My summer with PETA2, part two.
June 5th - 7th.
We had to be up and in the hotel lobby by 7am to walk to the headquarters and be ready to work by 7:30. I remember waking up and my brain automatically trying to negotiate its way out of getting out of bed, trying to convince me that my cellphone clock was wrong or something outrageous. But I got up and sluggishly got into my new dress shorts and a button-up shirt that I got at Goodwill a week or so before I left town. The girls left in the van so they could get Starbucks beforehand, so Bo, Michael, and I walked together. The first day of activist training was spent almost entirely inside the Pamela Anderson office, where Chris headed everything in a professional but fun way. We got a lot of reminders of what we were about to embark on, how things were going to work, and went over multiple pages of technical contracts that we had to sign. We did some introductory games so we could get to know one another better, such as one by one basic intros, "two truths and a lie", and getting into a circle where we each shared a particularly happy moment in our lives. It was nice and most of them seemed less detestable as the day went on. The two teams together consisted of Bo from Maryland, Michael from Kalamazoo, Sacha from Georgia/North Carolina, Tayler from Chicago, Adrienne from Florida, Jess from Virginia, Katie who was local, Kelli from Rockford, Natalia from Fredericksburg, Stephanie from Missouri, Tree from Boston, and our two tour administrators for the summer, Vivian from New Jersey and Ingrid from Colorado. I already adored Bo and Michael. Chris was a good leader even though this was his first year doing it. I found out that Sacha traveled by hopping trains a lot in his life and we instantly began bonding after that. He confirmed for me that he was a totally rude asshole, but a lovable one that I could actually get along with. His abrasiveness was pretty hilarious and watching him mope around doing whatever he wanted was fun. It was a relief knowing that he was on team one with me and wouldn't be shitty company. Kelli was plain and sweet and wearing a hoodie with a Heartegram on it, which I found to be odd. Adrienne was incredibly shy and even when she spoke it was almost silent, which I found to be very cute and endearing. Tayler had a lot of charisma that I knew would do her well on the team. Katie and Stephanie were so nice and uninterrupting that it was hard to even notice them at first. Natalia was ridiculously attractive and looked and acted a lot like Selena Gomez's character on Wizards of Waverly Place. She was best friends with Jess, who talked like a valley girl and was very pretty as well. She'd toured with PETA2 before already alongside the TAs and some of the others. She reminded me of the women who used to show up in old classic rock videos about partying. Tree was loud and always had a giant smile on her face. She had a confidence that I was incredibly envious of. It was such a diverse group of people all united by the single bond of veganism and the belief in animal rights, though two of them were only vegetarians and three of them smoked cigarettes that were distributed by RJ Reynold's, who funds testing on animals. I was trying to like everyone and not "vegan police" (as they would call it in the office), though.
We went on to a packet of "talking points"; facts about animal enterprise separated by division (fur, wool, leather, food, zoos, circuses, dairy, eggs, et cetera) that we all had to memorize for doing outreach. It was brief, but altogether pretty lengthy. Thankfully, I knew all of these facts already besides the details behind wool, which were pretty horrific. Chris had a tiny stuffed soccer ball that he had us throw to someone else randomly so they could read the next fact. These facts were hand-picked by PETA staff after being vigorously fact-checked. I found out that day that there was a organization-wide decision to stop saying "vegetarian" in their campaigns and it made me so happy. For lunch, we all got free sandwiches from some vegan restaurant: tofu with maple tempeh, lots of leafy greens, Vegenaise, and avocado. It was amazing, in part because it was free. The day ended with each of us taking turns discussing our challenges and highlights, which was something we'd do at the end of each day together. It sounded corny at first, but it clearly served a purpose and I actually really enjoyed it. All of us being open at the end of the day helped make us more comfortable around each other, I think. I didn't mention it as a challenge, but I was really disappointed and scared finding out that alcohol and drinking was allowed on the tour bus during the summer. While they claimed people would lose that privilege if something went awry, I didn't want drinking on the bus at all, for obvious reasons. It made me feel really uneasy, especially after everyone around me got excited upon hearing it and started chattering about how they were going to get trashed on the bus. I returned to my room with Bo and Michael. Michael went with Sacha and picked up a six-pack of Mickey's to drink all by himself. While Bo and I did have some fun trying to figure out the picture riddles underneath each cap, Michael got drunk pretty fast off of them and started acting obnoxiously loud, though he held his own in some philosophical discussions that arose here and there. I probably would have left the room had it not been for Bo. After a lengthy debate over whether or not we should blow a bunch of money on pizza delivery, we all decided to just go downstairs to Vegan House and order. We ran into Jess and Natalia on the way out and I sat back and watched Natalia blatantly flirt with Bo the entire time. I got a cowboy burger with cheese and fries and it was cheap and delicious. I sat on the bed and the five of us hung out in the room for a bit before the two girls left to drink or something. Michael put the film Perfume on his laptop and we watched it while doing our own thing on our respective laptops before all falling asleep. Bo and I didn't catch the ending, but that movie was pretty fucking good from what I saw.
