If you haven't heard already, Gary Yourofsky has decided
has decided
to retire from the animal rights movement.
This is one of those things I did not think was going to happen.
I have been following Gary Yourofsky since I became vegan.
The night that I decided that I wanted to become a vegan,
I watched a couple of videos - one from Peter Singer,
I watched a couple from BIte Sized Emily,
and then I watched Gary Yourofsky's speech.
And it definitely had an impact on me.
Gary Yourofsky is a little bit different from some of the other major voices of the animal
rights movement.
He's never been interested in being politically correct,
and I often agree with very little that he talks about.
And there are plenty of times that he has had an approach
that I consider downright violent and disturbing.
But he does get people to sit up and take notice.
(clip)
Hey there modern vegans and vegan curious,
it's Margaret. And today I'm talking about
Gary Yourofsky's decision to quit being an active voice in the vegan community.
Yourofsky stated in a blog post on his facebook page
on the 30th of March that he really feels like it's time
for him to retire.
He compared himself to Kobe Bryant and I think Peyton Manning,
saying that this was just something he didn't want to do
any longer, that he was just exhausted.
That he couldn't do it any longer.
And that's perfectly understandable.
I'm sure some of you remember hearing Tom Regan,
who was a philosopher - he passed away earlier this year,
a philosopher and an animal rights activist.
In a recent interview before he died,
he talked about how the greatest threat
to the vegan movement, in his mind,
is the burnout of vegan activists.
That it's something that happens all the time,
and that it's what concerns him the most.
And to be honest, it's what concerns me the most.
And sometimes it's not even the people who decide they don't want to be vegan anymore.
I think that's a little more common here on YouTube
that you'll at least hear about that,
I'm sure it happens in the real world too,
but perhaps it's because YouTubers have a different
sort of relationship with their audience.
But there is more of a tendency to make a video explaining yourself,
and talking about why you made this decision that you did.
We've seen that recently with a number of YouTubers.
You can name your YouTuber - it happens all the time.
People will decide they're tired of YouTube and they'll move on,
maybe they'll quit being vegan.
But it's a bit more significant when it's someone
like Gary Yourofsky, who's deciding that he just cannot
continue any longer.
You may recall that in the last few weeks,
Emily from Bite Size Vegan, who's declared herself to be
a disciple of Yourofsky's, she said that she's just overwhelmed
and exhausted. I think she's going to be continuing with her channel,
but she is exhausted. And there's always that threat that someone may give up.
And I don't mean to be judgmental here, I understand
that a lot of people honestly just can't continue because they're exhausted.
And if anyone is going to be exhausted, I'm sure it's going to be Gary Yourofsky.
He's gone through several decades of this.
And you know, that's a lot of toll on anyone.
A couple of decades of vegan activism
- I can understand that must be exhausting.
Particularly when you're Gary Yourofsky
and you've been arrested several times.
I know that even though I would love to see him speak,
he actually is banned from coming to Canada.
He is banned from the UK. And I think those are
the only countries I can think of off the top of my head,
but he has not had an easy time of it,
and largely that's due to the kind of approach to activism
that he takes. He has a slightly more aggressive approach,
slightly is probably a mild word for it.
And you know, he's said all sorts of things through the course of his career.
I appreciated that in his farewell facebook page post,
he actually did say that he was sorry about saying
that veganism was solve all the world's problems,
that there were no vegans who were rapists,
and things like that...
that the Palestinians were horrible....
he said all these kinds of things in some of his videos
and some of his interviews,
and he's retracted some of that stuff.
That's good.
I'm glad to see that.
But it still is a challenge when you're looking
at someone within the vegan movement.
Someone who's done so much positive,
and so much good. I mean,
honestly, I think Gary Yourofsky has probably single
handedly done more to change a lot of people's viewpoints about animal exploitation than
anyone else.
You can say that intellectually,
Gary Francione has had a huge impact on the vegan movement.
You can say that Peter Singer helped to really make the vegan movement
in terms of just fundraising and things like that to be far more successful.
But in terms of getting boots on the ground,
I think it's fair to say that Gary Yourofsky had an incredible impact on people.
And his passion was so, so evident in his work.
I mean, you watch a few minutes of him,
and you see someone so consumed with passion
that it's not entirely surprising that he burned out as quickly as he did.
But I still remember the first video that I saw with him.
It was his speech.
I think it had been linked in a video from Emily from
Bite Sized Vegan,
and I watched that speech and it was
it was deeply impactful. Because his passion
was so self-evident, it was so clear from the words that he used,
from the actions that he made - everything -
you could just tell that this was someone who truly,
truly cared about animals, who did believe that this was wrong.
And the way that he was able to convey that with
so much passion and enthusiasm, was really tremendous.
And I think it influenced so many people.
So, I'm terribly sorry to hear that he's not going to be doing
activism anymore.
He says he'll continue to write letters in response to people
if they write to him, which is great.
But it's a shame that he's not going to be speaking at
Universities and colleges and things like that anymore.
Because I think especially some of those speeches that he had
were so well-prepared, were so well thought out -
he really just had a way of communicating
and connecting with people that I think will be difficult to match.
And I hope I'm wrong. I hope there are - and you know,
I know I'm wrong. I know that there are many people
out there, starting today with the kind of passion and enthusiasm
that Yourofsky had, but it takes a long time.
