Yulin 2015

In recent news there has been a huge controversy surrounding the Yulin festival in China. This festival consists with the theft and cruel slaughter of dogs. Various celebrities such as Ricky Gervais and Ian Somerhalder have joined in on the campaign. I agree that this sort of festivals should stop, cruel massacre should never be acceptable, and they are slaughtering dogs, I say slaughter because there is no nicer way to put it, animals which are supposed to be man's best friends, but it's absolutely hypocritical on behalf of men to be standing up against this, but then immediately do it again, not with dogs, but cows, pigs and chicken.

I would like to clarify, I have been vegetarian since a little over two years ago, so I would like to be as unbiased as possible.

China has had a history of eating dogs for various years, yes, it's tradition, but it's a tradition that should be broken because they don't only kill "mans best friends" but they are stealing them from their owners, and killing an exaggerated amount of them, which should be unnecessary, they are purely doing it for the fun of it, however this is being disguised as making bad spirits go away. We can't absolutely stop a tradition that has been going on for decades, but we could change it. 

In recent years the consumption of dogs has decreased gradually, more and more people are keeping them for security or company, with only 8.2% of the population keeping them for consumption. I understand that change can't be made in one day, but we should hope that in the future, the next generation make things right, all we have to do is hope for the best. Ultimately, hopefully, this is a dying tradition.

As to why I think it's hypocritical, it's basically because we are only defending dogs because they are cute, why don't we make a big deal about killing cows and chicken, just because they are not as "cute" as dogs does it mean that we can kill them. These are animals, just like them, they breathe, eat reproduce, etc. so why should we kill cows too. We say we protect animals, but everyday people unconsiously are eating slaughtered animals, because nearly all of the meat that you buy from the supermarket comes from a factory farm.

So I would like to end by just asking a question why would slaughtering dogs be any different than cows, they are killed nearly the same way?

Change In The World

Earlier this week Ingrid Nilsen, a beauty guru that I have been subscribed to for quite a long time, came out as a lesbian. During all of the time that I was subscribed to her channel every time I watched one her videos I felt like something wasn't really there, now she finally let it all out and it's amazing, because she didn't only have to tell her close ones, but she had to tell this to a much larger audience.


Basically what I think is that, at least from what I can recall, she is the first female Youtuber of that scale, she has appeared in project runway and was featured in magazines, that has come out as gay. As soon as she first said it in her video you can absolutely feel all of the range of emotions that she is feeling, it nearly made me cry.

Truth is, that after seeing this video it made me want to look forward even more to her future video, we can finally meet the real Ingrid.

So, how can this actually change the world?

Because Ingrid was the first beauty guru to come out she is inspiring us to be ourselves, to not worry about what other people will say about us, and this will change the world because at least people from my generation, the youtube generation (at least that's what I think), will finally have someone that is that close to us, someone that we watched everyday that we arrived from school. Yes, the likes of Joey Graceffa, Connor Franta and Troye Sivan have come out, but they are not women, you can say all about gender equality, but it's not the same, we have to see a female figure that conquers her fears, and I think that Ingrid can become the new figure of change.

In her video she said "I want to live my life unapologetically, because I'm proud of who I am", that was the most powerful thing she said for me in the video, this can not only apply to this sort of situations, but because of this video she made me realize that we can't live repressed by the things that are around us, if we want to do something, we have to do it, if we want to love someone, love anyone, we have to live an “I want to live my life unapologetically, because I’m proud of who I am,” she says. and fearless life, and I know that I'm not there yet, but I hope that I get there one day.