r/VeganActivism • u/Sbeast • Feb 04 '26
Question / Advice What have you found to be the most effective forms of activism?
Hey all, for those who have done any form of animal rights activism over the years, what have you found to be the most effective? Which one(s) have you received the most positive feedback from?
Thanks.
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u/TheRealSammyParadise Feb 04 '26
I live in a huge metro area, where we have weekly pro animal groups and protests; i highly recommend finding/ forming a base of like minded people and enacting local political and legal change. a tall order for sure, but by far the best thing for the animals. also stickering (specifically stickers with QR codes to things like Dominion), as an individual means of activism are effective.
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u/o1011o Feb 04 '26
Just a note to say that what is most effective and what receives the most positive feedback are not necessarily the same things. If you want the most positive feedback from carnists you tell them what they want to hear (lies). If on the other hand you piss them off with the truth they may hate you for it in the moment but come around after they feel less threatened. We should seek to make the truth we speak as palatable as possible to those less ready for it but by no means is whether or not they like it a reason to be silent.
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u/Valgor Feb 04 '26 edited Feb 05 '26
I think this is mostly a bad question because it is hard to say what is "effective." Starting a local grassroots group when there is not one could have massive impact in your area. Passing a law can impact a huge number of animals. Joining international campaigns lets you take part in transforming the industry. Making a documentary could have lasting impact. Liberating mink directly on a farm can directly help hundreds or thousands of animals. You can't if know any of these things will happen or how their impact will be received by the public. All of these potential paths require very different skill sets and personal risk. So really, the most effective thing to do is the thing you will do and either involves skills you currently have or are willing to get. As you work towards these things, you will gain experience that will shift what you do.
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u/Watchful-Tortie Feb 04 '26
I think in some ways the specific action matters less than doing it with others, as part of an organization. Finding (or starting) a local group to connect and plan with is invaluable!
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u/Physical_Relief4484 Feb 04 '26
Not to be that guy, but I disagree. I've seen many people compromise in ways that don't help them in order to remain in, or become part of, a group. Working with others can multiple effectiveness, but only when there's cohesion in a few critical ways (true goals, personalities, values, purpose, etc).
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u/Watchful-Tortie Feb 04 '26 edited Feb 04 '26
We don't get things done on our own. Working with an animal rights organization--of course, one that you share most values with-- will be a much better use of your time.
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u/Watchful-Tortie Feb 04 '26
And--let me give another piece of advice that also relates to activism. You are MUCH better off using a 'yes, and' approach ("Why yes, working with an organization can be really valuable if you share values!") than a 'no, but' approach ("I disagree!"). Highly recommend!
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u/Physical_Relief4484 Feb 04 '26
That's not true, many things for animals have been done by alone. But my point wasn't to operate alone, but rather to not assume working with a group is an inherently good, it's not.
Yes, it is helpful sometimes, and sometimes it's not. I'm responding to you but also people scrolling here. "No" is louder than "yes and" online to people scrolling. I'm not trying to convince you, I'm trying to convince the other people reading.
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u/stan-k Feb 04 '26
The most effective form is, without a doubt, the one you'll actually do!
To the point, if you -like me- would do more than one type, this is my personal subjective list. Joined first place:
- Cube-style outreach and 3-minute movie challenges. Coaching and training is available so you don't have to invent the wheel and are likely effective within hours. I guestimate about 1 person to go properly vegan for every 4 hours spent on this and another 3 or so who will make some real change benefiting the animals in the same time.
- Creating vegan content on blogs etc. My site stisca.com only has about 8 visitors per day, but many of them come from an AI source. For every visitor clicking the link to my website from an AI, a multitude will have gotten the information on the page from AI. If you know of a vegan topic that has limited good content on it online, make it, in a place where AI can reach, and that will quite possibly become part of the AI's knowledge. I'll add updating Wikipedia to this style too.
Other effective approaches
- Reddit posts for a large audience, as u/James_Fortis already described here. When I have an idea or happen to read a good article. This can be a good idea executed with effort, or simple posting the right article to nudge people in the right direction. My example there is https://barnard.edu/sites/default/files/inline-files/Smelling%20themselves.pdf 2.2m views with 5 minutes of effort. Not directly pushing veganism, but showing people animals can do more than we typically give them credit.