I think that maybe one of the reasons why he influences
so much the vegan community today, is because we mostly saw him a little bit later in his
career,
after a few years of chaining himself to coat racks
at Burlington Coat Factory and things like that.
Like, he did a lot of pretty crazy stuff,
but I think all of that kind of laid the groundwork
for his later activism, and helping to shape him as a person.
If I haven't said in the past, I can certainly say now,
I don't agree with, particularly, some of the statements he has made
about the possibility of committing acts of violence
and things like that. Totally disagree with that.
I don't think that you solve violence with violence.
And I think that Yourofsky was mistaken in that respect,
but, that being said, everything else that he did
was extremely impactful.
And whether you agreed with him or not,
about a variety of issues, I think it's undeniable
that he had a tremendous impact on the vegan community,
on the world at large. And when you look at a country
like Israel...I did a bit of an email correspondence
with the director of Life of Ohad, the film that I reviewed
a while ago - Life According to Ohad.
I had a little bit of correspondence with him,
and he said, Israel's really changing and that is
a direct result of Gary Yourofsky's work.
That has really impacted people in Israel.
And I'm going to take his word for it.
Because I really do think that the people of Israel,
a place where there are probably more vegans now
than there are in many countries in the world,
and especially in terms of just a change from
a very low percentage, non-existent,
to like, 10% of the population or more.
That's a tremendous change that has happened
so quickly, and it's, I think, a direct result of his passion
and his ability to connect with people
and that's something that I envy.
I wish I had that ability.
I'm sorely lacking in that kind of emotional connection with people,
but I admire it so much when I see it.
And I really hope that future generations of activists
will be inspired by Yourofsky's work, that they already have been.
And I'm, again, I'm sorry to hear that he's not going to be doing this any longer.
I - I don't know what to say.
I was kind of shocked to read the post,
I was turned onto it by someone who commented
here on the channel, just asking me if I'd seen it.
I hadn't - I did take a look,
and yeah, I'm sorry to hear it.
I don't know if there's anything else going on in his life,
and again, because he's primarily a true activist,
and not just a YouTuber vegan advocate,
he's less open a little bit about some of the things in his life.
I'm sure that he's going through other challenges.
I mean, that's just my assumption.
I think that someone who's that passionate,
I can't imagine you just burning out all of a sudden,
but maybe you do. I don't know.
Maybe that just happens.
Maybe that is the way that it works out for a lot of people.
And I don't know.
But, wherever you are, Gary Yourofsky,
I want to say sincerely, thank you so much.
You did change my life, and you know,
I may not agree about using violence,
but everything else that you've done - almost everything -
I really connect with it, and it made a huge difference in my life, and the lives of so
many other people.
So thank you.
And if you ever find it in your heart to return to activism,
I'm sure the world will be very grateful.
And for all other people that have been inspired by Gary Yourofsky,
maybe now is the time to step up your involvement
and to get more involved locally, to really reach out
to other vegans and see what you can do in this world.
Because, you know, he accomplished so much
in the 20 or so years of activism that he did.
And I think any one of us would be very proud to have accomplished so much.
Particularly in the case of Israel and things like that.
It's just - it's pretty tremendous.
If you enjoyed this video, share it with a friend.
Let people know that Gary is no longer going to be
a presence on social media and things like that.
I think it's important to look at that and to realize it,
and take a moment to think about what that means
for the vegan movement in terms of YouTube.
Even though Yourofsky was not really a YouTube figure per se,
he definitely had a big impact on the vegan community.
That was largely due to a lot of popular YouTubers,
including DurianRider and Freelee, sharing his videos.
And I was disappointed recently - I think it was in
the fall, Christmas time, around then,
that Durian Rider was saying that Yourofsky wasn't a real activist anymore,
and things like that,
and you know, I mean - I don't think that kind of thing is necessary,
I don't understand why people will resort to criticizing people in that kind of manner,
I don't think it was necessary.
I think that clearly there's a big difference between turning on your camera,
and making videos every day,
and going and giving speeches at Universities and things like that.
It does take a lot of preparation, working in that kind of activism.
It is different. And I think that sometimes YouTubers
are likely to not recognize the full commitment of people
who are involved in the real world. Because it is less visible.
And I think that's one reason that probably
the next highly influential vegan activists
are going to be people who probably also are more active
in social media.
But I don't think that in any way undermines the accomplishments of the generation that
came before.
And, yeah, thank you very much Gary Yourofsky.
You made a huge difference.
And I for one am very grateful.
If any of you guys have something to say about Gary Yourofsky,
and what he has done for the vegan movement
- again he's not dead, he may come back -
let's hope that he does!
Send him a message to thank him,
take a look at his Facebook page.
And let's just be grateful for the work that he did while he did.
I am certainly extremely grateful
that I had the opportunity to see his videos.
And that they made such a great impact on my life.
Thank you again so much guys for watching.
I hope you enjoyed this video,
I hope you've had a chance to reflect
on some of the contributions that Gary Yourofsky has made to the vegan movement.
And if you're not vegan, consider going vegan!
And if you are vegan, consider taking a more active role.
Because, I think Gary Yourofsky really did give us a great example of what it means to
be passionate about your beliefs.
Thank you so much for watching,
take care,
and I'll see you in my next video. Bye.
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