The next morning when I woke up, it felt as if I hadn't slept at all somehow, even though I'd managed to fall asleep earlier than I had in months back at home. Thankfully, the day was more interactive and able to keep me awake or at least distract me from how tired I was. We got lengthy training on outreach, how to talk to kids at Warped Tour, how to deal with the inevitable assholes, "rules" about what we can and cannot say, and even did roleplaying with each other where one of us would play a kid in line and the other would play vegan outreach. I was so nervous prior to my turn that I was actually shaking a little bit, but I eventually volunteered myself just to get it over with after writing down a script of what I wanted to say and replaying it in my head. I tried to talk like I would to anyone else. With each individual we speak to, we're only supposed to interact with them for 90 seconds or less so as to make enough room to talk to our daily individual goal of 300 people. I didn't bother inserting numbers or heavy facts into it and instead combined talking points into something more digestable like, "I'm sure, like me, you love animals. Billions of them are killed every year for stupid shit like fur, leather, and even milk," before cutting them off before they could respond and ask if they got a text back. This year, in place of previous things like petitions and e-mail collecting, we're having kids text in. When they text our assigned word to 73822, they get an automated text back telling them that vegans save a hundred animals a year and that they've won one of two prizes: a strapless bag with the famous PETA motto on it or a rubber wristband that says "FUCK YEAH, I ❤ ANIMALS". After this, they are subscribed to a text mailing list where PETA2 will not only answer any questions they have 24 hours a day, but will also hit them up randomly with recipes or facts that are relevant to current events and holidays. The reason they do this is to be able to collect numbers to show to their donors, as well as because their studies have shown that kids in the age range of 12-21 don't really communicate by e-mail anymore in comparison to text messaging. Each of us were subject after our turn at roleplay to hear from everyone "what went well" in our situation and "what could be improved on". Thankfully, no one had anything to really criticize and many of them thought I was both funny and did well at being brief and getting straight to the point. It was a relief and from that point on I felt pretty good about outreach, even if it meant doing it to upwards of 500 kids a day.
A PETA2 elder of ours, Shannon, came in and gave us a hilarious but realistic presentation on what tour life was like. It all sounded awesome to me. It was a lot like hitchhiking, except we would have a giant air conditioned rock star tour bus to go home to each night and I was getting kids to go vegan in between traveling to different cities and eating delicious vegan food. That day for lunch, we got deep-dish pizza, which wasn't as good as I'd hoped it'd be. We got to meet the vice president of PETA, who was very smiley even though the entire room was too tired to muster even the fakest of enthusiasm upon her introduction. We also got to hear Marta, the leader of PETA2, talk to us for a bit. She was gorgeous with a mesmerizing smile and was clearly a very hard worker in the animal rights movement as far as all the things PETA2 accomplishes each year with their youth-driven campaigns. The day commenced with a mandatory viewing of Gary Yourofsky's presentation that has since gone viral on YouTube and labeled "The greatest speech you will ever hear". It definitely got me pumped just as much as the first time I saw it for being vegan and getting others to change their lives for animals. I hoped desperately that some of the things he said and showed sent pangs of guilt into the hearts of the two vegetarians in the room. After the day was over, all of us who had never done outreach before along with the TAs, Chris, and Tylor started loading up the PETA anti-circus van for our first festival of outreach. I had no idea until the day before, but they had it set up so us newbies would be out in the field after only two days of activist training. Oddly, I felt as prepared as I was nervous. All of us as a team loaded the tent, the literature, stickers, merch, et cetera, into one van while another white sixteen-passenger with the back empty got loaded up with our luggage and bags. We were heading right out to Bakersfield, a middle-class part of southern California where a two-day festival in its second year was happening, Rockin' Roots. The lineup was eclectic with a few shitty bands I didn't even know still made music peppered around. The first night's headliner was Circa Survive; the second night's was New Found Glory and Of Mice & Men. I was stoked to be setting out on a road trip.
