[Serious] Why do so many people seem to hate veganism?

Instead of whimsy anecdotes, how about something with a bit more science behind it: https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Do-gooder_derogation

I've been a vegetarian for 15 years. People IRL often do get offended if you tell them you don't eat meat. I try my best to avoid saying it because it often leads to being lectured about proteins. Everyone suddenly becomes a nutritionist when you explain why you don't eat meat.

Do-gooder derogation Basically, some people perceive others' moral choices as criticism or as some kind of bragging.

From what I have seen, it more stems from the activism vegans are engaged in more than the actual veganism.

Because of the trope that vegans are pretentious twats that publicly chastise anyone not vegan.

Like most things it’s one of those situations that’s blown out of proportion and the vast majority of us will never interact with a preachy vegan. I’ve encountered many vegans in the wild and they’ve most all been decent people, and I love picking their brains for decent vegan or vegetarian foods. I don’t mind vegan/vegetarianism, it’s just not easy to do well, so it helps to talk to people who do it for real. That said, I have encountered a few that are on the preachy side, but whatever. They’re no different than the tool who has the “eat tasty animals” bumper sticker and the like.

Because the idea that there are vegans and vegetarians is an implied accusation of guilt to people that eat meat and animal products that are the direct result of animal suffering. Some people that don't eat animal products might be militant or preachy, but I've never met one. In fact I have only ever met the inverse, people that constantly berate people for being vegan or vegetarian. Having been one myself, I can say that for me and people I know it is the same reason religious people hate atheists; their existence implies that people that eat meat are wrong and therefore bad people. Studies have confirmed this. Here is an article from the BBC that goes over some of the studies.

Speaking as a life-long lacto-ovo vegetarian who did a ten year stint as a vegan (I'm 30), it's because there is a subset of the vegan population that's very gung-ho about their diet and wants to proselytize about it, and *no one* likes being told what they should eat. When you remark on people's diets, people tend to get annoyed and defensive about it.

I grew up being told that my food looked yucky, how I can't call something meatballs since it doesn't contain meat, how since I don't eat protein I'll die, so on, so forth. It got annoying fast, so now I don't generally discuss my diet unless it makes a contextual sense. e.g. when planning a restaurant outing with people - though to be frank I often just avoid social situations where food plays a role.

I think where the big clashes really happen is when someone has made veganism/eating meat a core part of their identity, having that criticised, however gently that might be, will cause friction and often cause people to double-down on it; even though they may know on some level that the criticism might even be valid. You can see this in the fat pride movement as well.

My personal experience has actually been quite whew opposite of everyone here apparently. Of the 3 vegans I've spent time with, not one of them has ever brought it up to preach or to sound smug. It only ever comes up because I ask for a recipe they served and they say something along the lines of "now, this is a vegan recipe, but you should be able to substitute 'x' with 'y' if you wanna avoid that." It's never preachy, it's always in the "don't let this being vegan ruin it for you" kind of way.

My low stakes conspiracy is that vegan hate on the internet is like people that don't like the word moist. They either watched friends and decided to adopt that as a personality trait, or they look up to someone that did just that. They hate veganism because they watched a comedian quip about it and agreed or they saw someone that watched a comedian and agreed. It's all too consistent to not be feeding from the same bowl.

I'm an ex vegan (about 5 years) so I've been on both sides if it. Here's my opinion.

When I was a vegan it was very much a part of my identity. It was something that I thought about 2-3 times (at least) per day when I ate, and any time I went to buy food. I remember being actually insufferable about it for a long time and I'm pretty sure I've lost friends over it, being annoying and preach to a friend's husband and then eventually just not getting invited back for game night. So people are definitely feeling burned/rejected/otherized by vegans who, if not just coming right out and saying it, strongly *infer* that you are a "bad person" for consuming even small amounts of animal products, or at least let you know that you're being judged for it. As an *ex*-vegan I've experienced this myself.

