Vegan Practically

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You’ve probably seen them somewhere along the way. Anti-vegan memes are an extreme version of anti-vegan “jokes,” and they seem to come out of nowhere on social media. I’m not going to re-circulate the examples, but I will describe three of them:

Anti-vegan meme #1: A photo of a supermarket refrigerator stocked with plant-based food items like tofu and plant-based cold cuts and sausages, with the shelves on either side (presumably stocked with animal products) empty. The text: “Even with a hurricane coming, people would rather starve than eat vegan shit.”

Anti-vegan meme #2: A photo of two carrots where a small one looks as if it’s wrapping its arms around the larger one. The text: “A rare photo of a baby carrot clinging to its mother, before being eaten by a heartless vegan. STOP THIS CRUELTY NOW.”

Anti-vegan meme #3: Top row of three photos of animals outside in the winter — a rabbit, a stag, and a goose. Bottom row of three photos of roast meat prepared for eating. The text: “Bring them inside and warm them up” (“I belong to PETA — people eating tasty animals.)

It actually can feel like a gut-punch when it comes from people I know and otherwise like. What are the boundaries of compartmentalization with respect to this sort of material? What I mean is, I know a good number of people who eat animal products (most of the people I know, as a matter of fact), and a subset of those people post photos of their meals from time to time, and I just scroll on past. I figure they simply don’t really think much about what’s on their plate (either consciously or just because they’re immersed in the ideology in which its normalization is embedded).

But the random anti-vegan meme seems to say so much more and has an element of meanness to it. So you like eating animals and exist in a world where that is really, really easy to do. Why go the further step of making light of cruelty towards animals? How is it funny? How is it something to broadcast to the world as a badge of honor? And why make vegans a target? Did they hurt or offend you in some way?

I think of these memes as a type of “bait” for engagement that, tempting as it is, has zero chance of going well or making a difference. Thus, in the spirit of not wasting energy that I can usefully (or at least more enjoyably) spend on something else (I have blogged about my thoughts on useless engagement before), I don’t comment on these kinds of posts when they show up in my feed. And I do consider whether to totally ignore, snooze, or unfriend the poster.

To my rhetorical questions above, vegans are inconvenient and their very existence does offend people. It’s that fragility I have talked about, where people would rather get defensive and even aggressive than think that maybe, just maybe, there is something wrong with the way we farm animals. Maybe, just maybe, if we did think about it or become willing to have a bit of information about it, we might question some of it and feel slightly less comfortable endorsing and supporting the industrial farming systems that result in so much animal suffering.

The documentary, Farm to Fridge: 12 minutes that will change your life is for those who are ready to start thinking about it and is good evidence that, whatever you think of animal suffering, there’s no humor or badge of honor in disregarding it. Content warning: unless you are completely unmoved by images of animal suffering, the film is incredibly disturbing. I myself have not been able to watch beyond the first 30 seconds.

As for the most famous anti-vegan meme, which says, “Question: How can you tell someone’s a vegan? Answer: Don’t worry, they’ll tell you,” I love this response (and I’m afraid I don’t know to whom credit is owed for it). It mirrors my experience: