Does Veganism Have A Porn Problem?
I think so, especially in the online vegan activism space...
When you read my Substack articles, you’re getting a window into my evolving thoughts—some freshly formed, others rooted in years of experience. I don’t claim to have all the answers (even if it seems that way at times), and I invite you to engage with my ideas as just that: thoughts worth considering.
Veganism has a porn problem. I’m not talking about the lingerie protests or the activists on OnlyFans (although that could be a topic for a future article).
I’m talking about vegan porn.
Defining vegan porn
What is vegan porn (vp)? It’s not a sub-genre of vegans bumping uglies, actually, it doesn’t necessarily include anything of a sexual nature.
I define vegan porn as activism by vegans, for vegans.
Activism that appears only to entertain, or aid in gaining the support of, vegans. I think a lot of content in the online activism space has fallen into the category of VP.
Without giving any specific examples, because we’re not here to target anyone in particular, let’s see what vegan porn looks like.
Well, actually I can give you a specific example. Let’s take a look at a video where I was doing activism that fell into vegan porn territory.
This interaction was filmed at the end of a long day of street activism.
I was tired, impatient, ready to get some food and call it a day. I saw a man acting strangely near our protest, and upon further inspection he appeared to be enjoying the footage of animals being abused on our TV screens.
So I approached him for a confrontation with one clear goal - to make him look and feel like an idiot.
You can clearly see it in the video.
I’m rarely looking to build a bridge or find common ground, I don’t think I extended even one olive branch.
It was just a complete dressing down of this man, followed by a dramatic walk-off out of frame.
I think this is a good example of VP.
Who else other than a vegan is going to benefit from this video?
Who is this video going to convince to go vegan?
To be fair, all approaches have a chance of affecting someone. Maybe there are a minority of non-vegans in the world who would find my behaviour in this interaction endearing.
They might respect my passion, and be convinced by my conviction.
But let’s be real, the majority of people are going to think I’m a rude, condescending jerk.
There’s only one group of people who we can expect to overwhelmingly support my behaviour in this video - vegans.
And that’s because this video is vegan porn.
None of this is to say I regret the videos I made in the past that could be categorised as VP. Those videos and experiences led me down the path to where I am today.
But I look back, and I can see that in many cases, I was probably making videos to entertain vegans.
Sometimes consciously, but most of the time I did it unknowingly, genuinely believing I was doing great activism.
In sharp contrast to this, take a look at my debate with a homesteader/animal farmer, or my recent outreach video.
I’m sure you’ll agree that the difference is night and day.
In these videos, I make a conscious effort to encourage behaviour change not only for the people I’m speaking with, but for those watching.
I am laser focused on getting people to make positive changes for animals.
I consider these two videos to be the opposite of vp, not least because I know some vegans weren’t happy with how I conducted these interactions.
The demand
In my debate with the farmer, many vegans expressed their desire for a savage takedown.
A brutal, no compromise fight.
They wanted name calling and moral grandstanding. They wanted a ferocious verbal battle in defence of the animals, and many vegans also want to see that in vegan street outreach.
But after many years of doing this, I’ve come to believe that most content of this nature predominantly serves vegans.
Some may argue that VP isn’t always damaging or bad for animals.
For example, in the case of entertaining, community building content designed solely for vegans. I’d disagree with the categorisation of that type of content as VP.
In my opinion, this would be like comparing Forrest Gump to one of the Fast and Furious films.
Forrest Gump is a wholesome, (mostly) family friendly film complete with lessons about life, love, and the complex nature of human relationships.
For the most part, the film keeps you at ease, enjoying the story as it unfolds.
On the other hand, The Fast and The Furious films aim to keep you glued to your screen at the edge of your seat.
There is over the top drama, ridiculous car chases and never ending explosions. It’s designed to be addictive.
Building a strong vegan community through streams, videos and content designed for vegans is clearly a good thing.
When I refer to VP, I’m more referring to the Fast and Furious of activism.
I believe VP is addictive for similar reasons many find the Fast and Furious films addictive - they’re fast paced, high stakes, aggressive, over the top, and have clear good guys and bad guys for you to root for or rally against.
I’m mostly referring to the kinds of VP videos that appear to be activism for animals, but in reality are likely more serving as porn for vegans.
At times, even coming at the expense of progress for animals.
The vegan pornstar pipeline
How does one go from being an activist set on changing the world for animals, to an activist making videos that appear only to serve other vegans?