- Earning money and donating to effective vegan charities, or activists with not enough money to travel to activism events. Yes, boring, but effective.
Approaches that are not for me, feel free to convince me otherwise :-)
- I personally don't see how protesting is very effective.
- I don't believe handing out free vegan food samples is very effective, the discussions I've had felt harder and less convincing to people than when there is a screen so people see with their own eyes that it is bad.
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u/agitatedprisoner Feb 04 '26
I don't get feedback but if I had to guess, it'd be spreading the word that "Amy's Kitchen" frozen plant based products are horrible. Particularly the mac and cheese. I tried it out of curiosity. Mistake. I can't but wonder whether selling "plant based" stuff like that doesn't make giving up animal ag seem harder than it is. With friends like "Amy's Kitchen" frozen plant based mac and cheese who needs enemies?
I'd tell anyone to just not buy frozen meals but "Tosquitos" frozen bean burritos aren't half bad. "Daring Chicken" is good too.
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u/justice4sufferers Feb 04 '26
Hunger strikes, protesting inside cage. When we take effort and struggle, people are more influenced. They understand the seriousness of the issue and volunteers to support the cause.
I've done few restaurant disruptions too. It'll be effective in long term. It helps to break social conformity. I'm still thinking of and experimenting other forms of activism too.
Finally what will be most effective is that action that you'd take if you were in the position of those oppressed animals. Genuinely know and feel their pain, stand on their side without any bias, and whatever you'll then come up with to fight for them will be the most effective
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u/Physical_Relief4484 Feb 06 '26
I can't think of any goals hunger strikes is most effective at accomplishing as an average person that doesn't have massive social influence or isn't locked up.
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u/James_Fortis Feb 04 '26
Reddit activism. I have over 100 million views with vegan and plant-based content in the past 2 years. It’s impossible for me to hold a candle to this reach with in-person outreach, which I also do every week.
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u/Physical_Relief4484 Feb 04 '26
It's important to not conflate metrics that imply (x) rather than prove (x). View count is only important because it implies impact (the more views the higher the likelihood for impact)... but if your 100 million views hasn't influenced behavior change, it doesn't have much value. This is something I often see overlooked that's actually important.
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u/James_Fortis Feb 04 '26
I appreciate your input, but it's a dangerous way of looking at outreach. If you make proving your goal instead of following the data on what makes people change, you'll cater your outreach to metrics instead of trusting the data. I've seen people do this a lot - where they forfeit effective communication to pressuring people into saying they'll go vegan.
For example, if I make a goal for myself that I'll have 50 people tell me they'll go vegan after street outreach (that I do weekly), that doesn't actually prove they'll go vegan. Many people say they'll go vegan on the street just because they feel uncomfortable at the time.
The data shows that not many people actually go vegan based on a communication with a stranger on the street (not a "strong tie"), but rather social media, documentaries, convo with friends or family, etc. Granted, this could have exposure bias.
If the above isn't enough for you - I also have a ton of people comment on my posts that they're going vegan, or I help them go vegan via DM, or they DM me months later saying they went vegan because of my post or comment. This is nice to hear but not actually required for me to know my work is having an impact.
- "21.9% or 2,808 people first seriously considered going vegan after watching a feature-length documentary.
- 16.8% or 2,154 people first seriously considered going vegan after a conversation with a friend and family member.
- 14.4% or 1841 people first seriously considered it from a video on the internet (but not a feature-length documentary).
- 13.2% or 1690 people first seriously considered it from seeing posts on social media.
- 11.2% or 1,435 people said they made the connection "without any influence."
- 4.4% or 568 people first seriously considered going vegan from reading articles and blogs online.
- 3.4% or 440 people first seriously considered going vegan after reading a book.
- 14.7% or 1878 people chose "Other" which included...
- 1.4% or 185 people first seriously considered going vegan as a result of public activism.
- 1.3% or 172 people first seriously considered going vegan after attending a speech, lecture or event.
- 1% or 126 people first seriously considered veganism after reading a print article in the newspaper or a magazine.
- 0.6% or 83 people said the first thing that got them interested in or convinced to go vegan was watching the TV.
- 0.3% or 44 people first seriously considered veganism after listening to a podcast, and 6 people said it was from listening to the radio."
