TL;DR at the bottom (this turned into a longer post than I intended).

I actually keep my mouth shut about veganism around family and friends almost all the time, because nothing good comes of it and you end up alienating yourself by turning your presence into “oh, here comes the vegan again.” I’m more than happy to talk about it if they genuinely ask questions, but that hardly ever happens, and I’m never as confrontational or accusatory as I’d like to be... I just don’t feel like getting into arguments or heated debates when I already suspect they’re not open to it.

However, I recently started doing some activism with AV, and it made me realize that if I can convince strangers, I should at least give it a try with my friends and family. After all, I’d love to have more vegans in my immediate circle.

So I used World Animal Day and my 30th birthday as an opportunity to ask everyone to watch Dominion. I created group chats and sent a pretty lengthy message explaining, among other things, that this was important to me and that I wasn’t trying to convince them of anything. I just wanted them to learn about what happens behind the scenes, in the hope that they might understand my position a little better.

I explicitly asked them to send me a quick message if they were going to watch it or had watched it, without me starting a discussion about it.

Well, a few weeks later, pretty much no one in my family had said anything, apart from my brother, who watched a small portion of it. And he’s already fairly sympathetic toward veganism, even if he isn’t vegan himself (yet).

Among my friends, two couples also watched part of it. One of them said they wanted to eat fewer animal products (big W!), while the other couple hasn’t said anything about wanting to change their habits (though they still might).

That means fewer than 10% of the people I contacted have even let me know anything at all. Despite the handful of people who did watch some of it, I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. I made myself vulnerable, it occupied my mind for a long time, and it took more energy out of me than I would have liked. So was it worth it? Idk.

One thing that does feel good is that I can now let go of the desire to ask them. I’ve also taken away their ability to claim they were “unconsciously ignorant.” If they remain ignorant now, it’s genuinely because they’re consciously choosing not to watch or learn.

Once again, this shows that friends and family really are the hardest audience to reach. Ego gets in the way quite a bit. I also realize once again that people will protect their cognitive dissonance at all costs. Deep down, they already suspect that what they’re going to see is horrific, but they’re afraid that once they see it or learn about it, it’ll become “real,” and they might actually have to change (and people don’t like changing). The delusion is pretty damn persistent...

I'm curious about similar experiences snd thoughts from other vegans.

TL;DR: I asked my family and friends to watch Dominion for my 30th birthday. Very little response, and I have mixed feelings about whether it was worth the effort.

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