I like to consider myself someone who has always been outspoken for agriculture’s rightful place on social media. As we have seen over the recent years, it has been increasingly difficult for agvocates to make their messages known without getting slammed with unjustified negativity. This is because a lot communities with their own agendas have made it their mission to disproportionately target agriculture, especially animal agriculture. Young or old, they do not care. If you take a strong stance and they find you they will come from you.
A perfect example of this is in the below article I wrote for AGDAILY. In it we meet Victoria, a bright-eyed 4-H teen from Michigan who’s personal 4-H Facebook page was viciously assaulted by a certain vegan extremist Facebook group and her page blew up.
As unfortunate as this turn of events was, the online ag community and its supporters really came together and made this one into a positive. Small events like this are what make me so proud to work alongside a sphere of influence that has such amazing individuals.
Hopefully, we will continue to support our 4-H, FFA and other exceptional ag youth online as well as in person. I’d like to think we can be there for them before dog piles like this attempt to smother them, but ya can’t win ’em all I suppose.
Another point about this incident I would like to take a moment to highlight. I think it really stands as a testament to the true nature of the radical animal right’s activists (or ARAs as we call them sometimes) and the toxicity their movement breeds.
In the online sphere I often find myself in, this is nothing new to me. But for the uninitiated, this behavior comes across as downright shocking. Typically you hear “yeah, we all know vegans are annoying, but the majority of them are simply good people trying to make the world a better place in their own way.” And when someone like me responds “I don’t know how true that is, because the vegan community I know and have encountered is extremely hateful and vile” they are taken aback. Even some vegans have expressed utter surprise at how commonplace this really is for livestock producers on social media.
As terrible as it is, I do think bringing these skeletons to light in a very public way does us some good. And the best part is we don’t have to do a thing – they do it to themselves. Perhaps it will make a couple folks think twice before they donate to a certain farm “sanctuary” or certain types of animal “rescues.”