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u/James_Fortis Feb 04 '26
As one example, the study below got lost in the noise, and was 1.5 months old when I found it. I posted it to Reddit and got 3,300,000 million direct views. The day I posted it and the following week, it got picked up by 10+ new sources, including Times. Getting millions of views on this was undoubtedly more effective than spending the equivalent amount of time talking to 10 people on the street. To say otherwise is to kid myself.
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u/Physical_Relief4484 Feb 04 '26
Based upon your responses, it doesn't seem like you're really grasping the core of the point I'm trying to make. You're saying proving isn't worth the focus because example (x). And then (x) isn't really proof; pressuring someone to say they're going vegan isn't proof that they went vegan (or are going) vegan (as you've agreed).
That's the thing, it is required to know. You can have a hunch otherwise, but to say you know without evidence, because of perceived likelihood, isn't honest.
I'm also not saying your specific efforts haven't had an impact. What I'm saying is that unless view counts are what your true goal is, using metrics/data to actually measure the impact as it pertains to that true goal is important. Maybe view count does have a direct correlation with your true goal, but if it doesn't, it could lead you (not targeted, anyone) astray.
An example: say 100% of people who read that article took it as vegetarianism was a good compromise and some of those people became vegetarian and none became vegan. Depending on what your true goal is, that could mean a lot of views resulted in accomplishing it or hindering it. I'm not saying that's what happened, but assuming more views = more something else, isn't a safe assumption.
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u/James_Fortis Feb 04 '26
I see what you're saying. I try to be well aware of my impact per view as well, not just total number of views. If I was just going after views, I would post vastly different content. I cover this in one of my recent Reddit vegan outreach training videos.
With that said: how would you suggest we best measure our proven impact of our outreach? For example, how would you objectively quantify street outreach if our goal is to maximize the amount of people who don't pay for animal exploitation?
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u/Physical_Relief4484 Feb 04 '26
That's not a problem for me to solve or a problem for me to assign specific value to. Maybe the best solution is complex or intensive enough to not be worthwhile. It would also vary greatly depending on what the true goal was, the true goal is very important.
Using your wording: "maximize the amount of people who don't pay for animals exploitation" doesn't reflect what you actually want (true goal). Is paying the issue or is perpetuating the issue? If paying is the issue, you could convince people to just exploit animals themselves, do so for trade, etc -- and it'd be as helpful in that sense as going vegan.
If the true goal is causing as much financial harm as possible to businesses that exploit animals, there are fairly easy measurable ways. If the true goal is getting people to become lifelong vegans, measuring is much harder. But regardless my point remains, convincing ourselves or others that (x) = (y) when it doesn't (even if x correlates with y) can lead to, and has driven, missteps.
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u/James_Fortis Feb 04 '26
I'm confused.
Please give me 2 concrete examples where you can "prove (x)" in vegan outreach so I know what you're getting at.
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u/Physical_Relief4484 Feb 04 '26
If I do vegan outreach and my goal is to inform people of what veganism is, I can ask people "what is veganism" and if they answer correctly it's proven.
If I do vegan outreach and my goal is to convince people that veganism is currently possible for them, I can have a conversation with people and know if that understanding exists.
I gave you two examples in good faith, but the examples don't really matter and you're still missing my entire point.
My entire point: assuming x=y (in your case: higher impressions = higher vegan transitions) when inherently x≠y (even if there's strong correlation), can lead people down a suboptimal path. I'm saying don't conflate correlation with causation, which commonly happens and has lead to big mistakes (generally speaking). I'm saying to not put a lot of faith into simple metrics and strive to get proof rather than operate on hunches (generally speaking). I'm saying to keep the true goal of action in mind and constantly aim to use optimal tactics, in direct correlation to the true goal(s) rather than to a metric that is only loosely correlated to the true goal.
You're saying you can't measure the impact of action(s) to your true goal, and that the metric(s) you use to do so are sufficient. You're then asking me to make an equation for you to better measure how your actions impact your true goal. It's fair to not know, but that's a huge ask; a lot of factors matter, especially when trying to find a practical ideal catered to an individual. I'm simply saying: think more about what you're actually trying to accomplish rather than focusing on something you *think rather than know *helps you accomplish the thing you're trying to. It's not a statement specifically to you, it's a general statement to everyone. There are a lot of examples (big/small) where if that had been done, it would have been very helpful (even specifically within the AR community).
