I’ve been lucky in a way that I always preferred a spartan life, nomading about international communities, volunteering on campaigns and charity projects, but I know that that is neither desirable nor possible for many who have to support family and friends who are dependent on them. But it does mean I’ve had access to and been able to foster a supportive community of activists, artists and breadline workers and refugees who share similar libertarian socialist ambitions and diet.
Apart from making these volunteer projects more long-term focused and enticing to the public like farm sanctuaries (all the locals used to love coming to the protest sites I lived on for the novelty, parties and climbing courses we had set up). I know many of you will say we just need better philanthropy, better advocacy and obviously I would still be vegan without a supportive community, but it’s nice to see the side-effects of our activism bringing people together and fostering a desirable quality of life.
Before coming onto the forum I was archiving movement pamphlets (zines), little self-published pieces of art or prose journaling, that pre-dated the internet and blogs, that are distributed at events and social centres documenting social and political campaigns going back centuries. It was really touching to have an insight into the ‘psychogeographies’ that birthed these stories, and getting to meet those writers.
Anyways with travel and activisty blogs, journalists and small consciousness raising youtubers I follow, I think there is a similar dynamic going on, it’s nice that people can follow content creators and their journey and how it impacts you. I do think more video educational resources could be transcribed into text for quick consumption, skimming, sourcing and linking, which is what I’ve been doing in the hopes that it could one day form part of a wiki or resource library.
Often things like being in the habit of eating ready meals because it’s quick and easy after a stressful workday, make turning vegan and having to check carefully down ingredients lists an undesirable proposition. In time we’ll have easily identifiable vegan products of every conceivable ingredient and dish and the leisure time to explore all kinds of cooking, but until then (and after for pleasure) having a supportive community you can share recipes with and chart your progress is a big help.
A lot of my critiques on the forum are from the place of wanting to build a stronger more compassionate vegan community and I have been encouraged by the chance to compare and contrast the merits of different philosophies and advocacy, and gained much insight through discussion I am thankful for. So I pose the question I started with again, what aspects of this or other community building projects have you encountered or see merit in pursuing? I'm thinking particularly of those things that strengthen peoples personal engagement, commitment and enjoyment.
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Here are two videos and transcripts covering similar themes:
Why you're wasting your time at veg fests pt. 3 // Consumerism
- https://youtu.be/29TZQJy2zJk
Welcoming & non-dogmatic online vegan communities I recommend
- https://youtu.be/Z9Zy2OQPvFk
And 2 videos without transcript, the first I agree with in spirit, but not necessarily style, obvs Eisels misquoting UV as a launchpad is less than ideal, and the second for not chasing fame for fame's sake.
On Community (a vegan manifesto)
- https://youtu.be/8vYVTg5EQfY
Enough with Famous YouTubers
- https://youtu.be/wrbByMnooRQ
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Why you're wasting your time at veg fests pt. 3 // Consumerism
https://youtu.be/29TZQJy2zJk
Veggieworld
Published on Jun 2, 2017
Dreaming of radical vegan meetups in London... Tell me, what is the veg community like in your neck of the woods? Veg fests there any good?
PART 1:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoWxbvMy514
PART 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVHnJTc-DHw
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Hello exemplary vegetables of the world, in my last two videos I discussed how waiting in line ad VegFest wasn't only a waist of time, we also missed out on a huge opportunity to build community, it reflected the deeper issue that VegFest don't focus on building a community, they focus instead on the individual. But it becomes more annoying, disturbing, if you put it into a broader context.
You’re wasting your time at VegFests III
So at Austin VegFest, buying stuff was by far the best organized aspect of the Fest and subsequently the most popular aspect of the feeeest. Yes there were animal rights organizations there, yes there are other related organizations there that were nonprofits and also activisty. But I'm talking about the focus, that is what I saw at Austin VegFest that day was both by where all of the people were, where all the crowd was and by the way that the Fest is organized, an emphasis on consumer goods and services, instead of the political implications of a rejection of consuming animal products.
This is what Aph Ko outlines as white veganism or mainstream veganism and I made an entire video about that really recently, [1] So with the Fests focus on consumer goods, veganism is expressed at the Fest as product-oriented - ladies and gentlemen you’ll buy the broccoli, you will buy the broccoli, buy - but veganism is more than just about consumer goods, it's more than the latest innovation out of Tofurkey.
But based on even just the vegan society's definition, which is not the only relevant thing here, but veganism rejects the animal category as one that enables exploitation, particularly in a capitalist context. But if we only focus on one aspect, to feed into the…
Lifestyle
If we focus on lifestyle and veganism is sanitized of any political implication, that is, it fails to be critical of the context that allows animal exploitation to thrive in the first place, instead we mainly focus on purchasing our way to veganism, which effectively positions the way we practice veganism very smoothly inside capitalism.
I know, it's understandable that people would organize the VegFest to make it very palatable to mainstream, perhaps that's why the organizers scrubbed the word vegan from the website and marketing materials for the Fest. [2]
‘[Scrubs clean mug which reads ‘Animals Have Rights,’] It’s not coming off, it's not coming off.’ Now don't get me wrong, we really should include vegan food vendors because they give people an example of what good vegan food looks like, bujji though I guess.Texas VegFest is a free public education event that celebrates the health, environmental, and animal welfare benefits of a plant-based diet. The sixth annual Texas VegFest is scheduled for Saturday, April 1st, 2017 at Fiesta Gardens in Austin, Texas between 11am and 6pm. Texas VegFest is orchestrated by Texas Veg Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose mission is to educate individuals on the health, environmental, and animal welfare benefits of a plant-based diet using public events as a tool.
