroit Michigan and yeah I know it's kind of ridiculous wearing a scarf indoors but alright that's how we're gonna roll so here's the the email I received so it's actually um that's a long comment sent me on YouTube and this is someone who is sincerely defending a natural vegan Swayze I don't know I don't know if I ever once had someone write to me this way its pop I mean look five years a long time it's possible I've gotten a couple of emails of this but a long time ago someone writing in to defend what they think is Swayze's position I assume this is not a natural vegan herself under a pedestrian this isn't someone who knows her personal I assume it's just a fan you'll see from those writing style maybe it is someone who knows her I don't know but it's also someone who makes some false assumptions about me and that's okay I can reply but I am making this video because I'm genuinely interested in hearing the other side of it when I criticized direct action everywhere I reached out to and wanted to interview and talk to you representatives direct action everywhere again and again that was over a three year period and finally now Isak ask yourself he says he found one member of direct action ever who'd be what would he do willing to talk to me only to have some kind of a debate or interaction me and then that didn't happen that mysteriously that hasn't happened so I've it when I criticized cube of truth what's the other thing that Snoke Yuma tree there's also known as anonymous for the voiceless when I criticize that a relation right from the start I said I'm totally willing to reach out to you guys and talk to you guys and hear the other side and present that on my channel I've been like that across the board including with a natural v including with with Swayze of course especially early on in this fracas with with a natural vegan and there are feelings involved there are hurt feelings involved I I think will be ridiculous if I came out here and gave you a kind of dry academic presentation like ooh of course I don't care about the future of veganism oh no no no no I'm not part of a community I'm not part of a movement I don't have hopes and aspirations and dreams no no no no no I'm just here to make money out of YouTube how could I possibly how could you possibly think that my feelings are involved no of course of course my feelings are involved I've dedicated a lot of time to this and it's not for no reason and you guys know I mean you know earlier this year I signed up to go to culinary college to try to do vegan baking try to start a bakery as that part of the movement and anyway so I mean yeah I I really can and again even if it were something like Shakespeare if you really care about it you're gonna get that full range of emotions and passion showing so have a little bit of compassion for me and you're gonna see how much your how little compassion I could muster even for someone like Swayze who obviously is not playing the game by the same rules I played all right it's point one so I'm not gonna read this person's response Marik resume point one this person claims the patreon text is pre motherhood and pretty sure pre relationship it's unfair to take an outdated text that she has not touched since years untrue so to my knowledge and you will remember this also and Swezey herself says it on her patron she deleted her patreon her whole patreon page just prior to what is referred to as the ad pocalypse event so everyone will remember this there was this brief period where advertising revenue dried up on YouTube and even big youtubers like PewDiePie people who make a lot of money complain about it and Swayze had completely cancelled and shut down her patreon page just before that happened and then she had to come on YouTube and beg people to come back and donate money on patreon again because she suddenly wasn't as making as much money as she had been projecting she'd earned so I'm sorry I do not think this is true at all I think the her whole patreon page was deleted and then started again from scratch so this is relatively recent text so I don't know again I don't know why you claim this no even if that were not the case you're responsible for the the what you say in a fundraising message I mean if she had the same message up for years which I believe is impossible for the reasons that you stated you know okay well you live by it if you're a politician and you haven't changed your slogan in years if your slogan is that you're gonna conquer Iraq and create the world's greatest democracy in Baghdad you're still running on that promise you say oh well that's before you know that that's meant hasn't been changed in five years okay that's so to me this is wrong but anyway interesting this guy opens by claiming that and that it's that it's unfair for me to criticize her I don't I didn't even criticize her I didn't read it out to you guys I just read what her pitch is her sales pitch for you to donate $1,000 now you tell me do you think she'd live up to it I said to Melissa today we were just on the way to the gross and said you know we could donate a thousand dollars like what if we what if we just for one month donate $1,000 and see what happens do you actually think she's gonna start making documentaries look what do you think's gonna happen you you guys can ask yourself that question but I mean I could have said a lot more in criticizing her stated promises or her positions on this but all I did was read it out to you guys and and you have taken it as a criticism because indeed it's not a very convincing it's not a very convincing pitch so you say it's unfair to use that I think why I said with that is it's not just fair it's factual I did was reading out to you okay he the criticism continues are you surprised that with one toddler and one toddler to come she stays with the man of her dreams in the moment