On the other hand, non-vegans are also insufferable about food. My friend in college didn't like cheese. Hated how it tasted, hated the way it felt in his mouth. But he loved pizza. He would often buy pizzas for everyone, with cheese on, pick the cheese off himself, and eat it without. I swear that every time he did this someone would say something about it, "what? You don't like cheese? Why?!" I personally had to endure a lot of weird questions and looks, and comments when after volunteering for a whole day at a baseball field for my son's team, and they served pizza after which I just refused. I just quietly didn't get myself any, and people had like 20 questions about it. I didn't even bring up that I was a vegan, I just said I wasn't hungry, which was odd and apparently unacceptable.

Vegans and vegetarians also get judged for their diets, there are plenty of non-v people who will become like preemptively defensive about it, and let you know they think you're weak and unhealthy. You get otherized and judged, even if you dont care what people eat and you just patiently say that its a personal choice, for health or the environment or whatever. This actually deepens the in-group acceptance/out-group rejection of everyone involved. The next time a vegan has to hear about their choices they'll be less patient with the person asking; the next time that person eats an egg around a vegan and gets lectured, they'll be less patient and around and around it goes.

I have theories about why this is, some of which maybe are apparent from what I've written. I think people do construct identities around consumer behavior, and they feel rejected when someone doesn't share those same consumptive habits which they take for granted. I'll get into it if anyone gives a shit.

But I think theres a problem with public discourse that encourages this kind of ingroup/outgroup good/bad acceptance/rejection, so much that it is implied in all discourse whether a vegan or not. This is the thing that drove me away from veganism: I think that vegans are right about *a lot* of things, but they can't actually see the world for what it is, they can mostly only see through this lens. This is basically the same problem with liberals, conservatives, religious, atheist, whatever. Its the cult of the individual having eroded any experience of interconnectedness, even though we are interconnected. As such, people can't see the world for what it really is, we can only see it from behind the fences of our specific camp.

It takes a "special" kind of person to take something so ingrained in culture and still say "I'm not gonna do that," usually a slightly crazy and/or neurodivergent person. I think this is partly why there are so many "insane" vegans, because it's self selecting for people who are outside the norm.

I don't even mention to most people I'm vegan, usually just an excuse like "meat makes me feel sick" because the average person will think I'm going to give them a 20 minute lecture.

To anyone who is the vegan who will give the 20 minute lecture, please consider if your goal is actually animal welfare, you can hardly ever debate someone out of something they like. Instead, just show people easy dishes you made that they actually enjoy (pasta with spaghetti sauce, French fries, vegetable stir fry, roasted veggies with olive oil) and you'll often find they start cooking more vegan food (or at least less meat), and also talk more positively about veganism

Holier than thou attitude from new vegans whose world view changed overnight and cognitive dissonance on the part of non vegan with the need to deflect than to make substantial changes.

Because appx 1% of vegans are straight up obnoxious and indignant. And a similar percentage of meat eaters are also.

Then everyone else just mildly gravitates to tribalism but probably doesn't actually care that much.

I guess I’m lucky I’ve never personally known anyone to preach about their diet.

For someone like myself, this all sounds overblown and just a meme/trope you see in movies and TV.

Because I sat at a table for an hour with a work colleague lecturing me on veganism. I couldn't care less if you don't lecture me.

Do-gooder derogation

Yeah I don't get it either. You do you 🤷🏼‍♂️

As long as people aren't trying to force their views on me (veganism, religion, what have you), I couldn't care less.

It’s part of a shifting norm and shifting norms are always controversial. Especially norms that involve opening up bodily autonomy, dignity, or respect to previously excluded groups.

I've never once in the last decade seen a single vegan post other than recipes. What I do see is constant posts about how "vegans are always throwing it my face/holier than thou", "I'm gonna eat extra meat because vegans make me feel bad". I really don't think vegans are the problem, I think these fools fall for every single piece of beef industry propaganda that comes across their screens.

