Breakdown of Yourofsky's Georgia Tech Speech

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.

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).

Showcasing Vegan alternatives

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 sacraficed.

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 making your speech, 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.