okay you know I'm sorry he's if you've watched myself sometime you for missus before in the history of political movements who has suffered less Hillary Clinton oh well she had a kid I'm sorry all kinds of great political leaders and activists have and raise kids have a family she doesn't have a full-time job she doesn't have a crippling disability she's not living in a cave in northern Vietnam she's not fighting a racist segregationist state like dr. Martin Luther King jr. who has suffered less like I don't know what claim you can possibly be making here that somehow her life is so hard just because she has a kid she has a baby that she chose to have what what do you want senior waiting and on the other hand what do you think I'm assuming I'm not saying she has to move into a cave in northern Vietnam and fight against the world's most heavily armed military we're not asking anything heroic of her you in that video I didn't make any demands of her but you know if you want to measure these people against you know Mahatma Gandhi and dr. Martin Luther King jr. or any significant political leaders in the past well you can you can choose but if you want to measure them how many Hollywood actresses how many movie producers how many documentary film directors raised kids are you kidding me and what are we how low are we setting the centers here and that's what she says she wants to do she said her own the only goal of respiration we've heard from her is that she wants to make short cheap documentaries for YouTube but she needs the money so she can afford stock footage and to do a trapeze I I do interviews people all the time I just didn't interview with the documentary filmmaker a couple weeks ago one-hour interview via Skype nobody paid me I didn't have to pay doesn't cost any money but she's saying she needs this money so she can do interviews I've been doing interviews for four five years ain't got nowhere yet but anyway so what why would her having this baby you know why would that matter this right it's it's a little bit strange okay um we continue quote you should be able to relate to that don't you thing okay so there are some typos in here don't you thing that when the children are in kindergarten she will actually meet greet organize bake invite non-vegan children etc I have no idea what you're getting here as opposed to what um no he says of me it was not your choice to get divorced yes it was yes it was I don't know where you're getting information from I did choose to get divorced so yeah it was a choice I made I dumped my ex-wife to be blunt I mean she didn't dump me so I don't know what what you're saying or why you'd say this or how this defends a natural vegan he then says and see your daughter only a few times a year but yet how would your life be with your daughter may be toys activities etc it would be more important than meeting other vegans or the fight for veganism while travelling on the world I totally disagree with you I mean it's not I'm trying to do it right now you guys know the last time we went to Paris we put out an announcement here on YouTube and we wrote to if you're my patron you saw the letter we wrote to all these different vegan organizations everywhere I go I'm trying to organize I'm trying to do realize the vism with other vegan activist it's not too much to ask while I'm taking care of my daughter I writing the vegan organizations agencies I'm reaching out to people here on YouTube and by Skype and by email I'm trying to make something positive happen and again any political movement there are parents who do this in the Democrat Party and the Republican Party in the Liberal Party it's not superhuman it's not too much to ask now the problem is is veganism the lack of response I get back the lack of initiative from anyone else that when I reach out to people say hey I want to organize an event I want to organize a conference discussing a particular issue or even I want to publish a children's story book there's a great example of vegan activism that really overlaps with parenting I wrote a children's story book I'd like to write more and I'd like to get an illustrator professional illustrator and publisher storybooks now been translated into many languages Chinese Swedish Japanese Russian German okay but I can't do that kind of thing alone so what are you insinuating here she doesn't have a job she's not in school she has no other duties and she has not uploaded one thousand videos so why not what what why would she not be as you say meeting other vegans traveling around and engaging in the fight for veganism she Charles why why not anyway I it's a so far it's a weak arguments here goes that I continued he says quote I am surprised that you argue that cooperation with hunters is necessary which I agree to but do not accept that there might be vegans who try to right reach out to non vegans and accept reduce at Aryans and that it is necessary to reach the 85 or 95 percent who won't be 100% vegan within the next 10 or 20 years so you're attributing a view to me that I haven't stated and that's not in that video so again just like your comments about my divorce it's not accurate and it's also not clearly relevant like what do you imagine you're apparently assigning the claim to me that I refuse to talk to people who aren't 100% vegan well on the contrary what we're debating is the fact that Swasey unnatural vegan refuses to talk to vegans she won't talk to me she will tuck that she won't talk to her cooperate with anyone within the vegan movement she won't even whopper with people who are on 2 percent vegan I am in the opposite position where I'm saying I'm willing to cooperate with anybody I'm willing to cooperate with with hunters and I talked to a couple days ago I mentioned to my girlfriend I talked to a guy who is mostly vegan booting hunts rabbits which is very rare and