Can I pull this off? Spot the 3 main reasons why not.

1) I care a lot

Just like the cloud land in Care Bears.

A hipster once introduced me: “this is Isla, she likes to hike and protest.” I mean. There is much more to me. But these are not exactly approved hipster activities. They involve exertion.

2) I lived through the Degrassi era

For those of us who had already moved on to 501s after forced-watchings of the real Degrassi in HPLS (Health and Personal Life Skills), and who identified ourselves as cool by NOT having  mom butts and camel toes, we recognize that going back to high-waisted pants is not ironic, it’s simply regression.

And any kind of padding on the shoulders, unless you’re playing sports, is not needed.

3) I make fun of hipsters

While never admitting to being hipsters, hipsters also don’t usually make fun of hipsters because that would involve acknowledging the breed and they just happen to be this way all on their own.

4) I’m a jock

I like to work out and sweat. This means I’m often in runners and fitwear, out of convenience. Unacceptable.

If your’e going to work out as a hipster, you should have appropriate ironic tees to do that in. And make sure you get to wherever you’re working out on a bike that is not ‘mountain’.

*I also ride one of those because I actually like to ride it IN the mountains.

5) I strive for non-conformity

I was recently telling a hipster friend how a former hipster love interest didn’t consider me hipster enough to date.

She replied: “oh, so you’re more mainstream?”

Since when did the world divide into two categories: hipster and mainstream?

In order to be a hipster, you have to memorize an unwritten bible of dress codes, musical selections, and lingo. You HAVE to.

6) I’m straight edge

I don’t drink, smoke, or drug. Not on purpose, I just stopped getting high one day. No amount of drugs could get me high anymore, so I gave it up.

My drug is fresh air. <Hipster t-shirt

7) I’m FRIENDLY

I introduce myself to pretty much anyone willing. I have a million girlfriends. Ok, I’m usually not that friendly to straight guys, but there’s a good reason for that.

I just want to love you. <Hipster t-shirt

8) I hate major chord composed emo music

Anything that sounds like The Postal Service can kiss my ass.

Give me something nasty. Or at least something extremely depressing.

3 Reasons I (Defeatedly) Am a Hipster

1) I hate labels

If you see me with any type of label on my person, I can assure you I would rather not be wearing it. This means the little hidden ones on buttons and zippers.

I will definitely not wear any kind of logo. No words at all, please. If I have something to say it, I’ll say it.

And I’m definitely not advertising for you for free.

2) I’m cool

It’s irrefutable.

I define cool by how willing to be a dork you are.

3) I’m an Art Bitch

You probably haven’t heard of our band, Art Bitch, with @MichaelaLucas. Because we don’t play music.

But seriously, I live for art. And I always find it. No matter how hard I have to look in this dull mass-produced monetary-focused hellhole.

From a child’s honest viewpoint, he was referring to people who he felt did not show up as their true selves. Like little booboo, I also don’t get how so many people can know about factory farming and simply keep consuming animal products. But perhaps the answer lies in that there are many ‘true selves’, some more change oriented and forward thinking than others.

We are born caring for animals. Being kind and gentle to them, being infatuated with them. And then we learn that the food on our plates IS animals, and we are taught to build walls around our hearts and minds so that we can accept killing animals as okay. The way that we decide to reconcile this incongruity determines not only how we live the rest of our lives, but WHO we become.

So what makes some people care enough to change their behaviour towards animals, while others let their initial programming continue to run? 

Joanne Chang from Nice Shoes recently suggested watching Peaceable Kingdom.

In one scene, a farmer who had grown up on a farm was reunited with a cow he once knew. The cow recognized him, ran up to him and bumped him right in the heart. The man was choking up as he told the story, because he said that this bump re-opened his heart chakra, which had been shut off as a child after seeing his pig friends being slaughtered one day, coming home to find their carcasses hanging upside down. After that moment, he no longer considered the farm his home. The man eventually became vegan, and began adopting animals to give them shelter.

As a contrasting example, recently, little booboo’s mom and I had an encounter with three dumb bitches perfectly acceptable ladies in the lobby of my building. I pointed out that all three of them were wearing real fur, and gave them a quick run down of how animals are routinely anally and vaginally electrocuted and skinned alive, and one of the girls simply giggled and said: “I like fur, teehee!’

How is it that these girls, once faced with their roles in animal cruelty, can go into zombie mode? My friend pointed out that maybe they’d never thought about it before, and even if they had, perhaps they weren’t smart enough to grasp the correlation between their fashion choices and the animal suffering those choices were causing.

So is it intelligence that makes some people connect the suffering of other sentient beings with their own? Do those who choose to turn a blind eye to factory farming lack the emotional and mental intelligence to make the higher moral choice? Or are they bound by certain innate traits of their personalities?

Many people are not educated about what goes on behind closed doors when it comes to factory farming, because the industry does not want us to know. This is why laws are passed like the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act and the Ag Gag bills—to keep consumers from knowing the dirty truth behind what they consider ‘food’ because otherwise they may not consider it food anymore.

For the purpose of this blog post, I want to examine those who ARE educated on a basic level about factory farming. Who have sat down and read literature or watched films about factory farming, who have worked in an animal industry, who have been to a lecture, or know an animal rights’ activist, or those who have been schooled on Facebook when they post some stupid bacon joke.

*Disclaimer: for the record, ‘humane meat‘ does not exist.

Let’s look at the nine Enneagram Personality Types:

1. The Reformer

The Reformer is all about rules. They are the party-poopers. The perfectionists. The ones who ensure that systems are maintained. Think teachers, police officers, the people who rat you out at work.

These people have grown up in a set system, which they may feel is their role to maintain. To ‘go against’ the system would be chaotic for them, and their number one enemy is chaos. Therefore, a Reformer might feel it’s more important to stay with the systems that have ‘worked’ for a long time, rather than to experiment with new lifestyles of which the results are uncertain.

Reformers could be highly valuable to the animal rights’ movement because they are the ones who can carry out real change. They would be the ones to pass animal rights laws, to enforce laws to protect animals are being harmed, and to go cold tofurky vegan. Catch 22 – they’d do it in a heartbeat if it were already law.

2. The Helper

The Helper is motivated by the heart. Personal relationships are very important to them. They feel the most satisfied when making others happy, and are motivated by appreciation, but they are prone to over-giving which can make them carry resentment.

The Helper may not be interested in shifting from consuming animal products because they are more comfortable in a role of assistance than leadership. They also may avoid experiencing the pain that animals suffer—not watching important films, such as Earthlings—because they are afraid of the pain it could cause them.

Once The Helper acknowledges their emotional relationship with animals, they can be the ultimate direct contact for animals. These are the type of people to adopt abused animals, run sanctuaries, and definitely the people who show up at the demo.

3. The Achiever

The Achiever is busy, hard working, and goal oriented. They are hard on themselves, and need a lot of attention. The Achiever lives for glory, fame, and accolades.
Being so ‘gotta stay on top of my day, gotta stay on top of my life’, the Achiever may be too busy to look at the suffering their consumer choices are causing. They are on a mission and may not acknowledge their role in oppressive animal systems because they feel they ‘don’t have time’. The Achiever would be the type to insist that they ‘need’ animal products as their fuel, fearing what any lifestyle change would do to their productivity.

The Achiever could be a great spokesperson for animal rights, since they love to be in the spotlight. The Achiever could execute cutting edge animal rights campaigns, become leaders in the new rise of vegan cuisine, and they could definitely destroy a fur store. Destruction can be productive.

