Most of you will not read this, I’m sure. But please, at least skim. Please? It’s not as ‘vegetarian extremist’ as you might think. In fact it might stick up for you…

In April I posted the following status message to my Facebook feed. Seeing some of peoples reaction from both the comments on Facebook and remarks made outside of Facebook, I was furious with what some people said in regards to what I said.

So I got into a discussion with a friend of mine, and I said to her “I can’t stand these meat-eating extremists who use excuses like protein, meat-tearing molars, “that’s why they were put on this Earth,” “they love meat too much to give up,” “it’s supposed to part of every meal”…etc. to justify eating meat. I don’t understand why they have to be so firmly against something entirely and not even be able to consider they might be wrong about how they feel and think, about what they’ve always known to be truth, about trying something different?”

And her response really got me thinking. She said:

“Well, I know for me, sometimes it’s hard to listen to vegetarians because I think why the vegetarians/vegans get so much disdain is that some of them are quite arrogant and seem to think because of their eating choices, they are somehow more moral than those who don’t adopt their lifestyle. Even if vegetarians/vegans ARE more moral nobody wants to be preached to about anything. Think about how you reacted when your parents told you to do something you didn’t like. Or a teacher or your boss. I equate the shoving it down our throats as the same thing. The only time people are okay with anything is when it clicks in their own head. When it affects them directly. When it interrupts their happiness and comfort. When they can justify it to themselves and not someone else justifying it for them.”

I really like what she wrote. Because I think it’s 100% accurate.

It’s still difficult to understand how someone can down a bunch of blue pills and turn a blind eye to imagery like this.

And say that it’s either a) completely natural b) we need this c) they have no feelings d) this doesn’t affect me

I just don’t get it.

She also said this:

“When you have two opposing viewpoints, there will be much debate and general unpleasantness. I suppose there is no other way. People will be people. No one wants to view the world as it is, (with shades of gray). Just as you feel meat eaters try to justify their lifestyle, so to will vegans try to justify theirs.”

I think I have more of a problem with what she said here than people turning a blind eye to straight up needless murder. Why? Because.

I don’t know man…we’re not cavemen anymore. We don’t need all the things we did when we were foraging for food and warmth. It’s the 21st century, we’ve allowed gay marriage (or will eventually), women’s rights, minority rights, ILLEGAL immigrant rights, built a civilized society, found other means of getting protein and nutrients…we’re fatter than we’ve ever been, we’re more unhealthy than we’ve ever been…I realize my friends words to be truth…that “the only time people are okay with anything is when it clicks in their own head. When it affects them directly. When it interrupts their happiness and comfort.” But, when is that time going to come and just listen, y’know? Listen to the world around you and what’s happening to it.

I understand you may not like extremists and the shock value of the imagery and not respect us for using it. But, someone has to stand up for these guys…so many of us can get behind gay marriage, women’s and minority rights but we draw a line if they’re not human beings? That they only exist for our sustainability?

If that’s true. Fine. They exist only to sustain ourselves. I can deal with that. The only thing I want anyone to consider and think about, is why are they treated like they are? In slaughter houses and factory farming, circuses and zoo’s? We treat murderers and rapists better than we do our own food! If you hold human beings higher than animals, then why give rights to people who clearly don’t care for human life? There’s no reason! I mean, South Park was right…we look at China and look at them weird for savagely killing dolphins, sharks, and whales? But we don’t look at ourselves and think what we’re doing is weird? We’re supposed to be the ’smarter country’ because we don’t stone people to death or kill rape victims? Or sacrifice people to gods?

I don’t know…

On a final note, to clarify things. I’ve never once said don’t eat meat, in fact, I still believe that we need it just not nearly as much as we think or desire to have. Seriously. If you do find something somewhere where I said that, well I’m here to say in finality…is that, all I ask…is two things…

1. Eat considerably less meat
2. Highly consider what you know to be truth might not be truth

Please just consider it often. If you’re not going to do it for me, the animals, a girl you like, a boy you like, the Earth, or others…then at the very least…do it for yourselves. After all, what goes around, comes around.

The reason why I’m even posting this is because PETA posted the photos and work of an Italian photographer Tommaso Ausili recently. They are part of a series titled “The Hidden Death.” The series explores the fact that “Neatly packaged meat in supermarkets is often completely detached in consumers’ minds from the process of its production.” I could say more, but the photos are so powerful that I will give my keyboard a rest and let the images speak for themselves.