he has this whole ecological rationale for that so he doesn't buy any meat from uh from a factory from a farm but he will kill and eat wild rabbits so that's a little bit ethically alien to me but interesting guy sure I'm I'm reaching out to and it's rare but once in a while I meet people with that when I was involved with the Cree in the Aegean way of course I'm starting to people hunt hunt moose hunt beaver and that's you know when you're talking to create a job like people this is quite common so again I'm in a position where I'm trying to make something positive happen and I'm willing to cooperate with anyone and then you could have a footnote no I'm not willing to cooperate with neo-nazis I'm not willing to cooperate with communists you know there are you know you got a cooperative people were reasonable within certain hard ethical limits and I've made videos talking about that but I mean I've been reaching out positively to every vegan under the Sun for five years and what were discussed when were discussing the forum brief video much briefer than this video already is the fact that Swayze has no interest in Richard anyone not in her own neighborhood not around the world not anywhere else etc um he continues quote you can build a bridge as a mother of two small children any vegan who has no sympathy with people who call themselves a whole food plant-based and shy away from defining themselves as vegan and public just to avoid the toxic or ignorant vegans of the durianrider freely influencer type is suspicious to me okay I don't know what this has to do with me or unnatural vegan are you forgetting which side she was on she she used to be a durianrider frilly supporter I wasn't oh I know what you're trying to insinuate here is this doesn't make sense to me this doesn't seem doesn't seem salient at all and I didn't I didn't give up the label vegan because I just dislike during my turf really I stood up to them I pointed out the hard facts nobody else wanted to face up to you when I ended up in court I ended up having death threats against me having during Ryder threatened to have a gang of people beat me up in the street stabbed me and all this stuff I had during Ryder denounce me make up all kinds of lies about my sex life in up in court that's what I did sorry I mean oh and IIIi did a fundraiser exactly arguing that you shouldn't allow people like you're a writer and freely to take the good name of veganism and drag it through the mud Swayze didn't do any of that sorry so anyway all right she might reach more people and convince them of reasons to be vegan and they might actually stay vegan because she does not care what she or others eat she is mrs. well-planned vegan diet which is more than so many French guys out there are able to comprehend why should she be forced to go to potlucks etc she is not a vegan for people who are already vegan for a longer time oh I see there should be a separate censor people who are already vegan for a longer time watch other websites but she does attract the intelligence 16 year olds and curious six year olds in many forms and sizes okay well I think you're conflating a few different questions here the question you asked in the middle is why should she be forced to go to pot Luck's etc she's at a stage of her career and fame an accomplishment and level of financial support that she can be the one organizing the pot lungs she could be the one organizing her own foundation to compete with PETA for whatever reason she doesn't support PETA but I mean what peda does is a lot more sincere and meaningful than what she does pedda is out there trying to change the world and she's here on YouTube saying she has no interest in changing the world so you know nobody's talking about forcing her to go to somebody else's potluck she's you know at the stage and level of accomplishment or she can organize her own events be the head of her own foundation and she can set the rules she can keep whatever company she wants to and obviously she doesn't want to cooperate with someone like me but what she said is that she doesn't want to cooperate with anyone she's not trying to make the world a better place in any way so she's neither trying to improve or reform an institution like peda nor trying to do something better independently so yes potlucks going to going to meet people and go to picnics that's one small part of that process sure okay I continue she may not attract you or me but she attracts enough people to make a patron a reliable source of revenue your openness seems to crack down as soon as they do not follow your path a hundred percent if someone meditates takes antidepressants except small-scale animal ownerships or stalks do not want non 100% vegans to it they out two days a week vegans you're out she does not promote that she say yours look here's a quote she just talks to people you would accuse of being weak dumb in a moral show me one video where she talks saying those people I have videos of me talking to people I never noticed that I have videos of me in dialog with people I've put hours and hours and I don't see one video from her I don't know of any instance of her talking even to other vegans about what's going to move in trying to build some positive I don't have one video of her talking to any of these types of people you're you're talking about you think I don't talk to people who meditate you think I don't talk to people to take antidepressants do you think I don't reach out to those people I've made videos reaching out to Umbro Qing all those topics and all those issues precisely because I'm facing you know really dangerous pseudoscience really dangerous misconceptions but those issues and she hasn't she's been on the wrong side of she's been on the wrong side of the antidepressant issue specifically not all these issues but I don't know of any examples of