We can't even talk in this community dedicated to vegans without someone coming along and meatsplaining.
We can't even talk in this community dedicated to vegans without someone coming along and meatsplaining.
Halal eaters and teetotalers don't try to preach as and convert as often, perhaps?
(I support vegans and I dont mock them, for the record.)
Halal eaters do try to convert you, but to their religion, not their eating habits.
They are also made fun of for that.
People genuinely don't like to be told what they are doing is wrong.
Why do people call it preaching?
It's baffling that "Hey maybe hamburgers aren't worth kilometers of cows chained with their face in a feed trough. Arranged this way so that the only activity they can engage in is to gorge themselves on low quality feed frequently filled with bits of other cows (backfeeding). Maybe they like have feelings and deserve better than this followed by a dehydrated wait in a death line in some artificially lit temple to screams and blood and horror?"
Is talked about in the same language as "Invisible sky person is deeply concerned about your masturbating habits and you are going to suffer for it!"
Why do people call it preaching?
I was expecting something like "some just mention it and move on". Instead...
It's baffling that "Hey maybe hamburgers aren't worth kilometers of cows chained with their face in a feed trough. Arranged this way so that the only activity they can engage in is to gorge themselves on low quality feed frequently filled with bits of other cows (backfeeding). Maybe they like have feelings and deserve better than this followed by a dehydrated wait in a death line in some artificially lit temple to screams and blood and horror?"
lol
Why do people call it preaching?
Because despite it being logical to a point, usually the ones who wish to talk about can't actually explain the rationale for some of the more extremely ends of the philosophy.
I'm completely against industrial meat farming, but for instance game meat from deer that were killed for deer management?
Obviously a vegan will take the position that "eating meat is wrong, you're killing just for pleasure" usually. Which obviously isn't true, as there's no "just for pleasure", becsuse we're not talking about trophy hunting, but deer management, which is crucial and without which a lot of animals (and humans) would end up sick, suffering and dying as the ecosystem would overpopulate with deer, leading to a cascade of bad consequences, destroying the environment and the animals in it.
I support vegan products and consider myself a flexitarian, but I do also consume the occasional meat product. Preferably when it's cruelty free game meat.
Sheep are also another thing. Unless we plan to systematically eradicate the species, then we must tend to some sheep at least, which will mean shearing them, as that's required for their health. So then we end up with wool. Should that wool not be used? Would it be cruel to use that wool?
That of course again doesn't mean I'm not fervently against the horrible practices of the large sheep industry. It's just a question of "can't you see the eventual problems that taking a position so extreme would yield?"
And questioning these things can upset people, as it'd require flexing the ideology a bit, and that's something a lot of fervent vegans seem to have issues with. Which is apparent through say, using words like "carnist" to describe anyone who isn't 100% vegan. Almost in the same way dogmatic religions call anyone disagreeing "a heretic".
In the same way that monotheistic Abrahamic religions are, most of the "fighting" rhetoric of vegans is very much dogmatic.
Just curious, do you not see how that would frustrate someone who is not vegan? If your goal is to be confrontational, that little speech definitely hits the mark, but if you’re not, perhaps reflect on the preaching.
Personally, eat what you want to eat. The more vegans and vegetarians around, the better those food choices will be for everyone.
Preaching doesn't mean lying or talking about unimportant things, nothing you said contradicts the idea its preaching.
Preaching is when you describe your beliefs in an attempt to convert other people, or to change their behavior.
I've definetly heard plenty of people making fun of or discriminating against others with dietary restrictions due to their religions. Hell I've also heard people making fun of others with lactose intolerance or celiac disease...
We can and should strive for better, but sometimes people can just be terrible 🫤
In my experience it is not NEARLY as prevalent as when someone learns that you are vegan or finds out about vegan communities and whatnot. People make countless memes about vegans for example, but when was the last time you saw a meme about someone choosing to eat Halal? Because to my knowledge there is no scientific study on the different experiences of these groups it is impossible to talk about this topic in any way that isn't anecdotal but for what it's worth I have been all over the US and the anecdotal experience that I have had is so overwhelming that I refuse to believe someone is arguing in good faith if they are claiming that, for example, someone eating Halal has even a remotely similar experience to that of vegans.
