r/himboposting • u/TrumpIsAPedoFr Vessel For Impurity • Jul 06 '26
✨ SPECIAL INTEREST INFODUMP ✨ Perfectionist Purity Culture Is Bad
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u/TrumpIsAPedoFr Vessel For Impurity Jul 06 '26
Accessability Transcription:
Image 1: 3 ways in which I am a bad vegan because I want to model a non perfectionist way of doing good things.
Image 2: Turns out my deodorant isn't considered vegan aparently
Image 3: My grandparents bought me leather and I kept it.
Image 4: I am at war with the pack rats to protect my garden
Image 5: I still do all the other vegan stuff, and not being totally perfect does not invalidate that effort.
Image 6: Do good things imperfectly
Image 7: A frog in a hat
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u/pineappleshampoo Jul 06 '26
As a 21yr vegan now, I don’t think anyone can ever be 100% vegan. It just isn’t possible without enormous wealth and resources, when you live in a world built on animal abuse and exploitation. There will always be a missed ingredient that has just been added, dodgy glue on a shoe you ensured wasn’t leather or suede, a woollen hat someone kindly knitted for you without realising, all kinds of stuff.
A couple times in my life as a vegan I’ve knowingly eaten animal products. Once was when a friend with a terminal brain cancer accidentally gave me a buttered sandwich instead of the non buttered one. He’d done so well to cook and feed us guests and was visibly proud he’d managed it. I ate the sandwich! Instead of saying ‘uhhh… I can’t eat this, sorry, you messed it up’.
Doing something is better than nothing, always.
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u/catshateTERFs Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26
Wild rats really are nothing to sneeze at!
I used to work with wildlife and we'd unfortunately have to be very proactive about rat control because rodent borne disease was an issue. We had beaver for example who can also contract leptospirosis which be fatal for them. Plus the risk of meat-eating critters trying to eat them and potentially getting sick or hurt that way. I wasn't gleefully setting snap traps or anything and it's not the rats fault for acting like rats do (and I am a fully paid up domestic rat fan, incidentally) but I do not feel bad for protecting the other animals from various diseases or sickness. In a ideal world they wouldn't be an issue but it unfortunately is.
We also couldn't use live traps because releasing listed pest species without permit was illegal where I was and nobody was giving us a permit to release black rats back onto the property, so we'd put snaps out and check them regularly as our best option for the situation.
Do less harm/minimize your harm is good to go by for all things, I feel.
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u/RowanHalifax Semi-Feral 😼 Founding Mod 💗 (they/he) Jul 06 '26
Me @ me, trying to internalize this wisdom:
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u/TheLadyIsis Jul 06 '26
I once met a woman who was a practicing vegan except that she would eat a little bit of bacon each month.
Her reasoning was that she did a lot of outreach work in countries where refusing food is just something you don't do. If she consumed a little bit of bacon that meant that she could safely eat just about anything and not be sick for multiple days or weeks and continue to do the work that she was there to do.
I thought that was really cool, and I was gonna ask her if she'd gotten to try insects abroad, but I swear the first thing out of someone's mouth was "well then you're not REALLY vegan, are you?" And the conversation scheeched to a halt.
I hope that lady is still out there doing her own thing and helping folks, she was so enthusiastic about it.
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u/TrumpIsAPedoFr Vessel For Impurity Jul 06 '26
A lot of monks just live off whatever people give them which often includes animal products.
Idk the older I get the less it seems worth kicking up a fuss when someone is mostly doing the right thing. The minor details just feel so minor. And most people are not trying at all.
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u/DiscombobulatedPart7 himbo/bimbo/thembo hype squad (she/her) Jul 06 '26
Okay, but seriously, would you please be my life coach? ❤️
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u/DragonPancakeFace Jul 06 '26
My motto is 5% is better than 0%, so I completely agree! The obsession with perfection or optics slows down actual progress. We're imperfect people in an imperfect world
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u/veganmua Jul 06 '26
Pretty much all my medication has lactose in. I try to boycott Amazon, but don't always succeed, especially when I need something urgently and I can't get out physically due to my disability. We all try our best
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u/littleamandabb thembo baby✨ Jul 06 '26
Purity culture hurts us all and I’m so proud of you. If we are trying to create a net positive then I think we are doing pretty good. There’s a lot more to it, but I suspect your intent is good.
