Jim
Meet Jim! Jim lives alone and Jim's stomach is rumbling. Ofcourse, Jim's fridge doesn't contain enough food to make dinner, so like most days, Jim needs to head to the store! He puts on his slippers and with one foot out of the door, nearly forgets to grab his reusable bag. He needs one now, since the stores have started charging extra for plastic bags. Darn hippies and their climate propaganda! As if his bag changes anything, while China builds new coal plants. He heads back inside, grabs the stupid bag and heads out again. He opens up the car door, lays down the bag on the passenger's seat and off he goes for his one minute drive to the store.
Stepping out of the car, nearly forgetting his stupid bag again, he wonders what he should eat today. His mind searches through his small repetoire of cookable recipes and settles on burgers. Can't go wrong with burgers! He walks into the store and heads towards the burgers, quickly walking past the ever-growing meat replacements. He shakes his head, wondering what's wrong with those hippies. Years ago, he ate a plant-based burger once. It was horrible! No, he'll never eat a meat replacer again. Real men eat meat. Arriving at the pre-packaged hamburger section, he grabs a pack and heads over to the cheese department. Shaking his head again, he notices a small assortment of 'vegan cheese'. While muttering "darn hippies" under his breath, he picks up his usual package of real cow's milk cheese and heads over to pick up some burger buns, wondering where this madness will end. Why do people always feel the need to change things? Don't cows produce milk anyway? Don't they need to get rid of that milk somehow? He's sure the farmers are just doing those cows a favour. Darn hippies...
Back home, Jim starts preparing his food. While his burgers are sizzling away in the pan, he grabs his phone, opens up Instagram and starts scrolling through all of the new posts. He notices his annoying friend Karen posted some kind of stupid, sad cow picture again, saying "Only mothers produce milk". Karen used to be fun. She posted pictures of parties with friends and of the delicious food they ate at restaurants. That's all in the past though, because now, Karen calls herself a 'vegan'. Karen's posts now contain sad animal pictures, some even bloody! She shares video's of animals in bad situations, tight and dirty living quarters, trying to crawl away from people that try to hurt them, dead chickens amongst a sea of (barely) living ones, sad cows and calfs being separated, it never ends. As if anyone wants to see that on Instagram! He quickly scrolls along to happier posts while flipping his burgers and opening up his packages of real cow's milk cheese. "Only mothers, huh...?".
Andy
Meet Andy! Andy lives alone and Andy's stomach is rumbling. Andy's fridge still contains some leftover cucumber and lettuce, but sadly, not much else. He'll have to head over to the store! He puts on his sneakers, grabs the reusable bag he hung next to his door and heads out for a five minute walk to the store.
Andy reaches the store and heads straight over to the ever-growing meat replacers. They might not be the healthiest vegan choice, but hey, he feels like burgers! Reaching for his favorite plant-based burgers, he notices a new brand of meat replacers and decides to try their burgers instead. Knowing how far meat replacers have come these last few years, he's always excited to try the latest ones.
With a smile on his face, Andy heads over to the cheese department. His store recently added a small selection of vegan cheeses, which made Andy a very happy man. He used to love cheese burgers and really missed the taste since going vegan. He picks up a pack of vegan cheese, grabs some burger buns and after paying for his bounty, walks back home.
During his walk, Andy passes a line for the hotdog stand and shakes his head. He remembers himself once standing in that line, long ago and feels frustration rearing its ugly head again. He wishes he could do something. Make these people understand what their hotdog represents. He knows it wouldn't do much good right now. The lies run deep. Everyone needs something different to shake them awake. Still, he tries. He posts about the truth of the industry on his Instagram account, sadly noticing how few likes these kind of posts receive. People pretend to care about animals and nature, up until the point where they have to change. Then they play ignorant and point fingers at others. People would rather look the other way than face the reality of what they're paying for. He knows never to underestimate the power of planting a seed though. It worked on him once... So he keeps posting. He also talks to friends and family about the reality of the meat, egg and dairy industry, pointing out the rape, baby stealing, horrible transportation and living conditions, and the animal's complete terror when facing their end. He's always walking a tight rope though. He can't be too forward, or they'll just write him off as 'extreme'. He shakes his head again, thinking what a sad world he lives in when not wanting to hurt, abuse and kill animals is called 'extreme'.
"Isn't what we do to all of those living, sentient beings extreme? Especially while it is ruining our planet aswell?"
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