It’s pretty simple actually, numbers.
Almost all activists gauge their success by views, likes, shares, and follower counts on social media.
Most of us use these numbers as a proxy for the success of our activism.
So when a video of you screaming down the excuses of a meat eater performs ten times better than a video of you calmly helping someone come to the conclusion they should change for animals, it appears that screaming is the way to go.
Unfortunately, using post performance metrics as a proxy for the success of our activism is flawed.
Let’s say you make a video where you’re giving it your all, and you’re shouting down a non-vegan.
You’re in his face calling him an animal abusing scumbag.
He’s making more and more silly arguments, and you’re getting increasingly loud and obnoxious as you debunk his every word, complete with insults for dramatic effect.
It’s pure chaos.
You post your video, and sure enough, it gets 1,000,000 views.
A million views? Damn, that’s incredible.
Surely it’s always a good thing to get a million views on a video about veganism?
It could be, but not necessarily, and definitely not always.
Let’s assume a million different individual people watched this video once. What we need to know is, “how did this video affect those people?”
We could try to get that information by including a link that leads to a tracking website like the one the animal rights organisation We The Free uses.
We could then track what animal rights films someone watches, whether they sign up to a vegan challenge, and a few other things from MyStats after they click our link.
This would probably be the best case scenario, as it gives some good data on the impact of our video.
As it stands, a very small minority of online activists are doing this. Most activists rely on the comments section and direct messages for this kind of data.
But for the sake of this example, let’s assume the activist with the million views video did use MyStats or something similar to track their impact. And let’s assume they got this million views on TikTok.
Generally, the click rate on ads on TikTok is between 1-3%. This means only 1-3% of people will click a link included in a video ad.
Based on that, let’s assume 3% of the one million people who watched our aggressive video clicked the link, meaning 30,000 people clicked our link.
Let’s be generous and assume that of that 30,000 people who clicked the link, 10% of them signed up to a vegan challenge.
That gives us 3,000 people who signed up to a vegan challenge, which sounds incredible, and it is. Getting 3,000 people to sign up to a vegan challenge is a cause for celebration.
But what was the cost of those 3,000 sign-ups?
The impact
The issue is, while we know the outcome of our video and its impact for 3,000 people, we do not know the outcome and impact it had on 9,997,000 people.
And with our video being incredibly aggressive and divisive in nature, we have to consider that it could be having a negative impact.
What would such a negative impact look like?
It might discourage open conversation, prompting people to avoid vegans out of fear of a similar confrontation.
In extreme cases, it could fuel animosity, leading to anti-vegan movements or backlash campaigns.
I actually have a theory that one of the reasons the carnivore movement exists is as a reaction to the increasingly aggressive activism and behaviour of vegans.
The dangers of survivorship bias
I know some will be eager to point out that many people cite this kind of aggressive activism as the reason they went vegan, and therefore surely this “vegan porn” can’t be all bad.
I agree to some extent.
We have a world population of billions, we can expect different people to be impacted by all different forms of activism.
But we have to consider the concept of survivorship bias.
As vegans, we come into contact with many other vegans, both online and in real life. Thanks to that, we gain access to valuable information on how they became vegan.
What we don’t have access to, however, is all the people exposed to vegan activism who didn’t go vegan.
This can lead us to making incorrect conclusions about how to convince people to go vegan.
For example, imagine we hear feedback from ten brand new vegans. They say it was an aggressive activist shouting at people in the street that convinced them to go vegan.
We may be tempted to conclude that aggressive street activism works, actually I’m sure many would (myself included in the past).
This would be falling victim to survivorship bias.
Without gaining information from all those who didn’t go vegan as a result of this activism, we would be making a biased conclusion based on those who did go vegan.
We’d be making our decision based only on the “survivors” (the vegans in this case), and ignoring everyone else’s experience.
Another interesting concept I recently learned more about is that there are many in our society that have submissive personality traits.
This means they are eager to please, and often give in to the more dominant personalities in their lives.
As an activist, you may find your most aggressive videos result in you receiving a host of messages from people telling you how you changed their life, and how they’re now going vegan.
The reality could well be that these individuals are only saying they’re making the change to please you.
The other reality could be that they are actually making the change, but again, only because they want to please you, not because they want justice for animals.
Why that would the latter be a problem?