After everything was loaded in and accounted for, most of us got into the white van together. It was me, Michael, Natalia, Kelli, Tayler, Adrienne, and Ingrid driving, while Chris, Tylor, and Vivian controlled the van full of stuff. I was granted shotgun, which was nice, and I got to watch the scenery while air conditioning blasted into me. After a three-hour drive, we ended up in some area of chains for dinner. Everyone chose Chipotle, which I wasn't really interested in eating even with the promise of soyfritas, which is marinated tofu exclusive to Californian Chipotles. Natalia was even more aggressively anti-Chipotle. She sat in a chair with her lip pouted and her arms crossed like a little brat. There wasn't an ATM to be found and we were unfortunately going to be paying for this ourselves, so I had to go find money. On a whim, I asked Natalia if she wanted to go explore with me and maybe find food elsewhere, and she immediately jumped on the opportunity. We walked through some little dirt lot across the way to a P.F. Chang's that didn't have an ATM and then to a Target that did. On the way, we talked a lot. She was really cool. Aside from being the designated babe of the team, she was actually pretty fucking hilarious and not (as) ditzy or vapid I initially assumed based on her well-maintained appearance. She was pretty misanthropic and we bonded over hating things. She told me I was the smartest vegan person she'd ever met, which was nice. In the process, we found a Panera and decided to eat there together, which was obviously a thousand times better than anything I could have gotten at a fucking Chipotle. It was nice sitting and getting to know her a little better, and totally weirder to imagine her growing up in a small Virginian town like Fredericksburg, which is a town we could both talk about since I grew up going there almost every summer to spend time with my mother's drunken redneck half of the family. Ingrid texted me eventually and said we needed to get our asses back to the van. Natalia said something cute about them, "ruining our date."
We got to our hotel later that night and checked in. Thankfully, Michael and I had an entire two-bedroom room to ourselves. It was a suite with a flat-screen and even a couch. The bathroom was huge and the entire thing was ten times the room we had back in LA. I couldn't believe how well we were being treated as interns. We both took glorious showers and crashed in our huge beds pretty early.
We all met back up in the lobby at 9am. I had mistakenly trusted Michael and his alarm enough to rely on it, but wound up waking with ten minutes to get ready because he shut it off. Our first stop as a group was to a Trader Joe's so we could each spent about $40 each on groceries for ourselves to sustain us through the weekend. PETA was paying, thankfully. We all took about a half hour to shop. I grabbed a loaf of wheat bread, some Tofurkey, a thing of roasted red pepper hummus, strawberries, a pack of hotdogs. I ended up only spending about half of what I was offered. I stood around outside under the bright and hot sun, squinting painfully from how it reflected off the concrete. A homeless guy on a bike came by and asked if we had any spare change, so I offered him some strawberries, which he was still very grateful for. Chris and Tylor came out from next door with a shopping cart full of gallons and gallons of water for us to each have. And then we were off to the venue! Thankfully, our spot was designated not too far from the gate entrance we were to park outside of and we had lots of trees hanging over where we would be setting up. Right across from us was a taco truck that would be serving food, as well as the bathrooms, conveniently enough. Behind us was the beer garden, which was helpful to us if for no other reason than it offered us lots of room to sit when we needed to and easy access to loads of people who would inevitably be crowding behind us for alcohol throughout the day. Next to the taco truck was a small stage that I looked forward to being able to hear music from while I'd be around the tent. We all immediately got together as a team and started setting up the tent. It was cool to watch others coming and going standing in place and watching us, likely wondering, "What are those PETA people up to today?" Everything came together smoothly and we were done way ahead of time after piles of zip ties and palms hitting PVC pipes into place. For a two-festival, the outdoor venue we were in was relatively small. Even the headliner stage was pretty tiny, especially compared to the other stages scattered around. We all got together and roleplayed a little in preparation of heading out to a real line of people for the first time ever. I mostly stuck with Natalia and we exchanged a few scenarios. She was really nervous, but I tried to keep telling she was doing really well. I thought she was, at least. I roleplayed with Chris and Tylor, two experienced vegan outreachers with PETA2, and they tried to give me a hard time. Thankfully, I'm quick-witted enough to handle any obstacle. I felt good getting through them and just having Tylor around to talk to made everything I was going to spend the day doing go down smoother. Tylor was tall and smiley and another straightedge vegan AFI fanatic. Literally every day I'd seen him he had been adorned in at least three articles of AFI merch. I haven't yet told him that I hate that band because we otherwise have everything in common from anti-theism to our love of bees to our enjoyment of the '80s music playlist that was blasting next to us from a stage being set up across the way.