People like to characterize those they *already want to disagree with* by the worst, most extreme examples of the group. So before even considering the benefits/drawbacks of veganism, people have already chosen their position after thinking "vegans are just so preachy and annoying".

It's putting outrage before reason, and it's really common in social media and news:

• Think about how Fox News viewers picture liberals as the least coherent, unreasonable individuals that they see get interviewed, when in reality most are just normal people.

• Or the reverse: how people in liberal circles might see conservatives depicted as Maga-hat wearing weirdos who think 5G is killing them.

• Same with how many religious people evaluate atheism or atheists think of religion by their worst representatives.

In short, I think the answer is that it's a symptom of tribalism and identity-politics.

There’s a ton of vegans who exist without trying to force their way of life on everyone, but the ones who do dominate the conversation and can be off putting.

So, here's the thing.

Regardless of a hundred different ethical and meta-ethical theories that people espouse, what everyone *actually* reacts to with outrage is plausibly-generalised threat perception.

If someone's actions are directly threatening you, you'll feel anger and/or fear.

If someone's actions don't affect you or yours, but :stuff like that: being commonplace definitely would, then you will feel outrage.

If I kill people and take their stuff, you'll be very upset: you're a people, and you like stuff - and if we let the general case happen, the specifics could come bite you in the ass soon enough.

If I kill and eat animals, most people don't consider it plausibly worrying that they or little Timmy will be next. We have great big enormous taboos against eating people, so that slope just don't slip - and as a result they just don't have a problem with it.

(If I go and torment animals for lulz, then that's a very different case; people who are cruel to animals are often even worse to people, after all - and so people see that as monstrous. And again, if you want to manufacture consent for some atrociy, the easiest way is to reclassify the victims as qualitatively different. Oh good lord no, we're not killing *people* and taking their stuff, that would be awful. Nonono, we're killing :group: and taking their stuff, totally different proposition...)

So when vegans are horrified at people killing and eating (or breeding and milking, or whatever) animals, and go to great lengths to try and elicit that same outrage, there's a disconnect and dissonance going on. The non-vegans don't have the emotional trigger of perceived threat, so to have them keep trying regardless is seen as pearl-clutching and sleeve-tugging, like making up a sad story and loudly demanding that everyone weep about it on the spot. It's uniquely annoying. And when you combine that with (perceived) moral superiority and a hypercritical attitude, it comes across as something like a Karen with BPD. It's calling red on someone else's scene; everyone is supposed to cater to the vegan's emotional distress when there's no corresponding emotion in themselves, and honestly that just provokes people to schoolyard bullying.

That's at the core of it, I think. There's a bunch of other annoyances around it, but I think they're mostly after the fact.

Honestly if you want to make people feel that general existential threat, frame it in terms of ecological damage. Animal agriculture is horribly unsustainable and causes huge enviromnental problems, not least of which are are a truly gigantic carbon footprint. Pushing that angle would actually stand a chance of being effective, tbh. But annoyingly (from the outside), it seems that the most vocal vegans don't want people to be outraged on that basis, they want them to be outraged for the poor little lambikins, and will settle for no less. I can see their point, and I can be a stubborn bastard myself about not settling, but jesus fuck it's annoying.

Not a vegan, though I've been mostly-veggie for the last couple of years for health reasons. It's interesting how it shapes your perceptions; eating meat doesn't seem wrong to me, but it has started seeming weirdly excessive and uncreative.

If you accept that there are moral/ethical problems with eating meat (contribution to climate change, health concerns, animals being killed and eaten, whatever), and choose to eat meat anyway, and encounter a vegan, what has to happen?

You can accept that they are making a better choice, but then you have to accept that you're making a worse choice. Most people are cowards and protect the ego at any cost. Rather than shrugging and saying "yeah, i should eat less meat. Good for you taking the high road", which requires accepting that you're not being the best, you can instead grab onto any reasons why no it's really them that sucks. That's easier, more comfortable, and doesn't require any painful introspection or changes.

