Quote (thesnipa @ May 24 2018 11:01am)
100% sure the bold is a large factor in this. And a lot of factors to think on:
-online campaigns use shock and awe tactics, generally out of context. Some vegan groups are as disingenuous as project veritas. yet they snare a lot of people.
-the online meta is constantly trying to force false binaries. "meat eater bad, veggie eater good" type stuff. it makes people think that their side isn't problematic
-older people are going veggie/vegan but from my anecdotal view its more of a dietary total health move than a moral one by-and-large
-stuff like farmer's markets are becoming trendy, which acts as an on ramp for youth to start down the path to food independence.
-there are intersections of people who all coalesce in veganism. cultural vegetarians, dietary vegetarians, animal right's activists, farmer's market hipsters, and even people just wanting to get in on a hot trend. but they all share motivations that got them on the path, and these become group motivations, in these groups people get a strange perspective of being moral based on their group. even if the motivations don't perfectly fit to them. we've all seen this, someone just wants to save money on veggies, then talks about the health benefits, then reads online about pesticides, then factor farming, etc. next thing u know they're a vegan. i see the vegan path as very linear and dont see many if any turn back ever.
-veganism, as with any budding movement is spreading massively through the internet. the emergence of vegan restaurants must have vegans from the 70s-80s drooling. their years of careful food prep as their only means of eating is now dated. vegan certified products have been very consistent. if anything vegan/organic labels are almost too strict on the side of caution.
I guess in the end the question is, does it really effect us? Unlike you I haven't seen any demonstration or personally had to waste time/energy to deal with some of the OTT rhetoric. Regarding your point on online communities...In general the internet has normalized radical thinking in addition to ideas that were previously considered outlandish. Keeping politics out of it for a moment, whatever your belief system is or whatever specific fetish, xyz flat earth theory - you will be able to find a community that will back your idea and bring positive reinforcement to a notion that would have previously been given no thought. Sad irony that as powerful an invention the internet may be, I would argue it is the foundation of anti-intellectualism