Each of us grabbed a sign with an assigned word; mine was "gross", appropriately enough. We had to walk around the entire place to get to the other side where lines were supposed to be forming. Rounding one corner, we came across something that was too horrifically ironic for a PETA2 to find: the smelly corpse of a small bushy-faced terrier whose insides were already beginning to eject from their orifices. They had to have been hit by a car or something, but how they got to the sidewalk by some flowers and underneath the shade of the trees around them was a mystery. I turned around and tried to stop the rest of the group from continuing, but next thing we knew Tylor had discovered that only a foot or two away from the body was a live dog of the same breed, emaciated with matted hair, panting behind a bush. The two dogs were clearly stray and likely together. One could even imagine the live dog may have dragged their dead companion over to the sidewalk. Tylor immediately got on the phone with the 24-hour PETA "Animals In Need" pager (757-434-6285), which will call you back within minutes to assess your situation and tell you what is best to do or to give you the proper numbers for your particular area to call for assistance. He gave the poor little dog some water to drink and the dog was more than happy to receive some pets. The rest of us were told to keep going towards lines. When we got there, no line really existed yet. We tried to stop a few people who were on their way, confused and trying to figure out where they were supposed to line up or park. Natalia immediately got a text in from a person driving a car. The first people I saw, a couple, just told me they were too hot to do anything I was asking them to do, which was a bummer. The second people I talked to stared at me coldly whenever they weren't avoiding eye contact. Some slob of a girl stood there with her glasses on and monotonally responded to my script with things like, "But God said we could eat the animals." To which I responded, "Then why did he give them the ability to feel pain?" She coldly said back, "I don't make animals feel pain; I just eat them." A few seconds later, she said, "I hate animals." I was clueless as to what to say to that, so I just asked one more time if they wanted some free stuff from us before they went in for the day. It was a horrible start to the day, honestly.
However, the rest of the line went pretty smoothly with the exception of a few people whose providers wouldn't allow them to text in. From that point on, everyone I interacted with was pretty receptive and cooperative and I was able to go from one or two people at once to the next in about 45 seconds. Kids were pretty cool with the wristbands and our utter stickers with the letters WTF?! on them. We had to put those stickers on each kid we talked to; they were their free entrance into our funhouse tent and helped other kids we hadn't yet spoken to begin to wonder what the hell the utters meant and where to get them. I tried to stay underneath the shade of some of the trees hanging over the cobwebbed fence everyone was lining up against and awaited the kids coming in from around the corner. It wasn't that bad. We were there for about two hours before it was time to head back to the tent. Throughout the day, I had short shifts alternating with the others working inside of the tent and going out and doing outreach while walking around. The temperature got over 100 degrees for a large portion of the day and I could feel my skin heating up even with the layer of Kiss My Face sun tan oil rubbed into me. I was filling up and drinking an entire Nalgene of water every half hour, but I was talking to a lot of kids. Inside the tent was especially fulfilling. To see it in action for the first time erased any concern in my mind that PETA had wasted their money and six months worth of planning and design had been in vain. Kids were lined up and we were busy pretty continuously throughout the day. Inside, my job was to direct kids to take pictures as a zoo animal, try the dead baby coat on, and stamp their faces with blood red tears, all while connecting the dots between what they were laughing about with the realities of animal enterprise.
"Take a picture as a sad zoo animal."
"This coat signifies fur and leather coats; it can take up to forty dead little animals to make one stupid coat."
"These blood tears are to remind you that there are products out there that still pour toxic chemicals into the eys of tiny animals like bunnies just because they're weak, disposable, and cheap."
