The "Vegan" Who Isn't Actually Vegan

When “vegan” becomes a branding strategy instead of a set of values. You are the worst type of fraud if you lie behind the scenes and pose as a compassionate person online.

There is something deeply uncomfortable about building an identity around the word vegan while behaving in ways that contradict the principles the word is supposed to represent.

Veganism is not an aesthetic. It isn't a diet, a recipe category, or a marketing keyword. It doesn't make you a good person automatically, either. You're not a 'good guy' because you call yourself a vegan.

And it certainly isn't a convenient label you can put on a business while ignoring what happens behind the scenes.

by definition: veganism is about reducing harm and exploitation to animals.

If a brand or person publicly positions themself around veganism while food is intentionally wasted for entertainment, that contradiction deserves scrutiny.

Calling yourself vegan doesn't magically erase those realities.

And I get it, not every vegan can be 100% perfect 100% of the time. However, knowingly hiding behind this lie at a huge level is unacceptable....

Because there is the bigger contradiction.

What happens when someone's public brand identity suggests one set of values while their professional activities operate in an entirely different world?

That's where “vegan” stops being a dietary identity and starts becoming a question of integrity.

You don't get to manufacture an image of compassion while treating the resources associated with food as disposable simply because doing so generates engagement, and income.

You don't get to promote sustainability when it benefits the brand and conveniently forget about it when spectacle generates better numbers.

And you don't get to hide behind the word vegan as though the label itself absolves everything else.

Veganism isn't a mask, or helmet.

It's supposed to mean something.

If the principles disappear the moment they become inconvenient, expensive, boring, or less profitable, then what we're looking at isn't necessarily conviction.

It may simply be performance, branding and lying.

Because the question isn't whether someone's tiktok handle contains the word vegan.

The question is whether their behavior consistently reflects the values they're asking other people to associate with their brand.

And at the very least, if food has to be wasted to make the content interesting, perhaps the problem isn't that the algorithm demands more.

And if compassion only exists when there's an audience watching, what exactly are we calling compassion?

Anyway, to anyone that does this, it might be best to rebrand, and drop the fraudulent and grifting behavior.