It’s January – the month of resolutions, and a common choice across the globe is a change of diet. 2016 was the year of clean eating, with Instagram, Twitter and Facebook aflood with food bloggers promoting their healthy lifestyles and healthy food choices. Popular among many of these blogs are the vegans and vegetarians, people cutting out meat and animal products for their health, and for the welfare of animals and the environment. The amount of people identifying with these dietary choices has skyrocketed, with vegetarianism and veganism becoming somewhat of a trend.
A popular topic among the vegans of the internet this month is Veganuary. Following the trend of using a month long resolution to promote its cause, Veganuary joined the likes of Alcohol Concern’s ‘Dry January’ and Public Health England’s ‘Stoptober’. The aim of Veganuary is to ‘’reduce the suffering of animals by inspiring and supporting people across the globe to go vegan for the month of January”, with the hope that many of these people will continue with their dietary changes once the month is over. People who sign up receive a vegan starter kit including meal plans and a shopping guide among other things useful to someone testing the waters of veganism. When the initiative was first started, few people were aware of Veganuary, but this year, supported by newspapers, bloggers and celebrities, it seemed to be what everyone was talking about. Social media has had a huge impact the popularity of alternative diet choices, and the proof is in the numbers. January 2016 saw 23,000 participants, but January 2017 this figure over doubled, with a ‘record 50,000 people’ signing up, and the month isn’t even over.
But the huge growth of social media involvement in the promotion of cutting out meat and animal products has caused a rift between online users, and attached a stigma to dietary choices made by vegans and vegetarians. This rift caused the coining of the term ‘vegan twitter’. It seems you aren’t a somebody in the vegan community if you don’t use your social media to promote the cause, most members featuring a V symbol in their bio. But all it takes is a quick search of the term ‘vegan’ on twitter to find the haters, who aren’t too welcoming of the tidal wave of tweets.
Vegan ppl on twitter are so depressing. All they post is shit about being vegan. They’ve basically made an eating preference a CULT
— Gol D. Tashy (@tashysowavy) January 9, 2017
vegan twitter is annoying as fuck. Just eat ur plants and go. Majority of people will still be eating meat and dairy pic.twitter.com/5dkqVx7RqZ
— Jordan (@rysdestinys) January 9, 2017
Can we fuckin leave vegan twitter in 2016 I am so tired of seeing it all over my TL
— ??? (@sweaters4ever) January 9, 2017
There is also the presence of organisations like PETA, using their social media presence to promote awareness of veganism through shocking videos of the cruelty to animals that is a consequence of the agricultural industry, which don’t go down too well with meat eaters whose mantra appears to be ‘ignorance is bliss’.
So while social media has brought together a whole community of people making alternative diet choices, it has also added fuel to the fire for the internet funny guys. Meme culture is huge on social media, it’s impossible to scroll through your timeline without scrolling past an oh so relatable meme, telling yourself ‘oh I do that!’ before tagging ten of your mates.
With the abundance of memes out there, it is impossible to escape the mockery of the internet, and vegans are no exclusion. With apparently endless mention of their dietary choices, vegans both online and offline have attached a stigma to themselves for being very expressive of their opinions, and it is this stigma which has led to an array of – frankly hilarious – memes.
While these memes are a light-hearted poke at the vegan community, and it is easy to see the funny side, it relies on mocking vegans as a collective. The vegan and vegetarian community are all individuals, with their own stories, their own reasons for an alternative diet, and are being grouped together in what seems to be an ‘us vs them’ style argument. This means that social media is a hub for frequent arguments and heated discussions on the topic and it seems that nobody can just get on with it and eat what they feel comfortable eating. But is this down to the internet, or is it just in human nature to disagree? What is for sure is that social media has facilitated way more discussion than ever before and our diets appear to be in the limelight.
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