I remember when one kid walked in, saw the dead baby coat hung up in front of our banner, which included a real picture of a cow having their throat slit, standing there wide-eyed and muttering, "That's a really good fucking point." A lot of kids had fun in there, a lot were grossed out by everything they saw. Every time they'd decline one of the parts of the inside of the tent, I'd respond, "Yeah, no one wants to be a zoo animal... not even zoo animals," or, "Yeah, no one wants to wear pieces of dead things on them," or, "Yeah, no one wants to cry blood." At one point, a young lesbian couple came in, one of them in the process of eating a pepperoni pizza. As I slowly guided them through the tent, I mentioned how good vegan pizza was and motioned to my body to show them just how much I love pizza as a vegan. "Yeah, I've always wanted to try vegan pizza!" the girl said. Her girlfriend's face cringed more and more and by the time they were about to exit, she said to her partner in the most disgusted tone, "Have fun eating that pizza!"
An older woman and her daughter came in, too. Surprisingly, they wound up being the most interested of the entire day and kept coming back. Talking to them inside the tent, they shared with me that they had many animals back at home. The daughter even told me she made efforts to always buy cruelty-free after I motioned to the bunny image. The mother seemed mortified, but totally reeled in. I stood with her and said, "We all love animals, regardless of how we currently live our lives. We all have a deep connection with them. Some of us just aren't aware of how bad things really are and how we can change to help protect them." She shook her head in agreement and later bought a shirt. I met a vegetarian or two who assured me they would be working on going vegan, as well as an ex-vegan who got off track because her doctor told her she, "needed more protein," that had to come from either chicken or fish. I asked her, "It felt bad eating meat again, didn't it?" and directed her to talk to an actual nutritionist and to watch Forks Over Knives on Netflix. I could sense her guilt. I talked to almost 400 kids that day out on the field and at the tent and even though I felt like I was burning alive and on the verge of death a lot of the time, seeing how receptive to what I was telling them they were and how hard the imagery and metaphors of the tent hit even the youngest of them welled my heart up to the point that I thought I'd burst. To stand there and be able to witness the precise moment that synapses are firing and they are putting two and two together for the first time is priceless. We did meet one vegan the entire day and she was a total sweetheart. Standing outside of the tent for a little while, being the "carnival barker" and trying to get people to text in and then get inside our tent, I could see kids exiting from the games and literature table section of things. It was so satisfying to see groups of kids standing around in a bundle with our literature opened up, pointing to things to their friends and discussing it.
I didn't get lunch until 2:30. I felt so sick to my stomach that I couldn't even get through my Tofurkey sandwich. Three or four of the girls had already vomited, but I was feeling pretty steady. The stage across from us seemed to exclusively have all-white reggae bands play, and each set lead to an overwhelming blast of weed smoke to come floating our way, which mixed with the fried chicken smell made me feel pretty light-headed and awful. Out in the field, I kept running into straightedge kids. Every time I'd notice a shirt or tattoo, I'd go up to them and talk about straightedge, then tell them about caso-morphins in their cheese. All of them ate it up, nodding their heads and raising their eyebrows, exclaiming, "Yo, it is addictive!" The younger ones were even more interested in what I had to say as I told them how straightedge was one of the things that got me into veganism. A young girl who had found me and told me she liked my beard several times that day hung around me. Her name was Sydnie and she was a total cutie. She kept making little flirty comments that I just couldn't take seriously for the life of me, including trying to talk me out of doing my work. We hated people together while I stood with my sign under the shade of a tree where a lot of kids were seeking sanctuary from the heat. I would kneel down and say, "Hey, since y'all are just chillin' out, wanna text in and get some free stuff from me?" Across from me was a stand with the douchiest shirts imaginable: designs including "UNITED STATES MILITARY METALHEAD" and "CHUG WHISKEY, EAT PUSSY, WORSHIP SATAN". It made my stomach turn, but the kids ate it the fuck up.