I was going to post a bunch of graphic images and videos but, for now, I’ll take the advice and words of my friend and let you choose between the red pill and the blue pill.

What the pinup models of old war time were to soldiers back then erotica and porn is to me today.

I’m not fully equating myself to a soldier in the field. But in a way I am.

I work in the field. I put my life on the line, literally, everyday to serve this country. I know it’s more romantic to glamorize the life and death of a soldier because the chances of them dying is higher than anyone in my office building. But I fail to see the TRUE difference between myself and a soldier other than statistics. Especially if you believe in the saying: “Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity.” Because in the end, I’m still serving this country, I’m giving the state a percentage of my income that pays other people so they may live within the American society. I won’t go into why I dislike America and all the things about it and why I put up with it. But I will say this…that what the pinup models of old war time were to soldiers back then erotica and porn is to me today.

The pinup was a reminder to troops of what awaited back home, and as us men go, served as the ultimate motivator to the male psyche– T&A. What can I say, we are simple creatures. Maybe you see it as an objectification of women, but the fact is it kept soldier’s morale up in dark, harrowing and uncertain times.

It doesn’t matter that you think there’s a difference between porn and erotica, the point of this is hope. Something to fight for. Something to come home to. Obviously, your mind immediately goes to the idea of the objectification of women. That’s fine. Then don’t equate for your struggle to survive with pinups, equate your struggles to survive to the picture you have hanging up of your family or your dog. After all, not every soldier had pinups in their tent. But some do/did. And so what if that’s what gives them hope. I suppose one would say that it’s false hope, that women like that don’t exist, well, you’d be wrong, because I know women like that, that do in fact exist. The falsity is in expecting that they’ll ALWAYS act how they do in the still frame of a pinup or in a porno video. It’s no less false or destructive than if a soldier looked at a portrait of his family of them smiling and laughing and expecting that, that’s all there ever was or will be. The expectation that his family will remain happy for all eternity like in the portrait. But fuck man, if that’s what it takes for him to have hope to have something to come home to? To have something worth fighting for? To come home alive? To come home happy? Then why the fuck not? It’s not the pinups (erotica, porn, family, portrait, etc.) that’s the problem, it’s the emotions we allow ourselves to have over the expectations we make in our head that’s the problem. The inability to not deal with things in a logical manner when things don’t go the way we wish them to go.

Listen, I’m single, have been my entire life. Sometimes by choice, sometimes not. It’s never been because I expect women to act like a still pinup model or a porno actress all the time. It’s for other reasons that are unrelated to this post. But, being single for 27 years out of your life, barely ever getting to see friends, and working in an office 9-5 then coming home to having to do more work is very much like a war, especially since I didn’t enlist into this kind of life, I was drafted. And to be perfectly honest, one of the few things that gets through the day is erotica (pinups, porn, etc). It gives me hope that I’ll one day I’ll find the girl whom I’m both attracted to mentally and physically. It’s keeps up my morale. It motivates me to finish my work so I can find my girl. It keeps me happy from having to sit-down for 12-13 hours a day, being degraded at work and by others, being paid far considerably less for doing more, and generally being 27 years old and seeing others live lives I work very hard at making my own. Objectification or not…it makes me happy. It makes me want to be a better man. That should be enough.

Long live the pinup.

Every now and then I run across an image, video, article, blog, or overhear a comment regarding hipsters. It’s usually negative, commenting on the absurd or ridiculousness nature of their attire and attitudes. Often times I am able to laugh with the jokes and laugh with my hipsters friends at these jokes and quite frankly laugh at myself, because even though I don’t dress “hipster,” my mindset and attitude is very much that of a “hipster,” or at least I think so.

Admittedly, one of the reasons I am writing this is because, I am little sore about the stereotypes that are passed around about hipsters.

A friend of mine, Jessica, posted this image on her blog recently:

I don’t think the image is wrong, but I think it makes it easier for people who like to rip on hipsters to rip on us/them more. Considering I can only assume based on how it’s written, was written by a hipster, so logically, people who rip on hipsters are going to read this and be like “Oh, I must right in thinking I can rip on hipsters because they’re ripping on themselves, I get a free pass.” Complaining and being somewhat angry that this image was created is stupid and a waste of time, especially when looking upon the evidence of other sub-cultures where people’s perceptions towards them haven’t changed. Hippies, punks, beatniks, and flappers are still made fun of pretty heavily to this day. Me talking about my animosity towards the image is going to do nothing towards the social perception towards this culture.