It would be a problem because if someone goes vegan out of submission and a need to make peace with an aggressive activist, a more dominant person they felt judged by online, it’s likely only a matter of time before someone will judge them for being vegan, and they fall back into old habits.
These are just a few of the real concerns that most of us aren’t considering.
The alternative
What if, instead of leaning on drama or aggression, we focused on creating balanced, approachable activism?
Take Clif Grant, for example.
This video of his garnered 1.3 million views, yet he avoided anger or hostility. Instead, his calm, empathetic tone invited meaningful discussion while still maintaining the engagement that drives impact.
Now we can apply the exact same numbers to this video as we did in the previous example, and assume we get 3,000 sign-ups to a vegan challenge.
But the risks associated with the remaining 9,997,000 people are significantly reduced.
There will always be someone who finds Clif aggressive despite his accessible, calm approach, but I don’t believe that’s a good reason to turn to VP.
Many activists, myself included in the past, use this idea of “no matter how reasonable we are, people complain, so I might as well be offensive” as a green light to be as loud, rude, and adversarial as possible.
But realistically, what impact can we expect this clip of Clif to have on the world in comparison to that kind of behaviour?
We can never be 100% sure, but I think we can assume this clip of Clif has a better risk to reward ratio in comparison to the more anti-social behaviour.
The addiction
Even thoughtful activists like Clif sometimes fall into the trap of creating VP, because it’s incredibly addictive.
Dopamine from likes, shares, and views can cloud judgment, steering content away from its true purpose: to promote meaningful change for animals.
I’m no stranger to creating vegan porn and reaping the rewards of views, likes, shares and follows.
If you’re not constantly keeping in mind why you’re making these videos, it’s very easy to fall into VP territory.
You tell yourself, “oh they’ll love this!” and “this is gonna get people so pumped!”, without realising the audience you’re actually targeting, non vegans, will likely watch it and think you’re unhinged at best, and deranged at worst.
We aren’t doing this for a dopamine hit, we’re doing it to try and make a better world for animals, and I believe we need to be more responsible with what we put out to the world.
Finding balance
There is a balance to be had between VP and effective activism.
Most social media platforms work like this:
You post a video.
The platform shows the video to people who like your videos.
If they don’t watch/engage with it, the platform will push your video to less people, until eventually it stops showing it to anyone.
If the people who like your videos watch/engage with it, the platform pushes to more people. If they also watch/engage, it does it again. It does this until people don’t watch/engage.
In simple terms; generally vegans need to watch and engage with a vegan video for it to have a chance of reaching non-vegans.
This means striking a good balance between vp and effective activism is essential.
The video needs to be entertaining enough for vegans to enjoy, like, comment, share and follow you. But it needs to be accessible for non-vegans, so they feel they want to learn more, or are convinced to make changes in their lives to help animals.
Practical advice
I don’t doubt that vegan porn exists, I’ve seen enough of it to know it does.
But there is definitely some nuance in what does and doesn’t classify as vp.
If you’re a creator, or you watch a lot of vegan videos, keep an eye out and see what you think.
Creators, I recommend you to be brutally honest with yourself during your creative process. Ask yourself some tough questions like:
“If a non-vegan saw this, what would they think?”
“Would anyone outside of the vegan world understand what I’m saying?”
“If I saw this before going vegan, what would I think?”
“What is the goal of this video/my activism, and does this get me closer to my goal?”
You could also try to imagine a person who is incredibly uninterested in veganism, someone a little stubborn who just has no understanding of what veganism is or what vegans want; what would they think of your video?
What impact would it have on them?
If we lean too heavily on VP, we risk alienating the very people we hope to inspire.
Instead, I believe focusing that building bridges, fostering understanding can help us create content that sparks curiosity and change.
I’m currently trying to find that balance, somewhere between passion and aggression.
Somewhere that’s persuasive, but without coming across like a used car salesman, because even being too persuasive comes with its risks.
There’s a psychological concept known as buyer’s remorse, which is a feeling of regret people can experience after making a choice or decision, and is likely a result of them feeling manipulated or pressured.
I predict this could be another reason people agree with veganism at first, and start making changes, only later to go back on their agreement. That’s maybe a topic for another article.
In the end, I believe vegan activism needs to find a balance.
Dramatic, polarising content might satisfy our base instincts and provide copious amounts of dopamine through views, likes and comments, but the long-term goal of creating a more just world demands something deeper: empathy, strategy, and accessibility.