By the end of the day, the guy who owned the taco truck loved us and lots of kids we'd talked to kept saying hi and wanting to talk to me. It felt good. As the sun set, it cooled down. A ska band called Suburban Legends played across from us with choreographed stage dancing and a small skanking pit below them. It was fun to chill out with Tylor and enjoy it while cooling down a bit. Natalia volunteered to dress up as a pig as we walked around and handed out free literature, stickers, and DVDs. Breakdowns were erupting all around us and kids from all corners were running up to take pictures and hug the person in the pig outfit. Of course, there had to be that one group of bros who tried to talk their friend into grabbing the pig's ass. Later, when Vivian got into the outfit, a shirtless and muscular bro walked by and nonchalantly slapped her ass as hard as he could. It made me want to cut his fucking arm off. At the end of the night, Circa Survive played, a band I hadn't heard since high school, and we stood by the exit with giant signs and handed out little packages of literature, stickers, and DVDs to every single kid who walked by. A lot of it wound up on the ground and it broke my heart, but I knew even more of them went home with these kids and that some of them would actually read it. At the end of the night, we had to take down all the games. Thankfully, we could leave most of our stuff set up overnight and just put the rest inside, zipped up. I don't think I'd ever been that exhausted in my life, but it felt so good at the same time. We sat around the table together as everyone cleared out and had our nightly meeting. A lot of them looked destroyed and one or two of them were already saying things about going home, but I think the nightly meeting made everyone feel a little better. As we all walked out to our vans, fireworks began going off over us. It was pretty cool. I'd been on my feet in unbearable weather, talking to hundreds of kids over the course of thirteen hours and had only eaten some strawberries and most of a single sandwich, but I knew I was ready for a second day. It was nice feeling like I was part of something bigger for a change. I'd changed a few lives on the Internet, sure, but face-to-face was a whole other experience. Michael and I fell asleep pretty early, but both made sure to eat some more food and take showers. I was covered in sunburn.
Oh, and by the way, that sad dog was eventually picked up by animal control. They were either mercifully euthanized or helped and eventually adopted out. Unfortunately, we can't ever know what wound up happening to them in Bakersfield, but Tylor did all he could and that dog is no longer suffering thanks to him.
I forced a candid on all of them outside of Trader Joe's. Left to right: Kelli, Tayler, Michael, Adrienne, Natalia.
Natalia as a pig.
An Instagram post collage by Tylor.
We had to be up and in the hotel lobby by 7am to walk to the headquarters and be ready to work by 7:30. I remember waking up and my brain automatically trying to negotiate its way out of getting out of bed, trying to convince me that my cellphone clock was wrong or something outrageous. But I got up and sluggishly got into my new dress shorts and a button-up shirt that I got at Goodwill a week or so before I left town. The girls left in the van so they could get Starbucks beforehand, so Bo, Michael, and I walked together. The first day of activist training was spent almost entirely inside the Pamela Anderson office, where Chris headed everything in a professional but fun way. We got a lot of reminders of what we were about to embark on, how things were going to work, and went over multiple pages of technical contracts that we had to sign. We did some introductory games so we could get to know one another better, such as one by one basic intros, "two truths and a lie", and getting into a circle where we each shared a particularly happy moment in our lives. It was nice and most of them seemed less detestable as the day went on. The two teams together consisted of Bo from Maryland, Michael from Kalamazoo, Sacha from Georgia/North Carolina, Tayler from Chicago, Adrienne from Florida, Jess from Virginia, Katie who was local, Kelli from Rockford, Natalia from Fredericksburg, Stephanie from Missouri, Tree from Boston, and our two tour administrators for the summer, Vivian from New Jersey and Ingrid from Colorado. I already adored Bo and Michael. Chris was a good leader even though this was his first year doing it. I found out that Sacha traveled by hopping trains a lot in his life and we instantly began bonding after that. He confirmed for me that he was a totally rude asshole, but a lovable one that I could actually get along with. His abrasiveness was pretty hilarious and watching him mope around doing whatever he wanted was fun. It was a relief knowing that he was on team one with me and wouldn't be shitty company. Kelli was plain and sweet and wearing a hoodie with a Heartegram on it, which I found to be odd. Adrienne was incredibly shy and even when she spoke it was almost silent, which I found to be very cute and endearing. Tayler had a lot of charisma that I knew would do her well on the team. Katie and Stephanie were so nice and uninterrupting that it was hard to even notice them at first. Natalia was ridiculously attractive and looked and acted a lot like Selena Gomez's character on Wizards of Waverly Place. She was best friends with Jess, who talked like a valley girl and was very pretty as well. She'd toured with PETA2 before already alongside the TAs and some of the others. She reminded me of the women who used to show up in old classic rock videos about partying. Tree was loud and always had a giant smile on her face. She had a confidence that I was incredibly envious of. It was such a diverse group of people all united by the single bond of veganism and the belief in animal rights, though two of them were only vegetarians and three of them smoked cigarettes that were distributed by RJ Reynold's, who funds testing on animals. I was trying to like everyone and not "vegan police" (as they would call it in the office), though.
