The Weird World of Vegan YouTube Stars(thedailybeast.com)
thedailybeast.com
The Weird World of Vegan YouTube Stars
https://www.thedailybeast.com/vegan-youtube-is-imploding-as-stars-like-rawvana-bonny-rebecca-and-stella-rae-change-diets?ref=home?ref=home
66 comments
Agreed. A lot of those people got to veganism through some kind of eating disorder or some other social problem. They started out looking at the world with a different lens than your typical western adolescent or young adult. Some of them thrive on attention and drama.
The usual vegan dietary issues can be solved with a few supplements and a lot less drama.
The usual vegan dietary issues can be solved with a few supplements and a lot less drama.
I watched rawvana her videos occasionally for some recipe ideas.
My wife and I are not vegan, but vegetarian. It sounds like a bad idea to strictly follow a YouTuber without checking in with a nutriologist or doctor when you are full vegan though.
I would still watch her videos though even after this drama. She has some tasty recipes :)
My wife and I are not vegan, but vegetarian. It sounds like a bad idea to strictly follow a YouTuber without checking in with a nutriologist or doctor when you are full vegan though.
I would still watch her videos though even after this drama. She has some tasty recipes :)
MDs get very little instruction on nutrition FWIW, although they would be helpful in terms of longitudinal monitoring.
But perhaps they can refer you to the right person :) In any case, this might depend on the country as well. Where I'm from (Belgium) doctors have been helpful regarding nutrition as well. YMMV though
Ah yes, I'm showing my US bias :). I was just surprised to learn this from a (US) doctor friend!
Pioneers!
But seriously, the first person to ever eat curdled milk from a pouch made of intestines must have been really fucking weird. There was probably someone eating cow shit in the village square, looking like a complete moron, and it never picked up because, 1) yuck and 2) no nutrition. But the cheese person started a whole thing. Does innovation happen at the fringes, with vastly more failures than successes?
But seriously, the first person to ever eat curdled milk from a pouch made of intestines must have been really fucking weird. There was probably someone eating cow shit in the village square, looking like a complete moron, and it never picked up because, 1) yuck and 2) no nutrition. But the cheese person started a whole thing. Does innovation happen at the fringes, with vastly more failures than successes?
The article is headlined "The Weird World of Vegan YouTube Stars", but it's not about vegans. It's about the weirdo microminority who punish their body with daily enemas, 30-day juice cleanses, and believe that menstruation is the body's way of shedding "toxins".
Any sufficiently large group has it's outliers, zealots, and weirdos.
Raw-foodies / fruitarians are the weirdo subset of vegans. Flat-earthers are the weirdo subset of Christians. Sovereign Citizens are the weirdo subset of Libertarians. White Nationalists are the weirdo subset of Conservatives. Parents who speak exclusively to their kids in Klingon are the weirdo subset of Star Trek fandom.
Any sufficiently large group has it's outliers, zealots, and weirdos.
Raw-foodies / fruitarians are the weirdo subset of vegans. Flat-earthers are the weirdo subset of Christians. Sovereign Citizens are the weirdo subset of Libertarians. White Nationalists are the weirdo subset of Conservatives. Parents who speak exclusively to their kids in Klingon are the weirdo subset of Star Trek fandom.
The guy who spoke to his son exclusively in Klingon wasn't a Trekkie, he was a computational linguist; his interest was in language acquisition, not Star Trek fandom. The kid never even saw an episode of Star Trek. He was specifically interested in Klingon because of it's limited vocabulary and grammar.
Keep your identity small
http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html
On a side note, I've always wondered why "shellfish vegan" isn't a thing. They don't have brains or central nervous systems, but they do have the nutritional components of animal products.
It's the kind of conclusion philosophers reach, but doesn't seem to resonate with people.
http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html
On a side note, I've always wondered why "shellfish vegan" isn't a thing. They don't have brains or central nervous systems, but they do have the nutritional components of animal products.
