I always wonder where people are going that this seems so common. I’ve been relatively low meat for a while, what’s called half-vegetarian/flexatarian. My experience is that most vegans/vegetarians just want to share their favorite recipe.
In my experience, this usually comes from people defending half-measures, which is fundamentally wrong from the vegan point of view, and thus the claws come out. If you aren’t going against the “correct” stance, vegans are very chill, as someone who is low meat as well I am working on eradicating that (which at this point is more of a social problem than individual).
This attitude is the entire problem. You know exactly what OP means, but you pretend like the reputation the vegan community has nothing to do with the community itself.
Not accepting that people need time to adjust and maybe go vegan in smaller steps. There is even hostility towards people who look for fake meat or dare to say they like the taste of meat even though they still want to avoid eating it. Just generally being assholes and gatekeepers.
This is a natural consequence of always being attacked by non-vegans, patience is thin and communities are maintained by the ones who remain. Unlike, say, gaming, veganism is constantly attacked, so it’s harder for them to be more inclusive than a gaming community would be.
Seems a bit like a vicious circle to me. Hate against vegans leading to a hateful reaction, leading to vegans being perceived as assholes, leading to more hate against vegans etc. I guess it’s understandable, but it also seems counterproductive for spreading veganism.
Anecdotally, as a vegetarian I can say that the most vicious attacks against my lifestyle were not by meat eaters but some vegans (online-vegans to be precise, all I’ve met IRL were nice people). That’s despite me certainly never attacking veganism, I even think it’s morally superior to vegetarianism.
I really think this is an incredibly insightful take. I can’t say I hang out in many vegan specific corners of the Internet, but I know there is a very active and vocal segment of the Internet community that’s anti-vegan, I’ve heard stories of coordinated brigading attempts against vegan communities on the Internet.
I’d imagine it would be almost impossible to run an open and welcoming community when you are getting constantly inundated with hate messages, eventually it would become incredibly difficult to discern between a user who has genuine curiosity and one who is asking bad faith questions in order to trigger some kind of debate.
At this point in time you couldn’t pay me to become a mod in one of those communities, it really seems like a no win scenario.
That’s been my experience too. I’m trying to eat less meat and find alternatives that work for me, but it apparently has to be all or fuck you for some. I know it’s not everyone, but somehow they seem the loudest and it’s not very helpful.
Previously I found that they were staunchly anti-anything but vegan and carried over said rudeness from the reddit communities. As a vegan myself it was a big turn off. I asked about this and they banned me. Reminiscent of lemmygrad on anything but their specific MLM ideology.
What do you mean by “militant and rude?”
I always wonder where people are going that this seems so common. I’ve been relatively low meat for a while, what’s called half-vegetarian/flexatarian. My experience is that most vegans/vegetarians just want to share their favorite recipe.
In my experience, this usually comes from people defending half-measures, which is fundamentally wrong from the vegan point of view, and thus the claws come out. If you aren’t going against the “correct” stance, vegans are very chill, as someone who is low meat as well I am working on eradicating that (which at this point is more of a social problem than individual).
This attitude is the entire problem. You know exactly what OP means, but you pretend like the reputation the vegan community has nothing to do with the community itself.
Not accepting that people need time to adjust and maybe go vegan in smaller steps. There is even hostility towards people who look for fake meat or dare to say they like the taste of meat even though they still want to avoid eating it. Just generally being assholes and gatekeepers.
This is a natural consequence of always being attacked by non-vegans, patience is thin and communities are maintained by the ones who remain. Unlike, say, gaming, veganism is constantly attacked, so it’s harder for them to be more inclusive than a gaming community would be.
Also, a lot of people that join fringe movements have a personality that craves conflict, and it becomes an outlet for it.
Non-carnism isn’t really so fringe anymore, but that’s pretty new, and may not have reached veganism specifically.
Seems a bit like a vicious circle to me. Hate against vegans leading to a hateful reaction, leading to vegans being perceived as assholes, leading to more hate against vegans etc. I guess it’s understandable, but it also seems counterproductive for spreading veganism.
Anecdotally, as a vegetarian I can say that the most vicious attacks against my lifestyle were not by meat eaters but some vegans (online-vegans to be precise, all I’ve met IRL were nice people). That’s despite me certainly never attacking veganism, I even think it’s morally superior to vegetarianism.
I really think this is an incredibly insightful take. I can’t say I hang out in many vegan specific corners of the Internet, but I know there is a very active and vocal segment of the Internet community that’s anti-vegan, I’ve heard stories of coordinated brigading attempts against vegan communities on the Internet.
I’d imagine it would be almost impossible to run an open and welcoming community when you are getting constantly inundated with hate messages, eventually it would become incredibly difficult to discern between a user who has genuine curiosity and one who is asking bad faith questions in order to trigger some kind of debate.
At this point in time you couldn’t pay me to become a mod in one of those communities, it really seems like a no win scenario.
That’s been my experience too. I’m trying to eat less meat and find alternatives that work for me, but it apparently has to be all or fuck you for some. I know it’s not everyone, but somehow they seem the loudest and it’s not very helpful.
Previously I found that they were staunchly anti-anything but vegan and carried over said rudeness from the reddit communities. As a vegan myself it was a big turn off. I asked about this and they banned me. Reminiscent of lemmygrad on anything but their specific MLM ideology.