5 ms·

Wokeness is like veganism: for every person talking about being vegan you will find 10 guys who complain about vegans, typically unprompted, while eating meat.

by atoav 2y ago

Wokeness is like veganism: for every person talking about being vegan you will find 10 guys who complain about vegans, typically unprompted, while eating meat. I had a work collegue who would complain every meal about vegans, although there wasn't a single vegan at the table. Wokeness is the comparable, I teach at a liberal art university, there are probably few places more "woke" than this. Even here if I count there is probably a 10:1 ratio of "people complaining about woke" vs "people demanding a woke thing". The feeling that others are judging you from a high horse is a very strong force, even if they aren't judging you at all. And strong forces can be used to manipulate people into making choices against their interest .

charlieyu1 2y ago
Because 1 in 10 (for examples) vegans are calling meat eaters as cruel murderers. And that becomes the image of vegans because they are the noisy ones.
- I-M-S 2y ago
  There might be some survivorship bias at play here, as by definition you'll only get to know someone's a vegan because he's a noisy one. Those who eat in peace and leave others alone are not memorable - same goes for antivegans.
  - aziaziazi 2y ago
    Theees a comment on the exact same subject I found interesting yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42682623 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42682623
  - Jensson 2y ago
    > as by definition you'll only get to know someone's a vegan because he's a noisy one You never eat lunch with colleagues? Never eat dinner with family and their significant others? It is very hard to hide that you are a vegan.
- atoav 2y ago
  Yeah? That is what some meaties keep telling me too — but personally I have only met one such vegan in my life and they were obviously deeply troubled by other things as well. All others merely kept to themselves and only talked about it when someone else prompted them. And that someone else was often a meaty with a: "Oh you are a vegan? Now explain THIS". I don't know about you, but I don't give a damn about made up problems that aren't part of my life. Don't get me wrong, I can totally imagine smug vegans. I just made the observation that 99 percent of the ones I met would receive a disservice if I went under the assumption that "all vegans are smug assholes". Similarily my assumption for meat eaters isn't that all of them are assholes. But I observed there are people who are so triggered by the mere thought of vegans existing, they can't stop talking about it or demanding from any supposed vegan that they explajn themselves — so the exact thing they claim vegans do.
  - atoav 2y ago
    (footnote: I am not vegan myself)
danenania 2y ago
There's a key difference though: while vegans are generally proud of being vegan, it's very hard now to find anyone who will admit to being woke or even that a single one of their beliefs is woke. It was only in fashion for a brief period and is now distinctly out of fashion. It's kind of similar to being a hipster—a lot of people get called hipsters, but no one has self-identified as one since probably the early 2010s. This makes discussions like these inherently slippery and circular. While it's clear that many people do actually hold beliefs that their critics would characterize as woke (as evidenced by real-world impact like master branches being renamed, indigenous land statements, and DEI quotas), they're never going to voluntarily accept a label that has been turned into a pejorative.
- usednoise4sale 2y ago
  I agree the hipster comparison is interesting. No one really wanted to be called a hipster either, but you knew who they were. I know I quit identifying as one some time in the late 00s, before the backlash really went mainstream.
  - atoav 2y ago
    The tangent about the hipster trend is interesting. Having grown up in a rural village during the 00s I heard about hipsters long before I ever saw a person who would even remotely fit the cliché. During that time actual cliché hipsters existed as was apparent (via the internet), but more important to my own life was another aspect: it was a kind of catchall term for people who didn't fit neatly into the usual known groups (Punks, Skaters, Metalheads, Ravers, Emos, ..) or did their own thing. I was connected to my local art scene, most of which have been called hipsters without actually being or remotely looking like hipsters. Hipster was a degorative for: "Oh you think you're different". The thing was I didn't only think that, I was different. Probably most people on this website here were different from the average person during their teens. You don't just eat vegan, you are a vegan. The thing to recognize is that these boxes exist to make themselves feel superior. So they put the people whose behavior and existence induces cognitive dissonance into their world view into boxes and pat themselves on their backs whenever they can convince themselves they spotted a marker that proves the person opposite is part of that box. And before there is a misunderstanding: the boxes can work both ways. People within a box can hate on those outside of it and vice versa — and both feel superior to the other. The point is that people ascribe certain attributes to the boxes and use it to paint simplistic pictures of the world around them, precisely because it makes them feel better. Made a certain food choice? Congrats, idiots now think you're smug. And I am not even vegan. I just try to look past the boxes as life is much more nuanced and much richer behind them.

by atoav 2y ago

charlieyu1 2y ago

Because 1 in 10 (for examples) vegans are calling meat eaters as cruel murderers. And that becomes the image of vegans because they are the noisy ones.

