by Jason on November 17, 2010
People would watch the Fox Reality Channel to escape the reality that has the Fox Reality Channel. Amazingly, it failed.
The UK has some kind of reality show called I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! that’s apparently like Survivor but with semi-famous people. Or maybe they’re really super-famous people, I don’t know – we’ve already discussed my inability to remember anyone who came to prominence after Vanilla Ice.
This week, there was some disgusting insect and worm eating, and one of the contestants didn’t do too well, refusing to eat any of the bugs, claiming, and I quote, “I need you to know that I’m vegan so I won’t eat any insects. It goes against everything I believe in so I’m just not going to do it. I have tried very hard but I’m definitely not going to eat an insect.”
Let’s pause a second and acknowledge that vegans and non-vegans tend to have at least this in common: very few of us on either side of the fence believe in eating insects. Yay, culinary harmony!
Anyway, this person, a Gillian McKeith who is on the show on account of being a TV nutritionist, later ate a “cheese fruit pastry,” and I was all set to drop me some WTF bombs, but apparently cheese fruit is vegan friendly. It’s also known as vomit fruit, so “friendly” might be a strong word, but kudos to McKeith for sticking to her beliefs, even though she had to know that by even being on the show she was going to make veganism look silly. I mean, if a diet keeps you from entering bug-eating competitions, well, that’s a deal breaker for someone out there, I’m sure.
But this is the thing: it’s really, really hard to be vegan and sell your dignity for 15 minutes of fame on a reality show. I remember watching Fear Factor, and they did some crazy degrading stuff, but the most humiliating part of the show was usually the “eat a disgusting thing” segment. I haven’t watched many other reality shows (I did see the British one on a farm with Vanilla Ice, natch,) but even on The Apprentice (which I’ve watched every season of, except for… wait for it… the celebrity editions,) vegan and vegetarian contestants haven’t had a great time.*
Part of me worries – and this isn’t a strong enough worry to warrant a Staying Vegan video, but there’s something there – that as reality shows continue to refuse to die, there’s a growing population of, well, idiots, I guess, who are basing all their hopes and dreams on winning big on some reality show or another, to the point where they’ll actually train (OK, maybe they’ll buy a hat) for the event, and if veganism is going to keep them from victory, it’s a deal breaker.
For serious! People don’t need good reasons not to change, they just need a reason, and if “I could never win a reality TV show” helps them maintain the status quo, this inanity will go unchallenged, even when shared with friends, who will spread the idea like a really lazy virus.
In response, our mission is clear: we need millions of dollars to launch 37 different vegan-themed reality TV shows. Nothing so simple as America’s Next Top Vegan; I’m talking America’s Best Vegan Skydiver. That Dance Crew Thing But With Vegans Which Makes it Amazinger. Vegan Lumberjack Quest 2011. So yeah, any ridiculous reality show you can think of but with the word vegan cleverly added in, so veganism isn’t how you win (but oh snap, that’s how we win) but it’s a requirement.
Russell Simmons has been vegan for 12 years and is probably the best person to run with this, so my work here is done. I look forward to mis-programming my VCR and missing all the fun, only to make crap up about it for future blog posts here on vegan porn.
(* To be fair, I’d guess vegans on The Biggest Loser would probably do well, but I don’t know the rules to that one.)
by Jason on November 5, 2010
Mort Zuckerman: the new face of celebrity veganism
You guys know I read business magazines more than I read cookbooks, right? I mean, I tend to post business stuff on Wednesdays whenever possible, because that’s when conditions are perfect, but I find more and more data on industry trends that could have direct impact on outreach with every magazine I flip through, and I don’t think it’s my weird super power of connecting everything to veganism; there’s something genuinely interesting going on.
Well, most of the time, anyway. Veganism was featured in a recent issue of Bloomberg Business Week (yes, I subscribe, no, I can’t keep up,) and, uh, what the hell?
For starters, it’s about the rise of powerful vegan CEOs and they don’t even mention me.
After that it gets weird. Apparently veganism is a new status symbol among the ultra-powerful money people. It’s like the new private jet or something. Who told this reporter we can fly?
When I read business stuff in general I try hard to remind myself that the articles are usually written by writers with average paychecks, not multimillionaire deal makers, and so I’ll look at their industry analysis and stock recommendations with a grain of salt. I’ve got to admit, it’s harder to do that when veganism is mentioned, because it’s hard to get over the “someone acknowledged me!” reflex.