this where she reaches out to and talks to these no so again I wish there was something here for me too for me to respond to and you say she talks to people that you would accuse of being weak dumb and immoral show me examples what are you talking about I'm really what are you talking about here I mean when I moved back to Canada I wanted to be a part of the vegan movement there was no vegan movement for me to be a part of when I went to the fundraiser event for Jordan Reichert's of vegan election campaign did I accuse anyone there of being weak and dumb and immoral no I was reaching out to those people and trying to find common ground to build on it there was one bodybuilder there who was going to talk to me one to work with me I was there to work with anyone who work with me for the future of the movement for ecology and ethics and all these things in veganism that's what I'm doing you know and they're all deeply flawed people oh okay well but you don't choose your audience so Melissa suggestion you guys probably couldn't hear she said maybe maybe this guy means who she talks to is in her audience right so you think her audience consists of people who would feel weak and dumb in a moral in watch not that I actually call them weak and um in a moral but you know if you're taking antidepressants and making excuses for it and you see my video when you stop and question those excuses I see that as a really positive thing if you're eating meat and making excuses for it and you come to my channel and that my channel challenges you honor you know I see that as opposed things so anyway I don't I definitely don't see it that way anyway hmm okay trying to wrap this up but he goes on for a few more paragraphs here quote you refuse to sit down with your very family when they do not refrain from animal consumption that's never been stated on my channel and it's not true it's completely untrue so again you just keep making things up and sign them in to me that are they're not sure and have never been true so you know I literally sit down and eat with all kinds of meat-eaters including my relatives we did that today sorry I mean literally today we sat down ate with your relatives and they non-vegan food around us or in front of us whatever you know um so again you're just making things up and he says you do that for moral reasons DXE had a campaign that utterly flopped that utterly failed direct action never asked their members to refuse to Sydney with their own relatives if their world has already meet and Gary Yourofsky claimed that about his family but I've never claimed that and there are voices to the contrary Gary Fran Sione he said many times the mean the main form of activism the main way he reached people he would sit and eat dinner with people and colleagues and all the time normally whenever he had dinner with a mixed crowd veganism would get talked about cuz we wouldn't notice that he ordered a vegan meal I need to explain you know this kind of thing so yeah anyway again you're just you're just making things up and and we'll sort but again this is what the contrast me myself and Swayze well Swayze says she doesn't talk to anybody so what so what if you want to she hasn't talked to meat eaters and she also doesn't talk to to vegans so how does that make her better than me she's even worse alright okay um you shoulda so he continues quote you should accept that aside from freely and Gary in their posse not many people are like that well I've talked to hundreds and hundreds of vegans probably thousands in the past five years I really don't know if you're in a position to generalize about what vegans are like more than I am and I haven't just been doing that over the internet you may or may not remember I spent some memorable time in Chiang Mai Thailand we've recently been in Europe and so on you know I really don't know what position you're in and writing me this email for you to tell me quote not many people are like that I see the problems that are in the movement and you know I see the limited positive impact I can have by engaging these discussions of my youtube channel they meet their family they have non-vegan friends how else would you attract new people not everybody wants to lose their foreskin in order to be pure enough to be accepted inside the congregation Hall given this YouTube channel has had several videos staunchly against circumcision that's a that's a poor poor choice of imagery but yeah I'm also totally morally opposed to to circumcision male circumcision or female circumcision so I shouldn't this are just lies about me concerning radicalness you are closer to your offski than you may like okay well he turns it into a compliment he says concerning radicalness you are closer to your off ski than you may like you are the boxing intellectual kind of radical person and I like you for that just as I like Stephen Fry and Christopher Hitchens okay well this is flattering company to be in Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry at least I'm not so flattered to say that I have a lot in common carry röszke we're here in Detroit right now so guys if you have contact anyone who has contact with Gary Yourofsky watching this video tell him we could meet up with him in the next couple of days he ain't busy he's retired just like a natural vegan he's got a lot of time on his hands so okay this interesting so he has actually some some positive feedback here kudos for taking down the most toxic guy on YouTube meaning taking down during writer without your courage no one would have had that good but pardon me no one would have had the guts to do that but vegan cheetah hennya nikka kado I'm always puzzled that you talk to such shallow people and can't meek make peace or discuss with a natural vegan your disdain seems to be so strong that even if she would talk to you there would be no result well