4. The Individualist

The Individualist likes to go their own way. The most romantic number of the enneagram, the Individualist has big ideas and big dreams and their biggest hurdle against recognizing their role in animal suffering is their selfishness. Caught up in their fantasy worlds, the Individualist might not take their head out of the clouds to notice what’s going on behind the closed doors of factory farms. The Individualist will understand the discord between these utopic fantasy worlds they dream of and the current realities of animal slavery, but this harsh dichotomy may be so extreme for them that they ignore it in self-preservation.

The Individualist should be a pretty easy convert for veganism since they like to be different. However, they won’t be swayed by other people pressuring them. The Individualist can be an excellent source of inspiration for others to go vegan because they will do it confidently and with style, reassuring people that it’s okay to be different.

Sensitive to emotional pain, these types will feel a weight off their shoulders once they are no longer a cog in the animal Auschwitz machine.

5. The Investigator

The Investigator. This egghead bookworm is a total poindexter. They are constantly untangling problems in their minds, which they love to chew on. The Investigator can often withdraw into their own minds solving the world’s problems.

As an observer, The Invetigator may be well aware of the systematic animal abuse in today’s modern world, but they may view it from a detached perspective, and not make a heart to heart connection with the Ghosts in the Machine. Stuck in observing and analyzing these twisted realities, the Investigator may not take initiative to ACT to alter this overwhelming information.

The Investigator is probably the first one to find out just how horrible conditions for animals are in farms and labs these days, and would be a great communicator to break these statistics down for the masses. They are the ones who document animal suffering, who research what is actually happening and hopefully, the ones who determine alternative measures that can be taken.

6. The Loyalist

A simple type. This type is conservative and feels at peace with what they know. They are supportive, consistent, and serious. But they are also skeptical, especially to anything that threatens the relationships they have come to value the most.

Since the Loyalist is stuck in the old ways, they could be among the hardest to make aware of the pain their consumer choices inflict on animals. Highly nostalgic, they tend to think of the past as ‘the good old days’, rather than good times with serious underlying mistakes that need to be rectified immediately.

When you stop consuming animal products, many people call you a freak, or ‘religious’, or an ‘extremist’. This could be very difficult for the Loyalist, since fitting in is of utmost importance to them.

Loyalists make excellent animal guardians. Once thinking empathetically with animals, they could be dependable allies to animals, animal activists (aka no narcing here), and would be very thorough in changing their lifestyles over to nonviolence, once that decision is made.

7. The Enthusiast

Positive, upbeat, optimistic. High energy. The Enthusiast is Red Bull.

The Enthusiast might be afraid of ‘missing out’ on the animal products that the majority of the world currently consumes, as many popular foods, events, trends are still based on animal exploitation. The Enthusiast can be scattered, which could affect their clarity in thinking for themselves about the results of their choices on animals. And the Enthusiast would be very resistant to hearing about the deeply sad situations animals live in today because they are committed to being high-energy-happy-fun-time pretty much all the time.

The enthusiast could be a highly valued animal rights’ activist because they are  able to see a better future, to inspire others to join them to create a new world, and best of all, the Enthusiast has infectious joy to spread, making veganism fun, as it naturally is.

8. The Challenger

Contrary. Stubborn. Strong. It is part of the Challengers’ natural inclination to challenge the status quo. The Challenger is a fighter, which is great, but they can’t easily be swayed to make changes to their lifestyles because they do things on their own time.

The Challenger may fight data about animal industries out of their urge to battle, without allowing valid findings to soak in. They could vehemently block out very basic information, such as the China Study, not even taking the time to research it themselves, as they jump to defense instead of going within. 

The Challenger is going to RULE the demo. They are the ones on the megaphone, calling out the cops, the animal abusers, or both. The Challenger is a renegade, so they could be excellent leaders in demanding animal freedom. The Challenger could be highly protective to animals. They are the Mama bears.

9. The Peacemaker

The Peacemaker needs harmony and concensus. They enjoy feeling calm and reject conflict, feeling that it will ‘sort itself out’. The Peacemaker can be very accpeting. Too accepting perhaps.