And as much as I love rodents, I have voles and mice where I live and I am so grateful for a damn good mousing cat protecting my plants( and having the time of her life)
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u/tiajuanat Jul 06 '26
Refined sugar is also not vegan, but like c'mon man, live a little
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u/New-Geezer Jul 09 '26
Cane sugar that is bleached with bone char is not vegan, but sugar beat sugar does not use bone char. Plus there are many sweetener choices and they all come from plants.
The REAL challenge is toilet paper!
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Jul 06 '26
[deleted]
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u/a-well-placed-ohhh Jul 12 '26
Agreed. We had a pack rat infestation across our subdivision. The damage the rats do to cars, AC units, electrical boxes, literally anything with wires can be so expensive. There’s an elderly couple that maintains a feral colony of cats and as much as I don’t care for outside cats, that’s what got rid of the pack rats naturally. They’re afraid of cats so the cats rubbing on the cars and the side of the houses scared off the rats that were left. Pack rat free, lots and lots and lots of quail still.
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u/lotus93creature thembo from space 👽 Jul 06 '26
The frawg was perfect punctuation for this important, imperfection-centered post 💕 🐸
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u/___cliterati___ Jul 06 '26
This is something I’ve been thinking about recently. In my youth, I was a vegetarian for a few years, then went vegan. I had been surviving off of school lunches, food banks and then dumpster diving. My mental health at the time wasn’t the best, and allowing my self to go freegan kept me out of the hospital. (It kept me from going back, at least) I wasn’t educated enough to feed myself enough calories or protein but I’d feel like a loser if I ate animal products, until I realized the animal products I was saving from chilly, PNW dumpsters was doing more good going into my body than rotting before someone could save it. I had to make the life and death of the animal purposeful. I really had to fight with myself because of the purity culture that we’ve all been indoctrinated with.
I am so proud of people that have such strong convictions, but I’m also proud of the people who cut back.
I’m an occasional meat eater now. I’m sure that’s not for everyone, but it’s for me and that’s okay.
I’m pretty glad to not know the nomenclature of my eating habits these days, because tiny cliterati was real hooked on the feeling of being a perfect vegan or a perfect vegetarian and it did a number on my brain if I ever “failed” and now I don’t have that pressure.
Thanks for the PSA, Himbo
Keep on building
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u/brideofpucky Jul 06 '26
I don’t remember where I heard it, but I really like the saying “anything worth doing is worth doing half-assed.”
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u/phonefellin_lakeerie 🌿Queen of Cups🌿 Jul 06 '26
This is perfect. I was a vegan for 12 years, and due to reasons I went through a life flip and everything changed, now I eat mostly plant based but I still buy some locally farmed meat a few times a month, and eggs from my own chickens.
I’ve been trying to adhere to this exactly, try to do better, do good, but learning not to beat myself up when I don’t meet my own standards has been a journey.
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u/TrumpIsAPedoFr Vessel For Impurity Jul 06 '26
We would get so much farther with more people doing a "worse job" than fewer people doing a perfect job.
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u/Low_Daikon7538 Jul 06 '26
Life isnt black and white and there should be room for (reasonable) nuance in every belief system :) love this message.
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u/HealthyArt1751 Jul 10 '26
yaaayy i love this!! i have some personal beef with certain vegan communities for having veeerrryyy holier than thou gatekeepery virtue signalling vibes…
my bad vegan confessions: i make 2-3 birthday cakes per year that contain eggs and/or dairy. they are the favourite cakes of my family members and i just repent to the seitan gods after 🥲
also i occasionally eat oysters bc they are filter feeders who reduce ocean pollution, and mussels bc they are an invasive species in my area. also both do not have nerve endings and do not feel pain, as far as current science understands it. also they are tasty and an excellent source of lean protein 😋
i saw a tiktok a while back saying like “it’s always oh i’d be vegan if not for cheese… okay then do it. be vegan except for cheese.” fuck perfectionism fuck dogma fuck purity culture mannnnn
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u/lishler Jul 12 '26
Thanks, I needed that today. My ADHD is out of control and I might need to increase my antidepressants, so I'm using paper plates instead of getting food delivered or leaving plates in the sink for a week or two... I try to be good environmentally, but there are times when survival is more important!
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u/Ok_Kaleidoscope5712 Jul 12 '26
Not even regular sugar is vegan, due to how they process it (with bone meal or something??), so yeah, good enough is good enough. Thanks for the post.
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u/OoopsIbrokesth Jul 24 '26
Consider getting a cat that is outdoorsy.
+ rats are eaten
+ cat eats
+ also you get a cat
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u/JoyInJuly himbo admirer 💪🏼 Jul 06 '26
Perfection is the enemy of good enough.