It's the same mechanism when people get mad at cyclists, pedestrians, people who go to the gym, people who don't shop at Walmart, whatever. They're doing something that makes you feel bad in comparison. Most people are terrible at that and will lash out instead of doing anything productive.

Alternatively, or maybe additionally, people are really tribal, and once they adopt the idea that vegans (or cyclists, or people driving small cars, or people wearing sandals, whatever) are in the outgroup, then they enjoy being hostile to them.

People are ego driven emotional morons. All of us. Me, too. It's terrible.

Because the only way most people interact with vegans is through activists using it as a bludgeon to project hate towards them.

Some people feel judged for eating meat if they learn that you're a vegetarian or vegan. As veganism appears more extreme, it causes a stronger reaction.
These people don't like being judged, so they seek to judge you instead. If they can judge you for not eating meat, you can't judge them for eating it, or so they feel.
Some vegans being quite obnoxious in their attempts to convert others, doesn't improve things. Rather, it helps those who dislike vegans to reaffirm their beliefs that all vegans are silently judging them all the time.
All of this is just my theory.

I have never, ever, heard someone in real life bring up veganism unless it was specifically in the context of what they eat.

The problem is, it comes up. Food is a very foundational element of social life. Sharing a meal is important, providing a meal as a host is important, and supplying food at events is customary.

Rejecting the offer to put something in their body is misunderstood as an insult.

People don’t hate veganism as much as they don’t appreciate being judged for their choices and chastised by other adults for beliefs that they don’t share.

Personally I have no problem respecting the beliefs of people who are vegan due to their personal morals. Until they start disrespecting the beliefs of others who don’t agree with them with regards to meat, then they become annoying.

This is so frustrating. People saying "Oh I just don't like those self-righteous vegans". Thing is, it doesn't really matter what vegans say or how reasonable/logically sound it is, the knee-jerk reaction is always the same.

My experience around any opinion where there is a default option, the vast majority will accept the default without thinking. Then when presented with an alternative by someone who has actively chosen to not chose the default, people become highly defensive as if they did do their due diligence, whether or not they actually did. Depending on where you live, the defaults change, but being that humans are tribal, differences in lifestyle naturally create friction. In parts of America, you drive an SUV, use an iPhone, and eat meat. Whether or not they actively or passively chose that lifestyle, when someone doesn't conform to what is expected there will be friction. How people react to that friction is up to them, but again, the default is to be critical of them and encourage conformity.

Because the Internet makes it easy to more forcefully express strong opinions, from both parties.

It's very easy to run into vegans on the Internet who will call you an unethical monster for eating meat, which if you don't think of yourself as an unethical monster, can be a bit offensive.

You also run into non-vegans who can't get it through their heads that that's not every vegan on earth, or even just the Internet or likely even that conversation.

It's much harder to call someone an animal hating monster or a pretentious condescending asshole face to face.

I don’t hate people who are vegans.

I do hate the person who righteously yelled at me about eating meat *while* I was eating her vegan food at her house which she invited me to. And then proceeded to send me Facebook farm videos that were obviously staged. I worked on a farm… so when I corrected her what actually does happen on a farm Vs what these idiots were staging to get reactions, it was even more disgusting to me that she wasn’t doing any of this for the animals as she claimed but doing it so she could feel important. So she can fuck right off up a mountain.

So no:I don’t hate people who are vegans. I hate self involved, insincere shitheads.

That said yeah, we need to address commercial farming. It’s an issue. We need to cut down the meat products that are getting produced and stop creating diets that get capitalists richer. But also we need to be honest with what is actually happening. No, they do not give hormones to animals on farms. That practice was discontinued prior to the 1990s. We need to out assholes who spread this bullshit online, dampening the real issues as to why introducing more plant based food is necessary. We also have to keep plant based food healthy and not just inject it with sugar ,salt and fat creating the same health issues we had with consuming commercialized meat.