When it comes to the reality of animal agriculture, Peacemakers might stick their heads in the sand instead of speaking out. Or they may want to envision the state of animal existence as ‘peaceful’ already so it’s easier for them to handle.

But, the Peacemaker is patient and persistent. More than any other type, a plant-based lifestyle should make perfect sense to the Peacemaker’s pacifistic  preferences. They are gentle, and therefore great at things like outreach, one of one connection, and of course, relating to animals (who seem to have copious amounts of inner peace even in the most dire situations).

“(People) occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.”

Winston Churchill

Many people are a mix of these personality types listed. Also, this is just one viewpoint of personality classification. There is of course Myers Briggs as well. The main thing the Ennegram personality indicator tells us is what motivates us in contrast to others.

To determine which personality type you are, take the quiz: http://www.eclecticenergies.com/enneagram/test.php (although this test is not very good in my opinion, better to self-diagnose after reading the descriptions).

What number of the Ennegram do you identify with? How does this affect your relationship to animals?

Emergency! Someone spoke out for animal rights too loudly to ignore.

How many times have we chanted: Snowflake Furs, Shut them DOWN!

Well, dreams do come true.

After several years of hard-hitting protests and anonymous acts of animal freedom, Snowflake Furs appears to be down for the count.

About a year ago, Snowflake was evicted from the Fairmont Hotel and tried to move down the street. Local activists paid them a few visits. One in which a random guy volunteered to have blood (strawberry sauce) poured all over him in a real fur coat (donated by means of pressure) to show Snowflake’s hand in the sick and blood-spattered fur industry.

In Snowflake’s stark empty windows now are pictures of the damage that led to the store’s closure – chemicals injected into the store to ruin ‘merchandise’ (abused animal carcasses).

The evil Snowflake sisters have never swayed from their position that they are the victims in this situation. Victims of senseless vandalism.

But is it property damage if what they are selling is not only not their property but not products at all?

The final nail in Snowflake Vancouver’s coffin was committed by the ALF. The update on Bite Back reads:

“Five weeks ago we took action against Snowflake Furs and Speiser Furs in Vancouver Canada. We used 10 large syringes with 16 gauge needles to shoot a foul substance into the stores through small spaces in the doors. Syringes have the ability to shoot more than 25 feet into the building onto their merchandise causing serious economic damage.
The Pacific Center Snowflake Furs location is now closed indefinitely. The store is gutted and lifeless, how appropriate.
We will stop when the violence and murder stops and it is only a matter of time before actions like these start occurring at the other Snowflake locations in Whistler and Banff.
To anyone who does not understand why fur stores are being targeted in this way please search ‘fur cruelty’ or ‘skinned alive for fur’ on your computer and spend some time witnessing the horrific fur trade.”

Although random passerbys might think this ‘vandalism’ needs to be ‘cracked down on’ (yes, I’m talking to you random passerby), what really needs to be cracked down on is the use of animals for clothing when other more environmentally-friendly, more comfortable, more hi-tech, humane materials exist.

Fur is as much a part of Canada’s heritage (as Snowflake tries to claim) as genocide. Let’s leave the past in the past.

If Snowflake is indeed renovating trying to recover from this catastrophe, their insurance will be sky high, and they’ll no doubt be greeted by a slew of animal rights’ activists if they try to show their face in this town again.

Fur bearing animals, we’ve got your backs.

Thank you, ALF.

#nonviolence #crueltyfreefashion

This progress shows that all types of activism can work together nonviolently to get results for animals. This is democracy at work. If one does not have dollars to vote with, one must take the dollars out of the hands of the oppressors.

*For further reading: The Calgary Sun has most cleverly determined that this act of liberation was done by -gasp- anti-fur activists. Read HERE.