Now in my last video a Manuel Marquez commented:
Very good points, it's vital to approach the mainstream and appeal to it in some ways, particularly the large number of vegans and vegetarians that aren't necessarily sold on the political implications of the veganism or are not aware of them. We need to have them be interested in come come to this, this does not mean we need to have the Fests revolve around consumer goods, no, no, no, no. It does mean shifting the focus to community, and human interaction and education. So just like we're missing out on the opportunity at every single VegFest, think about how many businesses right now, I don't even we miss out on the opportunity to foster a community of really tight-knit vegan people that reduce not only the rates of recidivism, but also the rates of loneliness, vegan loneliness is a thing, we also miss out on the opportunity to grow a community aware of the political implications of veganism. Such that their understanding of veganism is deeper, more than just, oh just, you know, seems like a cool thing to do. And it fosters a greater interest in animal rights and human rights too.What I think could be some already existing positive aspects of VegFest is for veg-curious people to try some good vegan food, debunking the myths of vegan food being flavorless or disgusting. This could be done by vegans or vegetarians, bringing their non-veg family or friends and also nonprofit organizations interacting with the community to let them know what they're doing and how to get involved with them or support their work.
So what can we do?
What can we do? What has allowed me to connect with the vegan community in my area are events like Thanksgiving with the turkeys, massive potluck at this animal sanctuary, where all these people come and gather, and sit around on the grass and eat food while we worship our turkey overlords. This event is centered around the animals and it helped people just talk to each other. *Mutters How do you make that ooo what’s the recipe ooo*
So you can just make your own summit and maybe even get involved in your local VegFest and change some of the programming up, insert a bunch of really awkward icebreakers and then just watch it unfold with thousands of people, just awkwardness as far as the eye can see.
On my last video, part two of the series, Amy Schafer said:
There you go, so tell me how your local community fosters a good vegan zone and tell me in the comments below.I've been a vegan for seven years now and I've lived in a major city Philly for most of it, although the opportunity was there to go to my local VegFest, I never went because of lack of time, money or both, maybe Fests need an activity like pin trading or arts and crafts to encourage strangers to mingle, I always liked those ice-breaking bingo boards, with spaces like; find someone who speaks a foreign language, or find someone who plays a musical instrement.
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References:
1. VEGANISM IS NOT ABOUT FOOD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSe7SfLSEhw
2. http://www.texasvegfest.com/2017eventinfo/
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Welcoming & non-dogmatic online vegan communities I recommend
Unnatural Vegan
Published on Jul 12, 2016
It's shameful and embarrassing how many online vegan groups promote anti-science echo chambers that are wholly unwelcoming to non-vegans (and debate in general). Luckily, they are not all this way. Here are two that I’ve found to be welcoming and non-dogmatic
Friendly & Pragmatic Vegans & Vegetarians
https//www.facebook.com/groups/fapvv/
Philosophical Vegan Forum
https//philosophicalvegan.com/
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Hey guys this is just a quick video to talk about some vegan community, some groups and forums that I think are really good, that I recommend, I know or I suspect that a lot of you are looking for something like that and I know it can be kind of hard to find. Unfortunately a lot of vegan groups tend to be uh rather dogmatic or very, very unwelcoming to people who are not already vegan or who are not one hundred percent certain that they are going vegan, you know, I’ve even seen things where it's like, if you have questions about veganism, you're basically just considered a troll, which is absolutely ridiculous. So yeah I wanted to recommend some that are not like that at all and are actually good and they don't promote things like you know, pseudoscience and coconut oil cures everything or raw food diets cure everything or anti-vax or any of that shit.
So the first one is a Facebook group, it is called ‘Friendly and pragmatic vegans and vegetarians, it's started by Vincent, who is the animalist, you may know of his articles, highly recommended articles, they are great and yeah this group is actually huge, I did not realize it’s this large, it's almost 7,000 members and it's really great, you can tell by the title, friendly and pragmatic, it's a great name for a group and it is very, very friendly and again you know does not promote any like anti-science kind of stuff and it's very, very welcoming to those you know who are not already vegan or even vegetarian, are just you know looking for you know tips on reducing animal product consumption or have questions about how to do it or whatever else, so it's a really really great group.
And the other one I want to recommend is the philosophical vegan forum, philosophicalvegan.com - this is a great group again for discussion, very much discussion oriented and you are expected you know to debate, if you start a thread and people you know critique what you say, you are expected to respond so it is very much pro-debate again, ah very anti a lot of the other vegan groups that just kind of seemed like they want to create an echo chamber, so again another one that I highly recommend, and that one is not you know on Facebook obviously, philosophicalvegan.com – it's not a closed group either, you can just go and join and post or whatever. Oh and also you know not anti-science or anything like that
And yeah, those are the two unfortunately, only two, I will say that you know I’m not very active in like forum things, I never really have been, I am members of both of those groups, but you won't see me you know post or anything like that really, but yeah I’m sure there are other vegan groups that are good, that I just don't know of, so I would love for you guys if there are some that you really recommend, either facebook groups or forums or whatever else to leave those down below, that'd be really cool, and that's it. . . I hope you enjoyed this video, I hope you found it useful and subscribe if you want to subscribe and I will have a new video very soon.
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They have since promoted the:
Skeptic Vegan Discussion Group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/skepticvegan/
And all the top rated comments promoted r/vegan subreddit, so that at least has popular appeal amongst her subs:
https://www.reddit.com/r/vegan/