It's the kind of conclusion philosophers reach, but doesn't seem to resonate with people.
Part of the problem is that X-veganism runs into people who go: "oh they make an exception"->"they're not really vegan"->"I don't have to tell them I sauteed the onions in butter and used beef broth in the soup"
So while I know plenty of vegans with their own particular exceptions they don't talk about them outloud much.
So while I know plenty of vegans with their own particular exceptions they don't talk about them outloud much.
Pretty straightforward for me, there's no evidence that they don't feel pain and it's a pretty hotly debated topic. There likely won't be a way to tell if they do feel pain or if it's just stimuli response.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/130208-seaf...
A secondary reason is that it's really easy to confuse people who do choose to eat meat about specific dietary concerns, especially when traveling globally. The Japanese for instance put fish into nearly everything and genuinely have a hard time understanding the difference between a vegetarian/vegan/etc there's also been some confusion between daishi and fish. Add to that the number of people who claim to be vegan/vegetarian but don't adhere to it at all and it can make a lot of people see it as a fad diet versus a diet adhered to rather strictly in other people. Another issue is religions that say fish is not meat. This isn't even getting into products people don't realize comes from meat. By just saying I don't eat anything that can feel pain it makes it significantly less likely someone will accidentally feed me meat. My wife on the other hand eats fish/shellfish. Our daughter chooses her own diet and has so far chosen to be vegetarian after deciding she no longer wanted to eat fish. To each their own, everyone has to be comfortable with their own choices.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/130208-seaf...
A secondary reason is that it's really easy to confuse people who do choose to eat meat about specific dietary concerns, especially when traveling globally. The Japanese for instance put fish into nearly everything and genuinely have a hard time understanding the difference between a vegetarian/vegan/etc there's also been some confusion between daishi and fish. Add to that the number of people who claim to be vegan/vegetarian but don't adhere to it at all and it can make a lot of people see it as a fad diet versus a diet adhered to rather strictly in other people. Another issue is religions that say fish is not meat. This isn't even getting into products people don't realize comes from meat. By just saying I don't eat anything that can feel pain it makes it significantly less likely someone will accidentally feed me meat. My wife on the other hand eats fish/shellfish. Our daughter chooses her own diet and has so far chosen to be vegetarian after deciding she no longer wanted to eat fish. To each their own, everyone has to be comfortable with their own choices.
Indeed, Peter Singer went back and forth but finally decided bivalves (mussels, oysters and clams) are "ethical" as well as being nutritious, and beneficial to the ecosystem even when farmed.
> I've always wondered why "shellfish vegan" isn't a thing
Likely because of the issue you've pointed out regarding identity. The issue is diet-as-identity. Perhaps it would make sense to have a 95% vegan or vegetarian diet supplemented by the occasional animal product, but you can't claim an identity out of that. Veganism is viewed as some arbitrarily binary lifestyle where either you are or you aren't and there's no middle ground.
Likely because of the issue you've pointed out regarding identity. The issue is diet-as-identity. Perhaps it would make sense to have a 95% vegan or vegetarian diet supplemented by the occasional animal product, but you can't claim an identity out of that. Veganism is viewed as some arbitrarily binary lifestyle where either you are or you aren't and there's no middle ground.
Diana Fleischman makes a very compelling case for what she calls "bivalveganism" (veganism plus mussels and clams): https://sentientist.org/2013/05/20/the-ethical-case-for-eati...
While I think that article does have a thought-provoking point, especially when it comes to certain classes of labels we can give ourselves, it's also true that a sense of identity is a basic human need and the identities we passively adopt over our lifetimes from both the society we live in and our own psychology often aren't a real choice given to us at all.
Maybe that goes without saying, but that last paragraph seems potentially reductive without qualifying it in that important way:
>But there is a step beyond thinking of yourself as x but tolerating y: not even to consider yourself an x. The more labels you have for yourself, the dumber they make you.