However, having said that, I think it’s important to point out that what the beatniks were to the fifties, hippies were to the sixties and seventies, flappers to the twenties, and punks to the eighties…hipsters were to the aughties. It’s a sub-culture composed of people who defied convention and conformity to ideas that are commonly upheld by most.

Lets look at some facts…

The hippie culture

• gave unmarried couples of all ages the freedom to travel and live together without societal disapproval
• expanded rights to homosexual, bisexual and transsexual people
• enabled for greater acceptance for religious and cultural diversity
• enabled for co-operative business enterprises and creative community living arrangements to be more accepted
• health food stores of the 60’s and 70’s are now large-scale, profitable businesses, due to greater interest in natural foods, herbal remedies, vitamins and other nutritional supplements
• broadened the personal appearance options and clothing styles, including nudity, which became more widely acceptable

The beatnik culture

• were there before the hippies arrived on the scene to tell them they did not have to conform. That they could speak out against societal norms and find their way to their own truth
• engaged in a questioning of traditional values which produced a break with the mainstream culture that to this day people react to – or against
• produced a great deal of interest in lifestyle experimentation (notably in regards to sex and drugs); and they had a large intellectual effect in encouraging the questioning of authority (a force behind the anti-war movement)
• were very active in popularizing interest in Zen Buddhism in the West

Flapper culture

• redefined how women act in society by going to jazz clubs at night where they danced provocatively, smoked cigarettes, sniffed cocaine, and dated freely; they rode bicycles and drove cars and drank alcohol openly
• began taking work outside the home and challenging women’s traditional societal roles
• advocated voting and women’s rights

Punk culture

• educated and made popular following and believing in highly controversial “ism’s,” that advocated and popularized individual freedom and anti-establishment views. Common punk viewpoints include anti-authoritarianism, a DIY ethic, non-conformity, direct action and not selling out; other notable trends: nihilism, anarchism, socialism, anti-militarism, anti-capitalism, anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-nationalism, anti-homophobia, environmentalism, vegetarianism, veganism and animal rights.
• seeked to outrage others with the highly theatrical use of clothing, hairstyles, cosmetics, tattoos, jewelry and body modification. This again, like the beatniks, was to engage people in questioning traditional values which would produce a break in the mainstream
• popularized DIY thinking specifically in regards to, but was not limited to: publishing, fashion, and art.

Where and how do hipsters fit into any of this? How do they contribute to a social cause instead of just being pretentious pricks? Well, now that the aughties just ended, it might be easier to see how.

Hipster culture

• thrives on anything independent, anything that hasn’t been subjected to censorship and filters. Which helped popularize independent media, thinking and living; in turn making people want to live more authentic and promote the idea of complete creative control over every vestige of your life
• promotes such positive thinking acts such as thrift store shopping, eating organic, locally grown, vegetarian, and/or vegan food, drinking local beer (or even brewing their own), listening to public radio, and riding bicycles
• helped to make the widely accepted concept of metrosexuality popular in turn helping people become more accepting of gay culture

Us hipsters are not without our faults…of course everyone gets us wrong. The definition of ‘hipster’ remains opaque to anyone outside this self-proclaiming, highly-selective circle. The whole point of hipsters is that they avoid labels and being labeled. However, we all dress the same and act the same and conform in our non-conformity, much like all other subcultures.

In the beginning it wasn’t like this obviously, but the more and more people became exposed to hipsters the more and more people were influenced by them, therefore, creating a mockery of everything that once was. And the same could be said for quite literally every other subculture. The more exposure we gain the more our word and influence is spread which is great because it does exactly what we want it to do. Make people think differently than how they’ve always thought. But, in the end, it’s the mainstreamers that are influenced by us that claim ownership and skew the concepts that we originally intended to suit their own needs.

Many of us may be pretentious pricks, the image isn’t wrong about that. But, what it fails to point out is that, so weren’t all the other subcultures. But that doesn’t mean we contribute nothing to society. And quite honestly, that’s how many of these people involved in these subcultures feel about the mainstream…is that YOU’RE all pretentious pricks because we don’t fit into YOUR culture. So we created our own.

Listen, I/we really don’t care if you make fun of us, because quite honestly, it’s really funny when you do. Just don’t say we contribute nothing to society when you can’t turn on the TV, go online, or simply just walk around without seeing our influence somewhere that the mainstream has adopted.