1) Lena Dunham from Girls

Charged: with seeming cute and innocent while needlessly hurting animals

What a great show. The awkward sex could be cut down on a smidgen. Sometimes a suggestion can go a long way. But it’s fresh, it’s current, it’s raw, and lol at times. I want to know what happens next. That’s the definition of a good fictional work.
Lena Dunham is the creator of this masterpiece (major props), and aside from a few Full House moments, it’s clear that some of the show is based on reality. How right I was to find out that Dunham used to be vegan and into animal rights.

The scene in question is her diner confession to the pharmacist that she used to be vegetarian, but then she was forced to eat roadkill and she felt herself “growing stronger and stronger with each bite.” So this would make her character, Hannah, strong, right? Have you seen her character try to jog? She is clearly out of shape and admittedly not the weight she feels best at.

This seemingly innocent anecdote did not fall on deaf ears. It’s weak sauce and a blemish on Lena’s perfectly imperfect character.

You don’t need meat to feel strong. There are MMA fighters and athletes all over the world who are vegan.

Lena, if you want to be able to jog without collapsing in the street – go veg. And if you want to create a work that speaks to REAL girls, have a vegan character. This is current. Or better yet, have Hannah go vegan. She can be self-effacingly weak willed in all other areas.

2) “Food” vendors at Shambhala & BassCoast

Charged: with preaching peace while vending violence

Welcome home, the signs say. You’ve found the holy land – the land where love lives. With all this love in the air, chowing down on factory farmed animals seems not quite apropos.

Humans celebrating freedom, while fueling themselves on the confined misery of animals who are tortured in captivity from birth to death.

These festivals have hardly any vegan options, and definitely not a single  completely vegan stand. Not even the ultra hippie ones that serve twigs and moss and forest berries.

Well PLUR you, BC festivals. These could be excellent opportunities for people to experience a taste of vegan food. And instead you serve pig parts to real-fur fox tail wearing hypo-hippies.

Living in the past. I sometimes feel that we are. Living in the past.

The elephant in the room: do vegans think they’re superior?

*Disclaimer: Elephants should probably be outside, not in rooms.

They won’t eat what’s on your menu. They won’t shop at your stores. They won’t wear the clothes you wear. And they look in horror at what’s on your plate. Who do vegans think they are?

Vegans are judgmental—I hear this frequently from regular folk (that means that 99% of people who are not vegan). They feel that vegans take on an attitude of superiority. So do vegans actually think they’re superior? Or are carnists projecting their own guilt about their consumer choices involving the oppression of animals?

In the recent contest by the New York Times, challenging readers to explain why it’s ethical to eat meat, the comments section was full of outrage: “why should we have to defend ourselves to a small minority of people?” I was just happy to see people considering the topic on a mass level.

I have discussed before that I feel that veganism is the path of evolution for human beings, touching on the misconception of vegan elitism. (Funny coincidence, Einstein had the same theory.) To sum it up: it’s not that vegans think they’re better than everyone else—it’s that they realize they’re not better than anyone else, hence the reason for their rejection of their ‘rank’ on the food chain.

And then there is the joke: “How do you know if someone is vegan? They’ll tell you.” (Except in all fairness they’ll have to tell you unless they want a large chunk of flesh handed to them at some point.)

So? Is it true? Are vegans happy with being a rare breed?

To make it clear: definitely not.

This is why you see vegan people standing on street corners with information about the environment and factory farming. Vegans want to make friends. The more the merrier.

Just because someone proudly claims to be vegan, it doesn’t mean that they’re putting you down for not being vegan. The vegan person may be the trigger for feelings of being judged, but vegans are just not that good – we can’t get inside your head and heart like that, as much as we might wish we could.

I used to rave out. When I was 19, I started going to electronic music events and it was such a positive experience for me in place of the bar scene where I would be ogled at and dancefloor raped. Raving is about dancing (dancing well), it’s about dressing colourfully and at times with a sense of humour, it’s about independence (it’s common for people to dance alone), and it’s about the contribution of art in its many forms.

When at rave parties, I would feel the PLUR (Peace Love Unity Respect), and have epiphany moments where I would feel at one with everyone in the room. We were all having the same experience together. There may or may not have been happy drugs involved.