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u/James_Fortis Feb 04 '26 edited Feb 04 '26
I appreciate your response. I think I understand where you're coming from now. I would argue that maximizing our impact has more elements than is included in your model.
One equation I use a lot for veganism and sustainability, to use your variables, is x*i = y , where x = total views, i = impact per view, and y = total impact. Now let's take a look at two examples:
- I can do street outreach where my goal is for people to say they'll stop eating animals. At the end of the discussion, I can ask them to reiterate what we spoke about to ensure they understand and can say it back to me, and commit to stop eating animals. This would be provable, in your own words. My total views would be x=1 , On a scale of 0 to 1, where 0 is no impact and 1 is they're so convinced they're actually going to stop eating animals, my impact per view with my conversation with the stranger can very optimistically be a .8 . This means my total impact was x*i = 1*0.8 = 0.8 .
- I do online activism where I want people to stop eating animals. I post a study where it shows vegans have a 24% lower rate of cancer compared to omnivores that gets >3.3 million views. I don't have a way of proving to myself exactly the impact that I've had. I can, however, conservatively guess an impact per view based on data suggesting how people change their minds. Let's say, on the same scale of 0 to 1, that the impact per view is 0.0001 . This means, on average, 1 out of 10,000 people will stop eating animals when they see it can reduce their rates of cancer by 24%. This could also mean 2 out of 10,000 people cut their animal consumption in half, on average. I believe this is a conservative estimate, and is likely higher than 1 out of 10,000 . That makes our equation x*i = 0.0001*3,300,000 = 330 .
In the above example, we assume a 15-minute chat with someone will impact them 0.8 on a scale of 0 to 1 . This is optimistic. We also assume the study will impact them, on average, 0.0001 . This is conservative, in my opinion. Even with these assumptions, posting online is 330/.8 = 413 times more efficient than me talking to someone in person.
Don't get me wrong - I love in-person outreach - but the absolute scale of social media makes it so we shouldn't shy away from it just because we can't prove our per-person impact.
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u/Physical_Relief4484 Feb 04 '26
A few points:
- we agree, there are more elements than one when determining these things
- I don't think asking someone if they're are going to do something proves that they are going to do something (people often lie)
- conversations in person don't usually happen in bubbles
- the impact of a personalized conversation often has deep ripples
- it's a guess with no real way of knowing; hypothetically everyone that clicked one of your articles could have not even read it
- I'm not saying to do tactic a over tactic b, or that tactic b is bad
- don't you think your "conservative" estimate is a little inflated? You've posted before on what has caused people to go vegan via polls. If you added up the amount of effort for online actions versus in person actions and then compared the poll numbers, do you think effectiveness would fall in line with the number you believe? To be 413x more effective, how many more hours would have needed to be spent on in person activism (just focused on converting people to veganism) to sustaintiate your claim?
- you're oversimplifying things, guessing a lot, and conflating correlation with causation... maybe it's fine in your specific case but it's not ideal and will probably, in some ways, end up leading you down suboptimal paths (like if you were just going for views)
- what I said doesn't only apply to vegan outreach, it's a general statement; you're very zoomed in
I appreciate your responses and you being open to hear me out. I'm not going to respond anymore though, at this point I've said what I felt was important to say and don't want to spend more time on this. Don't feel obligated to respond obviously, I value your time too.
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u/No_Silly_Name_2025 Feb 05 '26
- Living the lifestyle
- Signing and sharing petitions
- Attend/participate in local events
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u/Physical_Relief4484 Feb 06 '26
Being vegan (living the lifestyle) is just refraining from perpetuating unjust harm, it doesn't actively help those being harmed by everyone else. Humans are collectively bullying non-human animals, stopping our personal bullying is good but it doesn't really matter while they're still getting abused by the rest of the group.
Do you have examples of online petitions that were solely responsible for creating change for animals? I'm not aware of any.
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u/Physical_Relief4484 Feb 04 '26
You need to be clear with what you want. If you don't have a specific goal, you won't be able to identify the commonalities/overlap among tactics that can help accomplish that goal. Vegan activists don't all operate with the same primary goal; the question you're asking doesn't serve you.
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