My guess is that this is because people tend to associate other dietary or lifestyle decisions as being just a different way to live. Like oh, that person is Muslim or Jewish and that influences their diet. And they don't take that as a personal judgement anymore than they do when they learn that that person is Muslim or Jewish to begin with. But with veganism it is usually not something that a person is raised into. It is a decision that that person has made after learning more about the animal agriculture industry and it is usually for ethical reasons primarily. Not because a religious book told them to. Therefore they hear that someone is vegan and are instantly defensive in a way that isn't true with halal, kosher, etc.
As you've said, this is all anecdotal, but I'd guess that non-vegan non-muslim non-jewish people most often have to "deal with" vegans as opposed to the other two. A quick search says that in the US there are more vegans than muslim and jewish people combined (without even including vegetarians, which definetly get lumped in the same group). Also, there are definetly other kinds of discrimination against the religious groups going on, so maybe their dietary restrictions doesn't exactly top the list of things to "meme" about.
I'm definetly not saying that vegans are wrong or that they deserve the amounts of "jokes" on them on, far from it, I just wanted to share my experience with "jokes" in very bad taste.
I still remember fondly an occasion at a wedding when my friend group all got placed at the same table, and we were 90% veg with one couple who ate meat. They remarked on it, and we all spent the rest of the meal joking about how it felt to be the minority, and they had to field questions like, "If you were on a desert Island with only vegetables, what would you do?"
yeah the hardest part of being vegan is interacting with non vegans. gotta love how the default response to veganism (you know that thing we do to try to better the planet and animal rights and shit) is to argue as if doing something about the issues you care about is a negative trait.
mfs always got something to say and love attacking a thing that as far as i'm aware is proven to be better for personal health, the environment, your wallet, and animals.
Honestly I've been so quiet about it offline, and one time I just said no thanks to cake as I don't eat dairy, etc, and the whole room alternately made fun of me and told me why I was wrong and meatsplaines until I got up and left.
i hear you - i've basically learned to avoid any topic or activity related to food with other people irl, which really sucks.
cooking is one of my favorite hobbies, can't talk to my friends about it anymore. hell, a close friend from high school completely stopped talking to me because we had literally one very reasonable and civil (from my perspective) debate about veganism. it's been years since i heard from them.
i got a single one of my close friends to even consider trying it, and i've been too anxious to even bring it up since last we spoke about it - a couple years ago now. they didn't seem to believe in the ethics/lifestyle of it and i'm terrified of learning that this person i care so much about has decided that their sensory pleasure is worth more than the lives of the animals they eat.
my experiences with speaking about veganism to the people that i care about is that it is a taboo subject; one that will make other people upset with me and potentially ruin relationships. and i think that fucking sucks.
Just decline without giving a reason
If pressed, say you don't feel like it
We have a friend with an egg allergy, dairy allergy, and MMA. They're vegan as well by choice but it's made me very careful. I've briefly upset a few vegans and vegetarians by questioning them in a bit more depth. It's happened much less over time as I've refined how I clarify and ask.
I'm always amused when someone says vegetarian. Okay, what type? Can I serve you cheese? Eggs? Fish? One of my coworkers is also vegetarian but eats chicken...which was new to me.
I am changing my diet, but I am not fully "there" yet.
I have gotten a lot of traction by merely saying "today is not a meat day for me" when I order some things.
It's way easier to eat at a veg-forward restaurant, but those aren't always available, and often the food is expensive.
Just fyi, one of the community rules is "Carnist rhetoric & Anti-vegans are not allowed." which is why so many top level replies are removed. I (and I assume many others) interpreted this post as "carnists, why do you do this?" but it's NOT and per community rules we're not allowed to explain or defend.
This is a safe place for vegans and we should leave it to them.
Sorry for imposing, I'll leave now. Mods, maybe you should pin a post for people like me who wander in here without knowing that rule? Might cut down on the carnist replies.
Like naeva said comments by nonvegans are allowed. The rule doesn't explicitly preclude anyone who isn't vegan from engaging in conversation. What it does not allow is for bad faith comments, strawmen arguments (carnist rhetoric and the like), and those that are hostile to vegans (antivegans) to come here and as the OP would put it "meatsplain".
I remove comments that are advocating for animal abuse, carnist propaganda, speciesism, and those made by antivegans.
Discussions about veganism here are heavily skewed as vegans are outnumbered vastly and it tends to be a sensitive topic due to cognitive dissonance. This makes it so that actual discussion is very hard as it often gets overun by reactionary takes and hostility to empathy.
