You’re an Influencer, Too: Setting the Vegan Example

by Gregory Dicum

I remember when my friend Mike casually thanked me for changing his life. We hadn’t seen each other in a while, and he told me he’d stopped eating meat. But it was what he said next that floored me.

“I did it because of you,” he told me. “I saw how you live, and it looked pretty amazing.”

Animal advocacy isn’t only sharing slaughterhouse videos and disruptions. It’s not just public actions and tabling. Animal advocacy is also about setting an example.

I’ve been vegan for more than a quarter-century. Long enough that this wasn’t the first time someone has thanked me for inspiring them to go vegan. Yet every time, I find it incredibly gratifying when people tell me this. It’s the cherry on top of all the other benefits of being vegan.

For me, one of the biggest benefits is that I am no longer complicit in the suffering of animals like gentle cows and bulls, social animals caught in a nightmare of industrial death. I am no longer supporting—directly, with money—the horrendous egg industry that holds millions of smart, inquisitive hens in tiny cages, valuing them only for their reproductive systems and discarding them to mass slaughter when they can’t lay enough anymore. It means I have acted on the revulsion I had watching a magnificent bluefin tuna, a warm-blooded, long-lived silver animal, being hacked to bloody pieces on a pier.

I know a lot of people don’t like to put themselves out there for confrontational, in-your-face activism, even when it’s something we feel so strongly about that we have materially changed our lives. I’m one of them. I’m far more comfortable with one-on-one advocacy, letting people know just how bad the situation is while also, through my lived example, showing them how great (and easy!) it can be to leave all that behind.

For every person who thanks us for being a good influence, there are countless more who have learned from contact with us. Together, all of the quiet (or exuberant—you do you) examples of happy and satisfying vegan lives add up to a compelling argument for people considering it on moral grounds. It’s simple. It’s fulfilling!

Inspirational Vegan Examples Are Everywhere

Every buzzy new vegan restaurant and every new vegan protein in the supermarket makes it easier for people to go vegan. Not just because it’s easier to find vegan options, either. It also just normalizes being vegan. And nothing seems more normal than the things the people in your daily life are doing.

That’s the power of a great vegan dessert. Or a cute vegan top. Or a fine vegan wine. And especially of a vegan dinner party featuring all of those things. Even the low-key example of having a bunch of tasty vegan items at the checkout line in the supermarket is an influential act.

Living well is the best positive encouragement there is. Vegan weddings, vegan recipes, and vegan shoes are the carrots to the sticks of slaughterhouse videos and uncomfortable questions about milk.

It doesn’t have to be performative. Just seeing you enjoying your vegan life can have a profound impact on those around you, especially when they see you over time being happy and healthy without the cruelty.

You’re an Influencer

All of us vegans have taken a look at the world and have chosen to dramatically change the way we live in order to improve the planet for other beings, as well as for ourselves. We have made conscious commitments to compassion that we reaffirm every time we lift a morsel of food to our mouths.

That’s a powerful example, and people resonate with it.

Social media makes it easy to take this momentum beyond in-person influencing. No matter how modest your followings might be, every time you make an Instagram post about your amazing homemade vegan pizza, or talk on Facebook about an incredible vegan restaurant you visited, you are helping people understand what it’s really like to go through every day without abusing animals.

There’s a lot more you can do online that leverages your expertise in compassionate living. And it’s a great way to get used to more bold advocacy; it might even lead to you getting more involved!

Go Further

Maybe you think you’re not the kind of person who wants to stand out in public proclaiming your vegan life, but vegan activism takes many forms. So whatever you’re doing now, keep doing it, knowing that every time you demonstrate how amazing it is to be vegan, you’re influencing someone to make a positive change in their own lives.

Who knows—you might surprise yourself and eventually join PETA’s action team!

But for now, I really think you should get some stickers or some …