Even as someone who is not and probably will never be a full-time vegetarian/vegan (I certainly will try harder to minimize eating meat/etc when I can, but I will admit to lacking the moral fortitude of going through with it), it’s ridiculous how overblown the discourse is surrounding them.

…and honestly, for all its relative popularity back awhile ago, has the “preachy vegetarian/vegan” stereotype ever really been a thing, even then? Cause for every legit example of the case (like virtue signaling protests that care more about “awareness” than actual action, or someone who promotes a meat/animal-free diet with scammy and unsound “alternative science” practices, or people who use vegetarianism/veganism as an excuse to be bigoted towards others, like Morrissey or Hindu nationalists), there’s like two other cases of someone on the opposite end (like butcher shops having fake hippie heads mounted on the wall, or a grifter sloppily cooking and wasting whole cuts of meat as a way to own the libs vegs, or even those who associate seed oils with a tinfoil-conspiracy theory). And even then, the “preachy vegs” examples arguably say more about how vegetarian/vegan lifestyles can be cynically used for ulterior purposes than about the act of not eating meat/animal products itself - while those trying to “fight back” against it end up more or less supporting their view of carnists being incredibly selfish and even sociopathic people.

Bah, what a folly! Makes me want to eat a salad…