I-M-S 2y ago
There might be some survivorship bias at play here, as by definition you'll only get to know someone's a vegan because he's a noisy one. Those who eat in peace and leave others alone are not memorable - same goes for antivegans.
- aziaziazi 2y ago
  Theees a comment on the exact same subject I found interesting yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42682623 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42682623
- Jensson 2y ago
  > as by definition you'll only get to know someone's a vegan because he's a noisy one You never eat lunch with colleagues? Never eat dinner with family and their significant others? It is very hard to hide that you are a vegan.
atoav 2y ago
Yeah? That is what some meaties keep telling me too — but personally I have only met one such vegan in my life and they were obviously deeply troubled by other things as well. All others merely kept to themselves and only talked about it when someone else prompted them. And that someone else was often a meaty with a: "Oh you are a vegan? Now explain THIS". I don't know about you, but I don't give a damn about made up problems that aren't part of my life. Don't get me wrong, I can totally imagine smug vegans. I just made the observation that 99 percent of the ones I met would receive a disservice if I went under the assumption that "all vegans are smug assholes". Similarily my assumption for meat eaters isn't that all of them are assholes. But I observed there are people who are so triggered by the mere thought of vegans existing, they can't stop talking about it or demanding from any supposed vegan that they explajn themselves — so the exact thing they claim vegans do.
- atoav 2y ago
  (footnote: I am not vegan myself)

danenania 2y ago

There's a key difference though: while vegans are generally proud of being vegan, it's very hard now to find anyone who will admit to being woke or even that a single one of their beliefs is woke. It was only in fashion for a brief period and is now distinctly out of fashion. It's kind of similar to being a hipster—a lot of people get called hipsters, but no one has self-identified as one since probably the early 2010s. This makes discussions like these inherently slippery and circular. While it's clear that many people do actually hold beliefs that their critics would characterize as woke (as evidenced by real-world impact like master branches being renamed, indigenous land statements, and DEI quotas), they're never going to voluntarily accept a label that has been turned into a pejorative.

usednoise4sale 2y ago
I agree the hipster comparison is interesting. No one really wanted to be called a hipster either, but you knew who they were. I know I quit identifying as one some time in the late 00s, before the backlash really went mainstream.
- atoav 2y ago
  The tangent about the hipster trend is interesting. Having grown up in a rural village during the 00s I heard about hipsters long before I ever saw a person who would even remotely fit the cliché. During that time actual cliché hipsters existed as was apparent (via the internet), but more important to my own life was another aspect: it was a kind of catchall term for people who didn't fit neatly into the usual known groups (Punks, Skaters, Metalheads, Ravers, Emos, ..) or did their own thing. I was connected to my local art scene, most of which have been called hipsters without actually being or remotely looking like hipsters. Hipster was a degorative for: "Oh you think you're different". The thing was I didn't only think that, I was different. Probably most people on this website here were different from the average person during their teens. You don't just eat vegan, you are a vegan. The thing to recognize is that these boxes exist to make themselves feel superior. So they put the people whose behavior and existence induces cognitive dissonance into their world view into boxes and pat themselves on their backs whenever they can convince themselves they spotted a marker that proves the person opposite is part of that box. And before there is a misunderstanding: the boxes can work both ways. People within a box can hate on those outside of it and vice versa — and both feel superior to the other. The point is that people ascribe certain attributes to the boxes and use it to paint simplistic pictures of the world around them, precisely because it makes them feel better. Made a certain food choice? Congrats, idiots now think you're smug. And I am not even vegan. I just try to look past the boxes as life is much more nuanced and much richer behind them.