Most of us are going to inevitably be a healthy number of X's (the alternative is not really desirable, as many people along the borderline spectrum can attest to) so thinking of yourself as an X who is tolerant, accepting, and supportive of Y's is still always going to be inevitable and extremely necessary.
Maybe that goes without saying, but that last paragraph seems potentially reductive without qualifying it in that important way:
>But there is a step beyond thinking of yourself as x but tolerating y: not even to consider yourself an x. The more labels you have for yourself, the dumber they make you.
Most of us are going to inevitably be a healthy number of X's (the alternative is not really desirable, as many people along the borderline spectrum can attest to) so thinking of yourself as an X who is tolerant, accepting, and supportive of Y's is still always going to be inevitable and extremely necessary.
> They don't have brains or central nervous systems,
I would very highly recommend reading David Foster Wallace's Consider the Lobster.
You can either buy the book of the same name which includes other essays or here's a PDF of the original article: http://www.columbia.edu/~col8/lobsterarticle.pdf and here's a video of DFW reading it out: https://youtu.be/_fZOl7C_vDI
I would very highly recommend reading David Foster Wallace's Consider the Lobster.
You can either buy the book of the same name which includes other essays or here's a PDF of the original article: http://www.columbia.edu/~col8/lobsterarticle.pdf and here's a video of DFW reading it out: https://youtu.be/_fZOl7C_vDI
It's an interesting question. I ended up somewhere near "salmon-or-smelts-a-week mostly-vegan" from a health perspective (good source of omega 3's, low mercury, and available from extremely sustainable sources). But a lot of shellfish has pretty similar advantages, and I do sub in mussels or shrimp as our weekly fish now and then. None has quite the omega 3 load, but there are other sources of that.
I can only speak for myself but I don't eat shellfish for the same reasons I don't eat other meat - I think the idea of eating it is really gross.
If that's your criteria then unfertilized eggs would be fine too. Veganism draws the line much higher.
unfertilized eggs require raising and keeping animals that lay the eggs.
Unfertilised eggs come from chickens. Vegans I've spoken to tend to object to farming.
In reference to animal byproducts like milk and eggs, my vegan friends say "it's not where it comes from, but how it's obtained."
I eat vegan food, but I also recognise that there's a distinction between someone keeping rescued chickens in a back garden, and keeping them in tiny cages or on the floor giant barns with no light in such crammed conditions that they start cannibalising each other (which are the conditions of about 90% of egg laying hens in the UK).
Even though I wouldn't eat their eggs, I can't really see the problem with having chicken around if they don't suffer. For people who eat vegan for ethical reasons, my impression is that suffering is the main concern.
Even though I wouldn't eat their eggs, I can't really see the problem with having chicken around if they don't suffer. For people who eat vegan for ethical reasons, my impression is that suffering is the main concern.
It is, usually.
My point was that I find it surprising people with this position who "break" for medical or energy reasons don't generally arrive at the shellfish conclusion. They eat eggs, dairy, meat or fish.
My point was that I find it surprising people with this position who "break" for medical or energy reasons don't generally arrive at the shellfish conclusion. They eat eggs, dairy, meat or fish.
Usually they consider stealing the eggs from the chickens to be incompatible with veganism as well, even if the chickens are free range.
Why? If they’re not fertilized eggs then the other option is letting them rot (or watch as mama chicken eats them, because contrary to our weird fantasies about the nature of nature, it is rough out there). Besides, it’s not theft, it’s a trade for food, security, and lodging.
> Besides, it’s not theft, it’s a trade for food, security, and lodging.
That sort of logic gets you back to farming animals for meat though. We're giving them a relatively cushy life compared to wild animals (at least in some cases), but cutting it short. It's easier to maintain the moral high ground if you simply cut out all animal products period.
That sort of logic gets you back to farming animals for meat though. We're giving them a relatively cushy life compared to wild animals (at least in some cases), but cutting it short. It's easier to maintain the moral high ground if you simply cut out all animal products period.
