Difference between revisions of "Breakdown of Yourofsky's Georgia Tech Speech"

Revision as of 17:34, 14 June 2021

In this article, we will be analyzing Gary Yourofsky's famous Georgia Tech speech. It is regarded as one of the most important speeches in modern Veganism, reaching and converting millions of people.

We'll be looking at the good and the bad in Yourofsky's speech. If you're looking to get into vegan lectures, let this serve as a handy guide of dos and don'ts for when you're writing and rehearsing your speech. We'll be going section by section, and discuss what Gary does right, and what Gary does wrong. Just a note, the sections as presented here may not be how Gary intended to divide up the speech.

Gary's speech is primarily ethics-focused, with also a strong emphasis on health. While there are many problems present in the speech, it's overall a very compelling speech, a groundbreaking moment in Vegan activism, which has influenced hundreds of thousands to go vegan, as well as many others to go into Vegan activism.

The speech can be viewed here if you'd like to follow along.

Introduction (0:00-

Yourofsky doesn't fuck around, he gets right into it.

Guilt-tripping can be very powerful here. Calling out people's slacktivism will make people feel inadequate and help compel them to actually do something very useful to help the world (Veganism). He does get back into this a little later in the speech too.

Environment and World Hunger (42:10-43:02)

This section of the speech is far too short, considering how important these issues are.

Yourofsky makes the mistake of claiming that animal agriculture is the root cause of world hunger, but this isn't entirely accurate. Sure, it does bring problems with food security, but there isn't any incentive for these companies to give this food to third-world countries, and any food that is attempted to be exported is usually rejected by the countries due to the food being genetically modified. It's an important point to make, but it isn't as simple as Yourofsky claims.

The environmental issues are discussed in literally ten seconds (he just lists the issues, never elaborated on why they're problems or how animal agriculture causes them), which is insane. The environmental issues with animal agriculture are some of the biggest problems with it, and given how environmentalism is a huge thing at colleges, Gary made them look like they're trivial compared to everything else. Sure, he tells his audience to go to his website to learn more about it, but it's unlikely that most of them went to the website to learn more about the issue.

It's fine if you want to have a focus on animal ethics over the environment, but the environmental issues must be discussed more than in just ten seconds.

In your activism, when it comes to food security, point out how ineffectively food is used, but don't say that it necessarily is the root of world hunger. Instead, talk about how unsustainable and wasteful animal agriculture is, and how meat consumption is why a higher population would be an issue, whereas feeding people Vegan is easy with the amount of crops we currently have.

Showcasing Vegan alternatives (43:03-51:22)

It may not seem like it, but this is one of the most important parts of the speech. A big reason why people are so daunted to go Vegan is that they feel as though they're sacrificing too much, and have to make huge adjustments in their diet. By showing the audience all of the vegan alternatives available, it makes the task look much more achievable, seeing how little is really sacrificed.

The only issue that can be brought up with this section is that some of the products Gary recommends contain Palm oil (at least at the time some of them did), however Gary has (largely) corrected himself on the palm oil issue, and at the time of this lecture it wasn't brought up as much as it is today, so this issue gets a pass.

When talking about alternatives, you don't necessarily have to show all the products available as Gary did, but it is important to point out a few brand names, and saying how many are available in the grocery stores.