I’ve got to say, though, I’m much happier having lists of “vegan celebrities” that include people like Steve Wynn, Russell Simmons, and Mort Zuckerman over lists of movie stars, even if most people don’t know who the money people are yet (I had to look Zuckerman up.) Meat and especially exotic meats have been seen as a status symbol for a long time, so if there is something to this otherwise inane article, then at least it’s on the right side of business porn.
by Jason on October 15, 2010
Yes, every post starts with a picture, and then I spend 3 weeks finding a link to use as an excuse to run the photo. YOU'RE WELCOME.
Well, after I outed myself in yesterday’s porncast for being such a celebrity-follower, I might as well add another leg to the impending trifecta and start talking about ultimate fighting, because if there’s one thing I like more than paying attention to what famous people are doing, it’s what famous people are punching. Or ultimate punching, I guess.
I’m vaguely aware that there’s at least one vegan ultimate fighter, but today I’m talking about a vegetarian one, and this is the kind of guy who has a name that just says ultimate fighter to me, Jake Shields, who gave an extensive interview to USA Today. According to the always-accurate Wikipedia, he’s a lifelong vegetarian, but here’s my outreach idea for the week:
Jake says, “It is kind of crazy. It seems like almost half of my friends are vegetarians now.”
What does Math tell us from this lone out of context quote? Simple:
For every two people that become friends with Jake, we get at least one vegetarian.
Ergo, we need to send Jake more friends. Outreach groups, what do you think would work better, giving a handful of recipes out to potential vegetarians, or setting them up with a UFC BFF? OMG!
And yes, I’m aware that Jake’s probably gravitated towards other vegetarians as opposed to his friends gravitating towards vegetarianism, but wouldn’t it be cool if we had people who had this magnetic conversion effect on people? In a way, I think we all do our part to convince our friends and colleagues that veganism is awesome simply by our example, but it’d be interesting to try to identify people who do a better job on that than others do so we can figure out if there are any approaches that work really well.
Or we could all take up mixed martial arts. I have to present to a local veg group next week and haven’t finished my notes yet, so I might as well scrap my planned talk and just convince them all to start punching in a most ultimate fashion.
by Jason on September 13, 2010
This is what Google Images gave me for a "Cockroach Gaga" search. I do not question these things.
Well, it’s over. Two news pieces crossed my browser this morning that pretty much confirmed that veganism is impossible, at least for the average mortal.
First, of course, is the Lady Gaga meat dress thing, as forwarded to me by Matty. I need submissions about pop culture, because I honestly know two things about Lady Gaga – she had something to do with sticking “Poker Face” in my head a zillion times (it didn’t help that I was working on a karaoke project at the time and it was the free sample used during testing,) and she wears a dress out of meat at major media events, as if she wants attention or something.
And maybe you could find a way to exist without a meat dress. Sure, you’d have to turn your back on the mega-stardom that you know in you’re heart you’re entitled to, and nobody would buy your albums, and instead of being “the most judgement-free human being on earth” you’d be in danger of having actual opinions, but I guess you could get by without a meat dress.
Of course, I haven’t gotten to news item 2 yet. Ground-up cockroach brains can kill a type of E. coli that causes meningitis. Which means we’re all going to be receiving regular supplements, probably in the mail, of ground-up cockroach brains, and we’ll eat them all happily because our meat dresses told us to, but sadly none of us will be vegan.
OK, here’s the trick, and no, I can’t just be semi-satirical and leave it at that, because 84% of you are coming here from the Turkish Google searching for porn and might miss the nuances (I’m not kidding, and traffic to a vegan site from a country called Turkey sure is something,) so here’s the trick to surviving that which is the modern news cycle.
There are people in your life who will bring up one or both of these stories (granted, not so much the roach brain one) in an attempt to somehow get you to see the light and renounce your cruciferous ways. Because, not in so many words, it’s clearly impossible to thrive as a species without meat dresses and cockroach brains.
It’s safe to ignore this. I could go into a long rant about how entertainment news works, but let’s just take it as an interesting and possibly good thing that the act of wearing a meat dress is actually the most shocking thing someone could come up with. If society’s ready to at least accept that wearing a dress made of flesh is probably wrong, at least if non-famous people do it (and Idol shows notwithstanding, there are fewer non-famous people than famous people,) well, it’s a step, anyway. As for the roach thing, I include it because new uses for animals always disturbs people, but I have faith in capital-S Science, and know that people will find better, cheaper (yes, cheaper than cockroaches) more specialized synthetics based on this initial discovery. There are periods of capital-S Suck in between these advances, but capital-S Science will make more vegans over time than just about any other single factor in modern society.
