A study from the University of Boston has determined that your vegan friend doesn’t feel ethically, morally, or politically superior to you — that’s your own shit you need to work through.
“This is a groundbreaking discovery that could really shift the paradigm of how you understand and culturally situate veganism,” says Dr. Wilhelmina Lynch. “Hopefully.”
“Historically, you have assumed that your vegan friend is judging you for your carnivorous diet, and therefore felt indignant and even hostile toward her,” Dr. Lynch adds. “But during the course of our comprehensive data analysis, we found that she doesn’t give a shit what you eat, and you’re projecting your own feelings of guilt or perceived inferiority onto her because then you can get defensive instead of working through them.”
The study, which included analysis of virtual communications between you and your vegan friend, other texts you sent about her to your non-vegan friends, and AI programming scans of your facial reactions to the words “nutritional yeast”, determined that this really all about you and your own shit.
You have not been particularly amenable to the findings.
“Individual diet choices are not the answer to global and capitalist power structures that enable the continuation of the climate crisis,” you said, unprompted. “Also, veganism isn’t accessible to a lot of people. And it fails to reckon with Indigenous peoples’ relationships to hunting and meat, which, like, no I’m not Indigenous and can’t really speak to that, but I did see a thread about it, so, yeah, I am not a bad person.”
Sources confirm that your vegan friend never argued against any of these points and no one thinks you’re a bad person.
“Like so many things in life,” says Dr. Lynch, “your feelings about this are really about yourself.”
“This is the same reason you ‘question the motives’ of your friend who’s dedicated to community-based activism and are convinced your friend who reads more than you thinks you’re stupid,” she adds.
At press time you were furiously and defiantly eating a slice of pepperoni pizza, which is totally fine and we hope you enjoy it.