Pinning posts has not helped in the past as most people don't read it or refuse to listen to the message before commenting here.
I cannot speak for any other mod, being newly minted, but this is not a vegans only sub.
Respectful and contextually appropriate replies are welcome but replies specifically hostile or following standard, trivially disputed, rhetoric will be removed.
For example I would not remove a reply like "What is it that determines whether or not something or someone is ok to eat in your eyes?" but I would remove "don't you know grass screams when you cut it. You're just hypocritical!"
Basically if you're posting stuff to own the vegans, explain why vegans are wrong, or saying something against veganism that a trivial search or five minutes considering the opposite position would show as false or grossly distorted your comment will be removed.
EDIT:
Just to add on to what I said. I think most of us would actually love to be wrong, if someone had strong evidence. Going vegan isn't tremendously hard, but it is definitely harder than never thinking about food and eating/wearing/using whatever you feel like because the whim to do so takes you. Mostly it can be socially isolating, because regardless of how much empathy you might actually have for carnists (having been one yourself, there is no shame in having been indoctrinated) people will feel that you condemn them and consequently try to shame you. (there was some study about this but I'm struggling to remember the title).
If someone could show me evidence that idk dogs were mere reflex machines like Descartes maintained when he vivisected them I would chow down. It's not really a particularly comfortable position to feel like you're living in the middle of a holocaust and most of the people you love and respect are not only oblivious, but actively defend and relish it.
It's just incredibly tedious to deal with the same set of disingenuous excuses. Like the aforementioned plants feel pain thing, I have never in my life seen anyone actually protest something like mowing lawns. I have basically zero reason to believe that anyone who isn't a jain thinks this is true, and even then... what is it that animals eat and how does physics work?
“Meatsplaining” made me cackle, what a word
- People are just disrespectful in general.
- Many folks browse all, and don't even look at the sub. So they wander in, comment, and leave. I'm doing it right now.
Tourists without guides can end up in very strange situations.
Or with good enough guides.
If someone is going to browse all then they should be aware that they are entering different communities and be respectful of those communities. If they are disrespectful, whether it is a result of being unaware or just not caring, in my opinion that should warrant an immediate ban pending a demonstration of understanding and admission that what they did was wrong. Unfortunately even that might not make a noticeable difference since many of the disrespectful people are probably not repeat posters. Beyond that the only thing that I'm aware of that could really be done is making the community private which is obviously not ideal. Perhaps there could exist some middle ground of a community not being private but also not appearing on all but I'm unaware of if that's possible or if it would even be any better in practice.
Cool,.that's not how.people.use this app. I think your idea of delisting from all but being searchable is a good idea.
Lemmy's so small I can't browse without posts from the vegan community showing up on front page feeds. Of course that'll draw in anyone/everyone.
The screenshot is obviously wrong. People will make fun of anyone for anything, anywhere and anytime. Problem is the disagreement on what's acceptable.
Being vegan doesn't equate with being religious. I think that a part of the problem is that some vegans truly do base their entire identity around it and people find that annoying, like when atheists are surrounded by one friend who won't shut up about god.
Non-vegan here. I was going to reply one time, but even tho I was supporting y'all I realized it's not really my place to speak. This community is supposed to be your safe space, and I respect that. I hope y'all have a good one and wish you all luck.
Gotta ask, if you support vegans/veganism I assume that means you take it as at least more right than wrong. Is that the case? if so what's holding you back from joining our feeble, protein deficient ranks?
I just ask because personally I spent a few years being like "Yeah these people are correct and don't deserve the hate but oysters? Is that really a priority concern?" before realising that was a baffling stance and I should align my actions with the 99% I agreed with and worry about the rest later if it ever came up.
Fair question. Right now I live with my family, and basically everything we make has meat in it and since I don't cook I don't really get a say in it. Everything I choose to eat for myself is vegetarian, so I'm at doing a little.
Even tho it's hard for me to stop rn, it's not like you guys are wrong about the horrible conditions and treatment of animals in farms so it would be hard for me to argue against y'all.