Now, how about those lettuce ladies? Any change in opinion?
by Jason on August 10, 2010
I can’t always define what constitutes vegan porn, but somehow the new Yogi Bear movie promotion fits:
Not sure? Take a good, long, hard look. Then again, maybe this is a better fit:
I am grateful that my son isn’t old enough to see movies yet, and that when I giggle uncontrollably, it just means we’re happy and I don’t have to explain why.
I have two passions in my life. Probably more than two, but for right this second, there are two that matter.
The first, obviously, is “alternative” vegan outreach, wherein I try to imagine the wackiest way to spread a vegan message and then do so here on VP. One recent example was our S4 campaign, which stood for Species Sex Study Saturday, wherein every Saturday we’d take a look at how a member of the animal kingdom does it, with the hopes (slim, but hopes just the same) that we could convince meat eaters that their diet was doing more than killing animals; it was preventing orgasms.
It’s a work in progress.
The other passion, and I mean as a concept and not the man himself, is Nicolas Cage. Call it a guilty pleasure, but I love watching his movies. They’re not high art, but they’re remarkably consistent (some would say a little too consistent…)
So imagine my delight when Lindsay sent me news that Nicolas Cage picks his diet based on the sex lives of animals.
Shazam! Did my S4 campaign work? On Nicolas Cage?
Sadly, not quite. It seems Mr. Cage still eats animals, but only the ones he feels “mate in a dignified fashion.” As far as I can tell, he feels that rules out pigs (which we talked about in this S4 segment.)
Nic – can I call you Nic? – if you’re reading this, and I know you are, because I know what you Google, here’s the deal: artificial insemination isn’t dignified. Rape racks aren’t dignified. Sure, you’re a big time movie star and can probably own your own corral of animals who all breed exactly as per your specifications, which might have been the reason you got into acting in the first place, but you’re so close to some crazy-ass enlightenment here! Stop eating meat altogether and let animals do their thing without industry getting in the way.
And thanks for saving Kick Ass.
by Jason on April 9, 2010
It was kind of a… thing a little while ago when Woody Harrelson had the crew make him vegan Twinkies for the film Zombieland (his character was obsessed with them, but Woody’s vegan,) and when I read about it I was pretty impressed.
Until today.
I’m working on a Big New Project (to be announced Really Really Soon) and it involves going through a lot of the archives here. Turns out we linked to a vegan Twinkie recipe back in ‘ought six.
Now check out the comments in the first link: the prop person who made the Twinkies used that exact same recipe. I’m not saying VP had anything to do with it, but what I am saying is this: you too can eat like a vegan movie star. Get yourself one of them fancy director chairs to add to the experience. Or a casting couch. You know, whatever.
Come to think of it, “I have vegan Twinkies and a couch” might actually be an interesting pick up line. I of course am unavailable for this research (if it was a crappy line, I could try it, but I’m 100% convinced that this will work, and I am becoming a Family Man,) so I am calling forth the Vegan Singles Research Unit to give it a try and report back.
I know, after the “Want Some?” debacle, some of the VSRU are still pursuing legal action against me, but just like how I forgot about breaking the Twinkie story, people forget the internet quickly, right?
Oh, the Want Some cards? Yeah, they’re old school. Long story, but they had a hand in getting Angela into my life:
It was a different time. ”The good old days,” I think we called them. I need to dig up the PDF for these things. Vegan Singles Research Unit, assemble!
by Jason on January 12, 2007
The anti-circus crowd gained an unlikely ally this week when Jackass costar Steve-O spoke out against circus cruelty. It seems that the guy with a big tattoo of himself on his back is a graduate of Ringling Brothers’ clown college, and he says he’s haunted by memories of how the animals were treated. Of course, this is the same guy who swallowed a live goldfish and puked it back up on film, so his credibility and judgement are a bit suspect, but hey, we vegans never met a pro-animal celebrity we didn’t like, right? Link.
by Jason on November 23, 2006
Dave Noisy notes that since dropping the “-McCartney” from the end of her name, Heather Mills has been throwing herself into her work, and all kinds of interesting projects are bubbling to the surface. The latest development is a vegan fast food chain, which Mills hopes to have open sometime next year. Assuming it’s actually going to happen, for a vegan chain to work, some level of celebrity would certainly help with the initial momentum. Frankly, I’d line up for opening day at a vegan chain if it was run by just about anybody, but does Heather Mills have enough name recognition for this to be a factor with the non-vegan crowd? Link.