It's not rational at that point anymore, it's almost religious.
What if the chickens give you the eggs?
Trouble is that there is no chicken alive capable of expressing with out a single trace of ambiguity such an intention.
I think they object to commercial fishing too so not sure how that helps. Or are shellfish farmable without damaging the area?
They are! In fact shellfish being filter feeders are often used to clean aquatic ecosystems and then maintain them. If done responsibly it’s a massive boon, and doin git responsibly is feasible and done at present. Farming shellfish is one of the few fish farm models that truly is better than the wild alternatives in terms of overall environmental impact.
[deleted]
Fantastic read. Thanks for sharing that! :0)
The problem with social media is you can be a complete quack and yet have as much of a platform as someone who applies rigorous standards. Also, YouTube will automatically recommend and show you a steady stream of similar quackery and echo chamber opinions. It's wonderful for snake oil salesmen, including the political kind.
Youtube algorithms also optimize for "engagement" which means more outrageous and radical clips score higher and pop up in everyones feeds, more so than a boring science based vegan facts clip would
Print news and TV have the same problem. Without transparency, the source data, repeated trials, there is always an opportunity to scam.
To a degree. They generally have at least some standards, and are also subject to regulation.
I don't think the mass media is any better. I remember the hard pushes for things like low fat diets, ignoring the dangers of sugar and sugary drinks, etc. I don't recall the pre-internet magazine covers being any better or worse than the sorts of things Youtubers push today.
Other than nudity and profanity, are there any standards? Oprah, arguably the biggest and most popular TV star, hosted anti vaccine idiots. And then there are the countless garbage Dr shows peddling their BS.
Not to mention radio - talk radio is infamous for producing Alex Jones types.
That's the problem with all media, not just social media. Pretty much every diet fad and health recommendation you get from traditional media has been debunked.
The only difference is that traditional media doesn't allow for counter arguments. At least on social media, people can counter quackery. In traditional media, their quackery can't be disputed until they decide it is in their financial interest.
The only difference is that traditional media doesn't allow for counter arguments. At least on social media, people can counter quackery. In traditional media, their quackery can't be disputed until they decide it is in their financial interest.
This title sounds like one of those things you get from a "Random Vice story generator" pages.
> Commenters have called her “disgusting,” a “fraud” and a “hypocrite,” and others have told her to kill herself ... This kind of online abuse is typical for ex-vegan influencers.
The irony of vegan ethics against causing harm and pain to animals, except when it comes to humans.
The irony of vegan ethics against causing harm and pain to animals, except when it comes to humans.
It is both sad and ironic, and it's only fair to call out this abuse for what it is.
I'd just like to point out that this isn't something that applies to all vegans as there are some who try to communicate with less shaming and more empathy.
Check out Melanie Joy[0] if you're interested.
[0]: https://invidio.us/watch?v=Yo7b_ULdF38
I'd just like to point out that this isn't something that applies to all vegans as there are some who try to communicate with less shaming and more empathy.
Check out Melanie Joy[0] if you're interested.
[0]: https://invidio.us/watch?v=Yo7b_ULdF38
From the early/mid 90s all the way into the early aughts there was a subculture in punk and hardcore dedicated to veganism and straight edge. The majority of them acted exactly like this and I can only imagine how insane things would have been with YouTube available at the time.
People wrote obituaries for other people's edge when that person started doing drugs (often at 21, almost always before 30). There was even particularly militant scenes in certain parts of the country that would get violent if you were smoking or wearing a leather jacket to certain shows.
Some really, really good music got made around it all though
People wrote obituaries for other people's edge when that person started doing drugs (often at 21, almost always before 30). There was even particularly militant scenes in certain parts of the country that would get violent if you were smoking or wearing a leather jacket to certain shows.
Some really, really good music got made around it all though
I don't really care for the pros and cons of veganism or their youtube channels or whatever, but what kind of friend uploads a video that they know will tank their buddy's youtube career?