we'll never know because she's never going to talk to me I thought your point is here again I reach out to and talk to all kinds of people positively constructively if unnatural vegan actually wanted to make something positive happen in the world of course we want to talk to her if all she wants to do his exist as a parasite on the vegan movement I'm not so interested in that and that is what her current claim boils down to it's a form of parasitism she doesn't want to be part of the vegan movement she doesn't want to be part of the community she doesn't want to build a movement she just want to build the community she doesn't want to do anything for the fever's movement she wants to do you know what I eat in a day videos and review products and make videos and be paid for it so that to me and and constantly disclaim that she's not a part of this movement anyway and isn't trying to build something positive for the future so that's that's more of a parasitic relationship to the movement which is the same thing I said to vegan cheetah also by the way I think with time that's why people stopped supporting Hannah early in Hannah's career she was a real vegan activist she was idealistic and trying to make a difference and then with time she just became a lifestyle vlogger who related parasitically to the vegan movement she was literally feeding off of it you know I know what can I say who is our natural vegan today she's someone who earns her living from the vegan movement without in any way being a part of or contributed to the vegan movement and she doesn't even want to be even if you gave her the extra thousand dollars what would she do with it nothing nothing for veganism nothing for the movement or nothing for the nothing for the community anyway but you say your disdain for seems to be so strong that even if she would talk to you there'd be no result well um she is entitled to her feelings and I'm entitled to mine she's someone who has really lied about me who's really blackened my character and you know she's really damaged my situation on YouTube and in veganism and slowly people have woken up to the extent to which I was telling the truth all along and that my criticism of her wasn't it wasn't nonsense it was really based on substantive and important things but her criticism of me is underhanded and dishonest and you know it doesn't hurt me emotionally but it's hurtful so I mean she's entitled to her feelings but aren't I also you know until health of mine so this is the part I really disagree with she says pardon me he or she says I don't know I don't even know the gender of the person or this let's presume it's a man he says unnatural vegan is not on permanent vacation she has evolved from a raw vegan dog sitter to a well-planned Whole Foods plant-based vegan mother who does her thing on YouTube and patreon huge plus she does not monetize her children she does not even show them I know why you see that as a huge as a huge class she accepts there the right to privacy until they're old enough to decide themselves than what's going line that's completely irrelevant to this conversation I I disagree with her on that too but what I disagree with here most of all is your statement unnatural vegan is not on permanent vacation yes she is unnatural piquant is almost the definition of what I'd call permanent vacation so we closes the letter by saying you have this strong point that your philosophical videos are excellent and your hangout videos are great we haven't done hangout videos for a long time it's true Thanks um talk to people some people have to be called out I would appreciate that you reduce the call outs of a natural vegan to substantial stuff like the antidepressant discussion or the palm hold of it ah that's interesting she's just that easy so this is someone who did see value in my confronting unnatural begin about antidepressants and on palm oil so you know but he says in closing this was an ad hominem attack with cheap Trick's meaning this particular video against it was an omen attack well okay I don't see it that way but I think the point I made in that video was very simple you're presented with this question of what what is unnatural vegan aspiring to do if you gave me one thousand five hundred dollars a month I could list for you all the things I do with those donations it's not gonna happen I'm not gonna make a thousand five hundred and in donations I can tell you about all the things I'm passionate about accomplishing and veganism short term medium term long term and having one kid isn't gonna stop me and having two kids isn't gonna stop me and being enrolled in a ph.d program isn't gonna stop me and having a part-time job isn't gonna stop me it didn't stop me I had a job in China it was a full-time job well and I kept on doing this stuff I kept being on the grind I can tell you about both easily attainable and more far-flung and hypothetical goals I'd like to achieve and it's very significant it's a simple point I made it in seven minutes in that video it's very significant to draw attention to what this woman's aspirations are and what they are not so don't kid yourself unnatural vegan has a lot more in common with Ellen Fisher that she wants to admit because all she is at this point is a lifestyle you too who is gonna take your money and feather her nest and keep on telling you that getting organized with vegans or building a community or building a movement engaging in real-world activism engaging in public outreach lobbying you name it is somehow a waste of her time and we can't really say that she's an aspiring documentary filmmaker we can't really give any other but she's not any more of a documentary filmmaker than Ellen Fisher is if anything less so that to me is not an N hominem attack and there's no cheap trick it's a very simple and in electable truth thanks for your time