Many, many years ago, when I was a much younger and happier man, I worked successively in three bookstores. Somewhere in that time, Oprah Winfrey started her now infamous book club. I can remember the love/hate relationship that all of us bookstore snobs had with her and the whole idea. Sure, promoting reading was a good thing, and selling large quantities of new books was a good thing too, right?
But we always had a kind of snobbish distaste for all of the mindless people wandering into the store asking for “the latest Oprah book.” Or setting up the “Oprah’s Book Club” displays in the front of the store and slapping “Oprah’s Book Club” stickers on the front covers of those books. I guess our main problem with it was the age old conundrum of what to do when something hip and elitist goes mainstream. If our moms are doing it, then it can’t be cool anymore, right? And the other problem with it was the notion of doing something simply because a celebrity tells you to. If people are that easily swayed, and if that is the only way mainstream America can be made to try something different, then that is all the more reason to continue to be cynical about my fellow humanity.
So then I read about her 21-day vegan challenge. Seriously, first it was books, now it’s veganism. Next thing you know, she’ll be telling everyone to become an atheist and move to Portland. Why won’t this woman leave me and my lifestyle alone?
5 Comments
Awesome, well said. The idea of mainstream America following the advice of a celebrity just because they said so sounds quite distasteful…. However, let’s not discount the fact that she’s planting a seed of vegan thought in her audience’s head, that’s a good thing, she’s passing along the knowledge, right? But yeah, I see your point, I’d hate to have someone 5 years from now get into a discussion with me about veganism and ask me how I learned about it or got into it… then I tell them Opera told me about it. That’d be kind of embarrassing wouldn’t it? I’d much rather tell them that it was self realisation, and something that has always concerned me and did it on my own (which is the truth). But hey, just think of the percentage of people she may convert, if one omni converts thats great, but lets just hope it’s for the right reasons, animal rights and vegan ethics, not just a new fad diet. I wonder if this new book covers that aspect, or if it’s just a “healthy/diet” book? I would think she’s be sendng the wrong message if that were the case, eh?
when i went vegan 2 years ago i wasn’t sure what i was going to eat, but it has been waaaaay better than i thought it would be. almost everything i had when i was eating meat i am still eating, but without the animal products (cheesesteaks from govindas in philadephia, bacon cheeseburger from foodswings in brooklyn,nyc, chicken parm from greenlight in trenton, nj. since going vegan i haven’t had one cold or flu, and am much more relaxed than before
My coworkers live and breathe Oprah. I guess I’ll be ok with this cleanse if she eventaully mentions animal cruelty (and avoids “happy meat”). All the same, if she can get the masses from eating “three meals with meat per day” to any amount less….that’s good thing, right? May be she’ll make us some real vegans and they’ll do some research and find the rest of us and do it for more than just their waist lines.
I can hope.
Reminds me of going vegan after watching Peta’s “meet your meat”. I try not to bring up the whole Peta thing after the sexism, and the piggly wiggle incident. The other vegans will tell the new vegans how problematic she is, like how I found out about Peta.
~Brad
I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t want every single one of her worshipers to jump on jolly ol’ Oprah’s bandwagon of “compassion”. I especially saw potential for all those shallow moms out there to finally understand what those damn meddlin’ kids were up to. It didn’t take long before I developed a pessimistic fear of her high potential for “ex-veganism”. Somehow I envisioned her sitting down with her audience and smugly declaring that she had learned from the experience, but that the lifestyle is just too extreme. Let’s hope she proves us all wrong.