This is why I launched https://vegantheoryclub.org I delete the carnist posts lol
I support purging animal abuse "content"
Alt text for image:
A screenshot of a post by a user "Brusswole Sprouts" with the handle "@swolesprouts". The post reads as follows:
I've been vegan for over 10 years and I still don't understand why it's acceptable to make fun of vegans in social settings while you would never make fun of someone eating halal or not drinking for religious or cultural reasons.
Why is vegan culture less deserving of your respect?
Relevant paper
Cole M, Morgan K. Vegaphobia: derogatory discourses of veganism and the reproduction of speciesism in UK national newspapers. Br J Sociol. 2011 Mar;62(1):134-53. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-4446.2010.01348.x. PMID: 21361905.
I was at my dad's birthday last year and the meal was: sauerkraut, potatoes and an ABSURD amount of different meats. Like it was bizzare, even for someone who is used to people eat a lot of meat. It wasn't even good (i guess) because it was all greasy and just too much. It wasn't good looking or anything, it was just a lot and like half of it they threw away. At some point one of his alcoholic friends said loud: thank god there are no vegans here har har har. Are you so absorbed in your meat religion that... No, i still don't know what the point was. But everyone found it very funny, so i guess it is.
One of the things that really changed my perception was learning that a single burger patty might contain some ground up flesh of a few, or possibly even a hundred or more animals.
Our food system does a really good job of hiding it's brutality behind heavy processing, and clever packaging and advertising. But once we open our eyes to what really goes on, it can't be unlearned. We have a responsibility to at least make ourselves aware when our actions are responsible for awful things happening.
It's the same mindset that gets mad about things being woke
Where I live its in the legal gray zone to talk shit about religion, so theres that. And so far that I know, no vegan have commited terror acts because of the ill treatment of vegans.
As a non vegan. I have the largest respect for you guys. Keep on living the good life. Maybe I can manage to hop over in the future.
It's honestly the best thing I ever did for myself. Made me think about food and living in s whole new way. Thanks for the genuine support, it gets old being made fun of.
I believe in you. It seems way harder than it really is. If you have questions or want recipes or tips or whatever there are armies of us dying to help others live in alignment with their values.
Also like selfishly I found I felt waaaaay better after going vegan. Probs more a side effect of just more whole foods but damned did I feel notably more energic and clear headed.
I own a halal restaurant and I make fun of halalers all the time
Have you seen the what does halal mean? youtube short by therealsamalkhatib? It's a cute little sketch and whenever I make/eat falafel now it's become a bit of a meme.
No I hadn't, pretty silly lol
I think this lack of respect is something new. I dont know when, but the other (pretty illogical and believe-driven) habits are all older than veganism
Seems like the obvious answer is that religion is a protected class and veganism isn't.
What you're referring to are legal classifications that prevent discrimination in very specific circumstances such as when applying for a job. When someone decides to make fun of vegans they absolutely DO NOT think to themselves "is that a legally protected class? No? Okay, I'm in the clear." This reasoning is blatantly incorrect.
If this were the actual reason then why do people also discriminate against groups that are protected classes like women? The answer is because we aren't in a court. We are talking about social values, not legal ones. Despite how much of a fucking asshole it would make someone to be misogynistic in their daily life there is nothing preventing them from doing so other than the fear of being outcast by their peers. It only becomes illegal in very specific circumstances.
They aren't consciously going through a checklist in their head. But legal influences societal. Maybe in the past they made fun of someone's funny hat, got in trouble for it, got annoyed at a preachy vegan and now shits on vegans instead.
It protects all religions and a wide range of philosophical beliefs including atheism, humanism, agnosticism, veganism and pacifism.
Edit: Found it
Don't you know that everyone in the internet is American? Thanks for the link :)
I'm vegan and i make fun of everyone who only eats food touched by a magician. I don't even understand how they compare. One is a choice the other ones got indoctrinated by people who vut their dicks for fun.
that's not what kosher means
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2711054/
I thought this paper was interesting
No class is protected from comedy.
I think Dave Chappelle would disagree.
Don't post pictures of text
Pictures of text should have accompanying alt text. I'll see if we can add that as a rule
Thanks. Can you also add a rule that it should have a link to the source, if it is a screenshot of a webpage?
I see a lot of pictures of headlines or tweets, where it could easily be spreading misinformation. But just a link to the source solves the issue of accessibility for the blind and also citing the source for verifying the accuracy of the information.
You don't make fun of halal or kosher? Where's the fun in that?!
to be fair we are made out of meat