I believe the real challenge lies not in shouting louder, but in being heard by the right people in the right way. What do you think?
Q&A
“What exactly separates "vegan porn" from content designed to motivate and inspire vegans? Isn’t all activism partly about rallying the base?”
I would say that content designed to motivate and inspire vegans at the expense of animals is usually a sign that it’s fallen into vp territory.
For example, if a vegan were in the street insulting the public, calling them names and swearing at them.
It’s likely this would get some vegans pumped up, but it would likely be at the expense of helping animals, as it would alienate the very people we’re trying to convince and influence.
“How do you define the line between being passionate and being aggressive in activism? Doesn’t passion naturally come across as forceful?”
I don’t see a problem with aggressive activism so long as it’s in full consideration of the potential negative impact.
If someone has found a way to prove that a certain type of aggressive action has a good risk/reward ratio, then I’m all for it.
A good example of this would be with pressure campaigns, which are usually aggressive actions taken against corporations.
When done effectively, the public supports these actions.
It tends to be easier to get public support in condemning the actions of a company or industry, so aggressive action can work very well with a much lower risk in comparison to aggressive actions targeting the general public.
“You talk about balancing content for both vegans and non-vegans—how exactly do you achieve this in practice?”
If I knew the answer to this you’d already know trust me!
I’d be shouting it from the rooftops. Unfortunately this is something many activists are still trying to work out, and I don’t think any of us have quite cracked it yet.
If you go through my videos, you’ll find some that are close to striking that balance. I think Danny Ishay is also quite good at striking the balance from time to time too.
But it’s a very delicate balance that’s very hard to achieve.
“How can activists measure the effectiveness of their content when non-vegans rarely leave feedback? Isn’t relying on sign-ups flawed too?”
This is another tough question that advocates have been working on for decades.
I believe the organisation working on this the most at the moment is We The Free, I recommend following their social media to keep up to date on their findings.
Sign-ups, DMs, likes, shares, comments - these are all flawed metrics, but they’re currently all we have.
This is why I make the case that it’s important for us to make content knowing we don’t know the impact for around 99% of people who see it, rather than making content as if we have nothing to lose.
“Is it fair to criticise activists for making "vegan porn" when they’re volunteering their time and resources to fight for animals?”
I believe if we were all a little more self-critical and aware of the things we do or don’t know, as well as our limitations in knowing what is and isn’t effective, we’d have a much better movement.
That being said, I don’t believe it’s helpful to publicly criticise other activists in most cases, which is why I only criticised my own work in this article.
It’s true that people are volunteering their time and resources, often with great hostility from the public, and I believe that deserves respect.
At the same time, we have to make sure what we’re doing helps, otherwise all that time and resources is wasted, or worse, holds back progress for animals.
“If an aggressive video results in thousands of people going vegan, does it really matter if it alienates some others? Isn't the net positive what matters?”
If an aggressive video results in thousands of people going vegan, but tens of thousands of people vouching to never even speak to a vegan again, or worse, fall into the arms of anti-vegan carnivore influencers, I don’t believe that video was a good idea.
This is the real risk I believe we pose when we post without considering the full impact of our content.
“Who are you to judge what’s effective or not? How do you know that your calm, empathetic tone is more impactful than someone else’s fiery approach?”
I don’t know that the calm, empathetic tone is more impactful than a fiery approach, but it’s safe to assume that the associated risk is significantly lower with the former, and significantly higher with the latter.
“What would you say to activists who argue that polarising content gets people talking and raises awareness, even if it doesn’t immediately convert non-vegans?”
I would agree with them! There’s no denying that polarising content sparks discussion and raises awareness.
I’m more concerned with the cost of sparking these discussions and raising awareness in this way.
If we can find a way to spark discussions and raise awareness with a much lower risk, isn’t that the way to go?
A really great, thought provoking article. You have made an excellent point that has slipped under the radar.
Thank you for writing this article - you made a strong, easy-to-understand case for the potential negative effects of activism, and I found the survivorship bias point especially valuable.
At the same time, this (and other articles) is leaving me feeling a bit paralyzed regarding how to contribute to the movement since I think there is a similar and interconnected problem where vegans engage in activism that feels good/righteous. I recently protested a rodeo, and I want to go to similar events, but I worry that calling attendees psychotic animal abusers has the potential to do significant harm.