Flashback Friday: Attack of the Vegans

KB8/02/2019 7:53 PM

Seeing KFC getting ruthlessly Pol Potted and brutally Zedonged on social media by Lebron fans simply for calling him “weird” (or something like that) filled me with an oddly overwhelming sense of schoolyard jealousy. It’s hard to put into words, but there is ~~white claw~~ truly no feeling in the world, to me, that compares to the methesque rush of making a joke that’s so powerful that it effectively ruins the moods of a large group of people who don’t even know you personally — to the point where they want to lash out at you violently? Yum. I think KFC was making more of an “opinion” than a “joke” but you get the point.

(KFC = Kevin Clancy, but the thought of the fast food chicken chain getting viciously cyber-bullied by furious LeBron fans just nudged my mood a little past baseline)

Let’s rewind to an era where my primary (and only) hobby was attempting to achieve, to virtually no avail, what Kevin accomplished so effortlessly this past weekend. A time period where I scratched and clawed for the easiest targets possible; where I searched and gathered for the lowest hanging fruits to use as the ingredients in my homemade trollberry pie.

It was the dog days of summer 2016 in the bustling metropolis of Kent, Ohio. I had just finished up my senior year of college and was getting ready to start the next chapter of my senior year of college. I was at that awkward age where half of my friend group was getting full time jobs and settling down, and the other half was spending the majority of my free time orchestrating elaborate prank schemes via text message on strangers from Craigslist in hopes of going viral on Twitter. I really don’t need to go into detail; if you’re a dude in your mid-to-late 20s than you can relate. Common man shit.

Let me start my typing this: I had nothing against the vegan community as a whole. I respected, and still respect, their lifestyle and dietary choices/restrictions. As someone who spent 4–5 months every wrestling season refraining from all food and sustenance, let alone animal-based products, I considered myself one of them in a way. An intermittent vegan if you will.

With that typed, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t mightily attracted to exploiting the vulnerability of the vocal minority of the Vegan religion who wore their extraordinarily high trigger sensitivity on their locally-sewed sleeve. They were the LeBron stans of the Obama era, I guess, but unfortunately for me, not nearly as hostile or aggressive. I wanted war but got protest; I craved blood but got pollen; yearned for outrage and got...well, I guess I at least obtained that.