We went on to a packet of "talking points"; facts about animal enterprise separated by division (fur, wool, leather, food, zoos, circuses, dairy, eggs, et cetera) that we all had to memorize for doing outreach. It was brief, but altogether pretty lengthy. Thankfully, I knew all of these facts already besides the details behind wool, which were pretty horrific. Chris had a tiny stuffed soccer ball that he had us throw to someone else randomly so they could read the next fact. These facts were hand-picked by PETA staff after being vigorously fact-checked. I found out that day that there was a organization-wide decision to stop saying "vegetarian" in their campaigns and it made me so happy. For lunch, we all got free sandwiches from some vegan restaurant: tofu with maple tempeh, lots of leafy greens, Vegenaise, and avocado. It was amazing, in part because it was free. The day ended with each of us taking turns discussing our challenges and highlights, which was something we'd do at the end of each day together. It sounded corny at first, but it clearly served a purpose and I actually really enjoyed it. All of us being open at the end of the day helped make us more comfortable around each other, I think. I didn't mention it as a challenge, but I was really disappointed and scared finding out that alcohol and drinking was allowed on the tour bus during the summer. While they claimed people would lose that privilege if something went awry, I didn't want drinking on the bus at all, for obvious reasons. It made me feel really uneasy, especially after everyone around me got excited upon hearing it and started chattering about how they were going to get trashed on the bus. I returned to my room with Bo and Michael. Michael went with Sacha and picked up a six-pack of Mickey's to drink all by himself. While Bo and I did have some fun trying to figure out the picture riddles underneath each cap, Michael got drunk pretty fast off of them and started acting obnoxiously loud, though he held his own in some philosophical discussions that arose here and there. I probably would have left the room had it not been for Bo. After a lengthy debate over whether or not we should blow a bunch of money on pizza delivery, we all decided to just go downstairs to Vegan House and order. We ran into Jess and Natalia on the way out and I sat back and watched Natalia blatantly flirt with Bo the entire time. I got a cowboy burger with cheese and fries and it was cheap and delicious. I sat on the bed and the five of us hung out in the room for a bit before the two girls left to drink or something. Michael put the film Perfume on his laptop and we watched it while doing our own thing on our respective laptops before all falling asleep. Bo and I didn't catch the ending, but that movie was pretty fucking good from what I saw.
The next morning when I woke up, it felt as if I hadn't slept at all somehow, even though I'd managed to fall asleep earlier than I had in months back at home. Thankfully, the day was more interactive and able to keep me awake or at least distract me from how tired I was. We got lengthy training on outreach, how to talk to kids at Warped Tour, how to deal with the inevitable assholes, "rules" about what we can and cannot say, and even did roleplaying with each other where one of us would play a kid in line and the other would play vegan outreach. I was so nervous prior to my turn that I was actually shaking a little bit, but I eventually volunteered myself just to get it over with after writing down a script of what I wanted to say and replaying it in my head. I tried to talk like I would to anyone else. With each individual we speak to, we're only supposed to interact with them for 90 seconds or less so as to make enough room to talk to our daily individual goal of 300 people. I didn't bother inserting numbers or heavy facts into it and instead combined talking points into something more digestable like, "I'm sure, like me, you love animals. Billions of them are killed every year for stupid shit like fur, leather, and even milk," before cutting them off before they could respond and ask if they got a text back. This year, in place of previous things like petitions and e-mail collecting, we're having kids text in. When they text our assigned word to 73822, they get an automated text back telling them that vegans save a hundred animals a year and that they've won one of two prizes: a strapless bag with the famous PETA motto on it or a rubber wristband that says "FUCK YEAH, I ❤ ANIMALS". After this, they are subscribed to a text mailing list where PETA2 will not only answer any questions they have 24 hours a day, but will also hit them up randomly with recipes or facts that are relevant to current events and holidays. The reason they do this is to be able to collect numbers to show to their donors, as well as because their studies have shown that kids in the age range of 12-21 don't really communicate by e-mail anymore in comparison to text messaging. Each of us were subject after our turn at roleplay to hear from everyone "what went well" in our situation and "what could be improved on". Thankfully, no one had anything to really criticize and many of them thought I was both funny and did well at being brief and getting straight to the point. It was a relief and from that point on I felt pretty good about outreach, even if it meant doing it to upwards of 500 kids a day.