Also I think this is why vegan is a ruined word and why ‘plant-based’ is now becoming a substitute. To replace this damage that many of the self called vegans did that were just as much lying and cheating as the industry they so much hate. two wrongs do not make a right. So I’m all about the pivot away from that dumpster fire

The meat and dairy industries have been pumping out propaganda for years, mostly aimed at right-wing dudes. It's just kind of part of right-wing culture at this point to kneejerk react to veganism with tired old tropes and stereotypes.

It was worse back in the 90s and early 2000s.

You tend to get two groups who dislike it. Ignorant folks who think something like no animal stuff means no protein means you shrivel up and die, and the ones who've encountered a few too many militants in their time and ain't interested or are downright sick of their schtick. Vaguely similar to atheism, except replace the animal product stuff with something religion related, ofc.

Cuz it itches the part of our brain that looks for status-seeking behavior and labels people as inauthentic.

Being vegetarian places a degree of exclusivity onto your consumer habits, and in the Western capitalist lens, conspicuous consumption has a lot to do with how we communicate our status.

Being vegan stands in direct relationship to vegetarianism as being even more exclusive. This does two things:

1. It raises the stakes, because now the identity is even more exclusive because it's more restrictive.
2. It creates a pattern, where it looks as if you're saying "Oh yeah? Well, I'm even vegetarianer! Take that! Look how cool I am!"

Just that in and of itself puts vegans on the receiving end of a whole bunch of cognitive biases.

But wait, there's more!

Because mass production never lets a social identity go to waste, major brands got on board with explicitly labeling things as vegan, which starts to make it seem like you're trying to be cool but really just deepthroating the corporate cock to "buy your way to cool".

And then came the trends of organic/non-GMO, local-first, artisanal, farm-to-table, etc. etc.

At the point where Wal-Mart has their own artisanal farm-to-table cheese brand, it starts to look (to our dumb pattern-matching brains) like vegans are just rubes falling for the most basic version of an obviously fake status-seeking game propped up by cynical brands preying on how desperate you are to look cool.

But wait, there's *even* more!

Because, surprise -- our brains never actually stop caring about status, even if we think we're just trying to make rational, objective, moral choices. Picturing yourself as a rebel for being vegan, taking the sneers and the insults in stride because you know it's the right choice for the planet... is appealing.

And that self-aggrandizing image is inseparable from actually doing the thing, because that's just how our brains work. Even for the most pure-hearted among us, thinking we're morally superior -- especially in tangible ways that we get to physically play out on a daily basis -- is intoxicating.

So the people who are chuckling about the inauthenticity are... kind of right. But this same dynamic exists for literally everything. So when you chuckle at the vegan, but then take a moment to consider which kind of bacon really speaks to who you *are* as a consumer, you're playing the same game. It's just one that far more people are invested into. So if anyone calls it silly, nobody takes that criticism seriously. Not like your organic local-first artisanal acai kale kombutcha.

--

Basically my recollection of this episode of You Are Not So Smart: https://soundcloud.com/youarenotsosmart/selling-out-andrew-potter

...which I listened to, for the first time, as an attempt at bonding with my then-girlfriend/now-wife's roommate. We had not gotten along up until then, because she was aggressively vegan and I ate a lot of fast food. But I found out she liked podcasts and I was really enjoying this one and there was a new episode I hadn't heard yet! She really enjoyed it, until the guest talked about veganism as a form of status-seeking. That didn't go well. I didn't mind taking over her half of the lease though.

I think a lot of people also have a hard time seeing it as a priority for themselves compared to their personal problems and other ongoings. It's subjective, sure. But it also takes a ton of personal responsibility and self control/denial to change habits.

Bottom line, there is a lot of things out there to care about right now, and being vegan is a big change for a lot of people. That, mixed with the extreme (understandable) feelings about mistreatment of animals by vegans, often leads to a feeling of repulsion from investing personal bandwidth into changing the behavior.

