Meat Meet Vegan, Vegan Meet Meat

Let's be upfront about something here.

I am totally down with Vegans

No anti-Vegan sentiment here.  The title of this column should in no way be taken as anti-Vegan sentiment.*

* That said, I will note that 'Vegan' is one of three things that you'll never have to ask someone if they are.  The other two are of course 'Born Again Christian' and 'Attending Crossfit'.

No, I want to address a broader issue here.  Namely, a shocking lack of awareness that I've noticed lately regarding knowing who ones target audience is.

It all began a few weeks ago during a breakfast run to Arby's.*

*I have a weakness for the Sausage, Egg and Cheese wrap.  Sue me.

On display in large friendly colors on the counter was a large display for their new ad campaign - 'Meet the Meats'.  Which contained those three chilling words followed by colorful pictures of the meats in question - All clearly labelled just so you were absolutely certain which animal you were devouring.

Vegan included for scale reference

Now, as a sensible person my first reaction to this ad campaign was obviously - For the love of crap!  I don't want to meet the meats!  I'm about to consume the meats, I don't want to be on a first name basis with them.

Fortunately, as noted in the above picture, I had a trusty vegan with me to bring the entire situation into perspective.  You see, from her perspective, the whole campaign made absolute sense.  Meet the Meat.  Once you personalize someone their flesh gets much less delicious.

That... came out SO much creepier than I intended...  But the point still stands.

So what we have there is Arby's putting a lot of time and effort into a campaign that could only possibly appeal to the exact group that has absolutely no interest in consuming their product.

Think before you print these things, people.  That's all I'm saying.

Things You Don't Say to Vegans

First off, let me say uncatagorically that I am completely down with Vegans. I know several of them and I'm totally rolling in positive attitude toward Veganism.  I could never convert myself, as anyone who recalls the great attempt at 30 days without sugar of 2013 can attest, but I'm down with it in a supportive 'not really my thing, but I'm cool with you being into it' kind of way.  You know, like Crossfit*.

*Interestingly enough, the other connection between the two is that you will never have to ask anyone if they are involved in either Crossfit or Veganism.  It will come up.  Particularly on Facebook.

That established...

Over the course of the last couple of days, I've found myself repeatedly saying things to Vegans that one should not say to Vegans.  And I'm sharing this knowledge with the world so that you all can avoid my mistakes.  See, I'm just like Mother Freakin' Theresa.

Conversation One:

Them:  I kind of enjoyed going to the shooting range, but I wouldn't ever go hunting.

Me:  Why not?

Them:  Well, the whole Vegan thing  (See, it does come up)

Me: Well, you don't have to eat them.  I mean... you could just leave them to die where you shot them.

Long awkward pause.

OK, let's take a look at where I went wrong with this one.  First error - forgetting that the person I was talking to was a Vegan.  Obviously she wasn't planning on going out to plug Bambi for jerky-related purposes.  Having forgotten that momentarily I was then forced to come up with some sort of rationale that made sense of my assuming she might go hunting while not admitting that I had forgotten the whole veganism thing.

For the record, apparently leaving the carcass to rot where you shot it does not, in actual fact, make the situation ethically acceptable to vegans.  In case you were wondering.

Conversation Two:

Them: I would totally survive in a zombie apocalypse.  

Me: Does the whole zombie thing only affect people?

Them:  What?

Me: I mean, do all the animals also become zombies?  Do slaughterhouses stop making hamburger and instead just start making angry zombie cows?

Dear Reader,

Aside from the questionable decision to bring slaughterhouses into an unrelated conversation, it turns out that the words 'Angry Zombie Cows' are not a great plan.  Which is surprising to me, because I would have thought that the whole 'cows take back the night' angle would appeal to the vegan aesthetic.  Perhaps I would have been better off not having continued on with 'Calf brains... must eat delicious calf brains...' but, you know, you live and you learn.

So, again - Vegans, Crossfit people, Romans - We're still cool, right?

The V Word

Sometimes a conversation that you've had literally hundreds of times before can still yield some unexpected twists.

Case in point - I was having that same old 'Would you rather be a Vampire or a werewolf' conversation the other day*

*Werewolf.  The correct answer is always werewolf.

The person I was speaking to came down on the side of vampire, but acknowledged that there might be a logistical hitch as she is a vegan.

This led to an hours long debate as to whether or not consuming human blood counted as a no-no according to strict veganism.

In the end, research seemed to indicate that it all depended on whether or not you consider a human being an animal.  If yes, then no-go for Vegan Vampire, which feels like a win for the anti-evolution crowd somehow, but I can't exactly put my finger on how.