I haven’t felt this since I became vegan, except at animal rights conferences.

When I became vegan 3.5 years ago, I would walk the streets and observe people acting like robots as they ate and shopped. I wondered how much they knew about animal industries. And if they knew what I knew, why they didn’t care. To be fair, I spent the first 26 years of my life relying on some form of animal product, but when I stepped into this new vegan world, it seemed that I was usually standing there alone.

BassCoast goes Vegan – 2013!

Now, for the first time in a while, I’m going to a large outdoor rave, known and loved as BassCoast, and I’m wondering if I’ll feel connected to these people or alienated. There will definitely be freaks there. I can connect with freaks. Nudists. Hippies. Music lovers. Granolas. Check. Check. Check. Check. But there will also be many carnists there. Can I PLUR with them?

In BellyFit tonight (Tantra Fitness’s amazing bellydance/cardio class with Laura BonBon), I envisioned that the entire room of women was vegan. That each one of us had made a decision to be plant-powered. And for a moment, it became real. And in this moment, I realized how realistic this reality was.

This is the path to manifesting the world you want, vegans.

If you’re vegan and feeling the urge to judge others or alienate yourself from the group/dancefloor, envision everyone as already vegan. Because it’s entirely possible that they will one day soon be. And while it may be a stretch to envision, you have to dream it before it can exist in physical form. (Not getting new agey here, this is how ideas generally manifest, isn’t it? ~Think up idea, idea happens.)

So let’s review what it means to be a snob.

A snob is someone who turns down connections. Vegans want to make connections. This is why they’re always around holding up signs and passing out leafleats and distributing food.

A snob is someone who thinks they’re superior. Vegans know they’re not. So they eat low, low, low, low, low, low, low on the food chain.

A snob is someone who wants to be exclusive, part of a subgroup, different. Vegans want a vegan world – they don’t want to do all this to simply keep witnessing atrocities happening every day. They want a nonviolent world where they can relax and garden.

Snobs are cutting edge and will always change their stripes to be ahead of the game. Vegans didn’t use animal products yesterday, and they won’t tomorrow. They’re not trying to one up you.

So, what’s that you’re saying giant elephant? That you probably shouldn’t say out loud but you can since you’re an awesome elephant? Veganism is for most people about morality. Shh! Don’t say it out loud. It’s elitist and judgy.
Vegans for the most part feel that going vegan is a form of progress for them. It’s an accomplishment. This does not necessarily mean that they judge you for not having chosen a vegan lifestyle. I want to say ‘yet’.

Honestly, vegans do believe that at some point, you will at least ponder the decision. Maybe not in this lifetime, but eventually. But for vegans who think like this, it’s no different than an adult looking at a child without judgment—they know that eventually, the child will grow up and become a better communicator with more refined ways of getting what they want. This is a nice way of explaining how vegans see carnists: the decision to consume animal products is NOT valid and equal, but is a decision based on an entirely different set of life experiences for each person, and people will face the decision at their own pace.

Some might find this inside info. offensive. “See! This is exactly why I hate vegans!” you might be thinking. But the metaphor of old vs young souls is a gentle way to put it.

What does a toddler do to get what it wants? Has a tantrum.

What does an adult do to get what it wants? Something less violent.

Maturity, it seems, usually takes on the less violent form.

In comparison, what does a carnist do to nourish themselves? Pays someone to kill an animal for them, or spills the blood of an animal.

What does a vegan do to nourish themselves? Picks vegetation from the ground or a tree, or pays someone to do it.

To be fair, I think vegans do sometimes enjoy being outcasts and forget that the division between them and carnists is not a permanent one, a division that could change any day.

Vegans are, after all, totally imperfect humans. Not saints or nuns or goodie 2 shoes, and not aspiring to be. We may have grown past relying on animal products, but there are quadrillions of other ways left to grow.