That's my opinion based on growing up with religiously vegan parents.

My ex was vegan. While I have absolutely no problem with the practice of being vegan, she would critique and criticize nearly everything I ate. It was extremely exhausting. Nothing against vegans personally however some of them won't shut up about it and try to make you feel bad

Seems like most people on this post have fallen into the trap of judging a group based on a loud subset of the group. Most vegans/vegetarians I know don’t like to share that they are veg precisely because of that stereotype.

Defensiveness

The same reason people hate leftists, feminists, trans athletes, "gamer girls", people on welfare, blacks, etc. An image the right cultivated of the group, out of convenient easily-hateable annoying people in it that they could use to create a generalization/stereotype out of. It's something that's able to happen to any group, I could portray any hobbyist or activist in this way the same exact way as these "annoying" groups are portrayed, but the right is particularly willing to just flat out lie, slander, and cheat their way into making countercultural/anti-status-quo groups look as absurd as possible, to the point that the majority of the population falls for it (even those that don't consider themselves to be conservative).

I'll make a comparison. Conservative/"anti-sjw" thumbnails often have a picture of some angry-looking rainbow haired woman, usually the same few, in order to be like "look how irrational and crazy these feminazis are, she must hate men so much" and like 4 out of 5 of those times it's a picture of a woman that was protesting a literal neo-nazi gathering or something, not some sort of radical crazy man-hating feminist. But the internet has conditioned the average person to look at someone like that and immediately think they're an irrational "feminazi", and conservatives showing these pictures everywhere and making 100 videos on the same person makes people subconsciously believe they're rampant and have a massive (and bad) grip on society.

Same kind of thing happens with vegans, you have the same 10 or so internet vegans people use to portray veganism that conditions people to think poorly of the concept "vegan", and when these influencers are confronted about it they say "I don't hate veganism, I just hate the *annoying* vegans" then they go onto Twitter to complain about the vegans and how they're irrational for not eating meat and their brains must be de-evolving or something. They know what they're doing, but they can hide behind plausible deniability, and the majority of viewers fall for it.

Usually it’s not veganism, itself. Rather, it’s the vegans.

Specifically the annoyingly loud, self-righteous, insists-everyone-must-join-them vegans.

Unfortunately, most people only really see this sort of vegan- rather than the more common, average sort of person who happens to also be vegan.

To preface this all, I'm not a vegan but I support the cause. However on the west coast of Canada, a lot of shitty people use veganism as social camouflage to cover for their moral failings in other areas. I just don't trust anyone that trumpets their veganism. Just like I don't trust the overtly religious.

Vegetarian here (I like cheese, sue me)

Just wanted to point out a reason not listed:

Look at the people posting succinct points in here without attacking. Then go look at the downvoters, and follow them back to the vegan magazines where they're rather caustic, to put the least. Not everyone likes being compared to nazis when we're just existing in the same food chain as every other animal, carnivore or no.

I said this on another thread posted by a very antagonistic vegan: Acting holier-than-thou, smug, and hostile is not a good way to convince people of your arguments. It pushes people away and biases them against you and the argument you're making.

Far too often I see vegans outright shaming and harassing people for choosing to eat meat, or acting smug and superior because *they* are making "the right moral decision" and everyone else is lessor for thinking otherwise. I often see them call people "stupid" and "lazy" for not making the same choice they did.

Now, if I came here acting the same way, but I was championing eating only meat and shaming others for eating vegetables, I'm sure vegans would be upset for the same reason.

It's gotten bad enough that a lot of people (admittedly myself included) are put off by vegans and their arguments. Not because the arguments don't have merit (they certainly do) but because enough vegans have acted antagonistic or smug that they get shunned for it when the discussion gets brought up, because it's what has become expected.

If you *really* want people to listen to you, you need to frame it from a friendlier and more down-to-earth position and not come across as hostile. The human mind tends to close itself off immediately when faced with hostility. This doesn't just apply to discussions about veganism, but any discussion in general really.

