Against meatposting
Progressives who glorify meat consumption are doing free PR for a highly-polluting industry working tirelessly to keep polluting.
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My brain can’t take any more hard news this week, so today I want to do something a little different.
I want to talk about meatposting.
Meatposting is word I made up just now. It refers to the practice of posting pictures of meat on social media with captions that glorify its consumption. Like, a picture of a grill top covered in hot dogs on the 4th of July with the caption “HELL YEAH AMERICA!!” Or a picture of a salami-filled charcuterie board captioned “ALL THE MEAT!!”
My politically progressive friends post stuff like this all the time. And I gotta be honest: I think it’s super cringey! So today, with BBQ season fast approaching, I’m going to explain why it irks me when people who care about the climate crisis make big stupid meatposts. And subscribers, I’d love to hear what you think in the comments.
(Also, for the inevitably triggered conservatives and climate deniers who read this headline and think I’m trying to police your eating habits: I don’t actually care what you do. This post is not for you. Relax.)
The meatpost that started it all
I was inspired to talk about meatposting today because, a few weeks ago, a friend who works in the climate activism space sent me this meme on Instagram:
It bothered me. So I wrote back, “Ew.” My friend responded: “What’s wrong with a massive viking charcuterie?” Here’s the conversation that followed:
If you can’t see the image, I signaled that I was about to step onto a soapbox. Then I said I thought publicly flaunting meat consumption was “like flaunting filling up your car’s gas tank and being like “hell yeah gas!”
My friend, who is the most lovely and good-natured person ever, responded:
[Sees soapbox come out, checks surroundings and sees that there is a climate crisis, looks down at shirt glamorizing meat consumption, realizes is the bad guy, hangs head in shame].
I should’ve checked myself before I wrecked myself.
What meatposting actually glorifies
My friend, to be clear, is not the bad guy. Like all climate-concerned meatposters, he simply forgot that meat is basically fossil fuels, except more delicious. It is a thing society uses every day but that is fueling a climate crisis causing massive human suffering, particularly among vulnerable populations.
Industrial animal agriculture is one of the largest sources of water contamination in the country. It is a massive contributor to drought in the West; the #1 reason for Brazilian Amazon deforestation; and responsible for up to 18 percent of global carbon pollution. It has been a huge source of suffering and death for workers, particularly during the pandemic. If meat and dairy consumption continue apace, there could be an 80 percent spike in global agricultural greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2050.
Climate-concerned meatposters forget this because meat culture is powerful. In America, we’re taught from a young age that the coolest thing in the world is to be a big man with a big car who eats big meat. This is part of our deeply embedded culture of petromasculinity. It’s why people still get weirdly furious when you suggest eating carrot hot dogs instead of regular hot dogs on the Fourth of July.
So I have great empathy for meatposters. I used to be one myself. If you scroll back far enough, my Instragram is a treasure trove of bleeding steaks, tender chops, and glistening loins. The pictures were all meals I made as acts of care for those I loved, particularly men. Of course I wanted to share them.
But eventually, as my climate reporting career went on, it no longer seemed ethical to actively encourage that behavior with enthusiastic social signaling. I stopped meatposting as an act of care for those I loved, and as an act of defiance against the powerful industry it benefited.
Meatposting is free PR for a high-polluting industry
My annoyance with meatposting is not about the fact that individuals choose to eat meat. We live in a society that makes it very difficult to live a totally climate-friendly life, and no one should be shamed for what they choose to fuel their body with.
My annoyance with meatposting is about the fact that it unnecessarily glorifies one of the most climate-polluting industries in America. Not only that, it glorifies an industry working tirelessly to prevent regulations that would reign in their pollution.
“It is astounding, the level of fear and pushback from the meat industry on our efforts to address the very real, substantial climate impacts of meat production,” Kari Hamerschlag, deputy director of the food and agriculture program at Friends of the Earth, told InsideClimate. “They don’t want to cede an inch on climate change.”
The fossil fuel industry has to rely on sophisticated PR teams to distract the public from their climate misdeeds, and to give them social license to operate. The meat industry has meatposters to do some of that work for free. And unlike the fossil fuel industry, the meat industry gets social media love from all over the political spectrum: not just conservatives and climate deniers. They don’t have to worry about social license to operate. You give it to them every time you post a picture of your plate.
Catch of the Day:
Fish and I wish you a lovely weekend.
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Ok just want to CLARIFY that I don’t think meat in general is necessarily bad and that I’m talking specifically about factory farming when I’m talking about what contributes greatly to climate change and water pollution and human suffering. I thought I was pretty clear about that but lots of people seem to think I am generally meat bashing, which sorry to my veg followers, is just not the case. If you make a post about meat and say “and I got this from a sustainable farm,” that’s cool. That’s not a meatpost, at least not in the way I think about it. It’s like posting a pic without a mask at an indoor gathering. If you do it without explanation, it’s cringe. but if you clarify, “we’re all vaccinated!” Or “this is my bubble!” It’s whatev.
Even as a vegetarian, I think I disagree with this post to some extent. And it doesn't have anything to do with meat bashing.
The world still uses fossil fuels for nearly 80% of our energy needs. And if I dig deep enough or trace the supply chain of every product on every post, I am almost certain that I will find fossil fuels and associated emissions deeply embedded. So, then the question is largely about the degree of embedded emissions that is deemed acceptable for a post. This is an arbitrary standard. For example, you explained below that "if people say that the meat was from a sustainable farm, then it's okay to post pics of meat". It would be far too easy for anyone to craft boundaries in such a way that any post could be made out to be glorifying fossil fuels. And herein lies the fundamental problem of policing individual action - who decides what is okay?
As an immigrant and a person of color, I think about this issue a lot. I sometimes post "Insta-worthy" pics when I travel internationally to meet my family on the other side of the world. I do not think posting that picture is glorifying fossil fuels, even if the activity (air travel) is highly emissions intensive. On a similar vein, I do not think posting excitedly about meat (whether it's a family cookout or a bbq with friends after a year of isolation) is glorifying fossil fuels. It is okay to celebrate the joys of a life enabled by fossil fuels while acknowledging and advocating for a rapid transition to clean energy.
On a broader note, I think this distracts from the desperate need for policies that address some of the harms of factory farming. Whether it's better conditions for animals or standards for feedlot operations, my belief is that our efforts are better directed at addressing systemic issues than call each other out based on perceived excesses in their instagram posting.