Yeah that is quite strange :s
This is what happens when you give already-unhinged people (I can't help but wonder whether their diet is to blame) a monetary incentive to tear people down who have reached the quite rational decision that veganism is slowly killing them.
> In an illustrative comment on Tim Shieff’s video about quitting veganism, one viewer wrote, “Oh, well... this explains why you're looking so wasted, old & bloated in your recent videos. That’s so sad.”
Those abusers would be better off if they dug a bit into Melanie Joy's talks about vegan communication[0]. If we call out and shame everyone who are not perfect for being hypocritical, they'll just end up not caring at all.
[0]: https://invidio.us/watch?v=Yo7b_ULdF38
Those abusers would be better off if they dug a bit into Melanie Joy's talks about vegan communication[0]. If we call out and shame everyone who are not perfect for being hypocritical, they'll just end up not caring at all.
[0]: https://invidio.us/watch?v=Yo7b_ULdF38
The only vegan channel I follow is a cyclist that goes by the name of "The Vegan Cyclist" - and I mean there's some vegan stuff thrown in, but it's more about cycling and training than veganism.
There is a guy at my work who tried to become vegan when he started dating his current wife. I want to say that lasted about six months.
I think what did him in was when he tried a coworker's home-made beef jerky one day - he must have felt pretty good in the immediately-following days. He's been eating meat ever since.
There is a guy at my work who tried to become vegan when he started dating his current wife. I want to say that lasted about six months.
I think what did him in was when he tried a coworker's home-made beef jerky one day - he must have felt pretty good in the immediately-following days. He's been eating meat ever since.
[deleted]
'eating a diet of almost entirely carbohydrates—including up to 50 bananas a day. ' -> i was under the impression consuming this much potassium would poison you.
The BBC quotes it at around 400 per day [0] to build up fatal levels of potassium in a healthy individual.
[0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34225517
[0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34225517
[deleted]
[deleted]
I'm impressed by those that explain why they switched, for health reasons.
I was a vegetarian for a long time. It started with health concerns and morphed to ethical concerns. I noticed that a lot of people are hostile when you say you are doing it for ethical reasons (e.g. for animal welfare or environmentalism), but are satisfied with the idea that you're doing it for your own health.
> I noticed that a lot of people are hostile when you say you are doing it for ethical reasons (e.g. for animal welfare or environmentalism), but are satisfied with the idea that you're doing it for your own health.
When you start talking about ethics, it requires other people to consider pain and suffering they may be complicit in, and that will of course make people defensive. If it's just some odd diet, then you're just talking about your own preferences, which are less likely to upset anyone.
Not saying you shouldn't talk about ethics, but of course people are more touchy about that.
When you start talking about ethics, it requires other people to consider pain and suffering they may be complicit in, and that will of course make people defensive. If it's just some odd diet, then you're just talking about your own preferences, which are less likely to upset anyone.
Not saying you shouldn't talk about ethics, but of course people are more touchy about that.
I desperately try not to talk about my vegetarianism with others as it is a personal matter. It’s amazing how many people who would never social question another person’s beliefs in say religion feel free to jump in and aggressively debate my dietary choices. “Aren’t plants alive too, etc...”. Prostletyzing vegetarians are I’m sure annoying but on my side I would love the basic respect that other personal ethical choices are given to mind my own business.
Health reasons was what they said. I'm simply impressed by those that explain why they switched instead of other ways of handling their crisis of confidence.
I’m happy to explain or defend my dietary choices, but it gets tiresome. Often it’s not positive socially, depending on the environment. Currently I have severe medical dietary restrictions (celiac, food allergies) and even that is difficult to explain to some people who question my decisions and want to debate my needs.
Usually, they then ignore medical advice, especially when it involves taking antibiotics, and try to cure themselves through wishful thinking and more diet. After that predictably fails they are then magically cured of all ills 8 hours after consuming eggs and fish.
They're HAVE got some serious issues and it's not a plant based diet.