People don't like to be made to feel uncomfortable (via knowledge) about something that they enjoy

Its because they ran into the loudest, most annoying vegans.

IDK how, maybe different areas have more militant vegans, or maybe they just roll with negative stereotypes and the algorithm bs that lets the worst folks float to the top of their media feeds.

I've actively sought out vegans because they have great advice on dietary restriction resources and as long as you're respectful of their choices, they've been consistently so willing to share.

And they also really love a good breakfast, in my experience, like the local vegan group has just pages of discussion on good vegan donut resources.

Imagine that you go to an outdoor barbecue on a bright Summer day.

And some guy who is an extreme Muslim is going around telling some women that they're not dressed in a modest enough way and that everybody should follow the Teachings of the Prophet and how life is a lot better when people follow the Teachings of the Prophet.

It's not Islam that's the problem, it's certain kinds of people, their proselytising and, worse, their trying to force or even impose their own moral values on others.

Same with Veganism and some kinds of Vegans: because it's a moral choice some of those who practice it have the very same behavioural disfunctions as religious nutters and because they're the most visible representatives of it they just cause many to draw negative conclusions about the entire thing.

My personal experience: Trying to find a restaurant that has vegan friendly options isn't always easy, and used to be much harder. That would make trying to find somewhere to eat as a group much more tedious if someone was vegan. I don't think anyone had issue with the person being a vegan, I think they just didn't like eating at the same two restaurants over and over.

I don't see many people hating veganism. I see a lot of people hating vegans pushing their ideology when it wasn't asked for. The simple truth is that every person has different ideologies, beliefs, priorities, and ethical systems, and what makes perfect sense to one person sounds over-prohibitive, and any attempt at dialogue to find a middle ground ends with a bunch of moral posturing.

I don't think many people truly hate veganism, they are just frustrated by a few of the louder vegans out there.

For example, some vegans are very judgy - they will unabashedly tell non-vegans that eating meat is morally reprehensible. They also often want you to watch brutal videos of animal abuse and slaughter, with the overt overtone being an accusation of "you are doing this. It's your fault if you eat meat."

I'm not sure how any person who isn't vegan could possibly see that as anything but unwelcome. Life is hard enough without this sort of thing.

This said, I know plenty of vegans that never do this. I think it's awesome that they can avoid meat, and I applaud and support alternatives like impossible and beyond.

Because many people see it as political, or at least moral. And that means they want to "pick a side"

Might be an exposure thing. If you're vegan and you go online for the explicit purpose of talking about veganism to sttangers, you're going to attract haters. That goes for anything. Politics, veganism, parenting, car enthousiasts, movie fandoms, etc..

If you keep to your own, you won't experience the same hate.

I'm not saying you should hide your opinions, but you should mind the context in which you out them. Also, just brush it off, don't let others define you.

Because brains are wired to avoid 1) changes to habits and 2) admission of wrongdoing. Encountering a vegan makes the brain start running cover and looking for ways to discredit arguments. Often, the mental framework for dismissing "uppity" advocates already exists. There's also the force of money and industry propaganda which should be acknowledged, but in my experience people are more than capable of coming up with justifications on their own.

It's very difficult to overcome these psychological forces, but simply making the switch can remove a lot of cognitive dissonance and expose certain BS arguments for what they are.

I don't hate veganism.

I just don't like the militant and pompous attitude that some vegans seem to possess, that they feel that they have to flaunt their vegan lifestyles on others over.

Yes, go eat as many vegetables as you like, go eat meat alternatives and whatever. You do you, eat what you want. But I don't want to ever have someone like that coming up to my face and tell me what I'm allowed to eat in their eyes.

I don't hate veganism. It's a dietary choice and that's fine. What I hate is vegans. They're always pushy and judgmental and hateful and sometimes even destructive in their activism. They're an annoying group of people and I just don't want to have to deal with them.