A PETA2 elder of ours, Shannon, came in and gave us a hilarious but realistic presentation on what tour life was like. It all sounded awesome to me. It was a lot like hitchhiking, except we would have a giant air conditioned rock star tour bus to go home to each night and I was getting kids to go vegan in between traveling to different cities and eating delicious vegan food. That day for lunch, we got deep-dish pizza, which wasn't as good as I'd hoped it'd be. We got to meet the vice president of PETA, who was very smiley even though the entire room was too tired to muster even the fakest of enthusiasm upon her introduction. We also got to hear Marta, the leader of PETA2, talk to us for a bit. She was gorgeous with a mesmerizing smile and was clearly a very hard worker in the animal rights movement as far as all the things PETA2 accomplishes each year with their youth-driven campaigns. The day commenced with a mandatory viewing of Gary Yourofsky's presentation that has since gone viral on YouTube and labeled "The greatest speech you will ever hear". It definitely got me pumped just as much as the first time I saw it for being vegan and getting others to change their lives for animals. I hoped desperately that some of the things he said and showed sent pangs of guilt into the hearts of the two vegetarians in the room. After the day was over, all of us who had never done outreach before along with the TAs, Chris, and Tylor started loading up the PETA anti-circus van for our first festival of outreach. I had no idea until the day before, but they had it set up so us newbies would be out in the field after only two days of activist training. Oddly, I felt as prepared as I was nervous. All of us as a team loaded the tent, the literature, stickers, merch, et cetera, into one van while another white sixteen-passenger with the back empty got loaded up with our luggage and bags. We were heading right out to Bakersfield, a middle-class part of southern California where a two-day festival in its second year was happening, Rockin' Roots. The lineup was eclectic with a few shitty bands I didn't even know still made music peppered around. The first night's headliner was Circa Survive; the second night's was New Found Glory and Of Mice & Men. I was stoked to be setting out on a road trip.
After everything was loaded in and accounted for, most of us got into the white van together. It was me, Michael, Natalia, Kelli, Tayler, Adrienne, and Ingrid driving, while Chris, Tylor, and Vivian controlled the van full of stuff. I was granted shotgun, which was nice, and I got to watch the scenery while air conditioning blasted into me. After a three-hour drive, we ended up in some area of chains for dinner. Everyone chose Chipotle, which I wasn't really interested in eating even with the promise of soyfritas, which is marinated tofu exclusive to Californian Chipotles. Natalia was even more aggressively anti-Chipotle. She sat in a chair with her lip pouted and her arms crossed like a little brat. There wasn't an ATM to be found and we were unfortunately going to be paying for this ourselves, so I had to go find money. On a whim, I asked Natalia if she wanted to go explore with me and maybe find food elsewhere, and she immediately jumped on the opportunity. We walked through some little dirt lot across the way to a P.F. Chang's that didn't have an ATM and then to a Target that did. On the way, we talked a lot. She was really cool. Aside from being the designated babe of the team, she was actually pretty fucking hilarious and not (as) ditzy or vapid I initially assumed based on her well-maintained appearance. She was pretty misanthropic and we bonded over hating things. She told me I was the smartest vegan person she'd ever met, which was nice. In the process, we found a Panera and decided to eat there together, which was obviously a thousand times better than anything I could have gotten at a fucking Chipotle. It was nice sitting and getting to know her a little better, and totally weirder to imagine her growing up in a small Virginian town like Fredericksburg, which is a town we could both talk about since I grew up going there almost every summer to spend time with my mother's drunken redneck half of the family. Ingrid texted me eventually and said we needed to get our asses back to the van. Natalia said something cute about them, "ruining our date."
We got to our hotel later that night and checked in. Thankfully, Michael and I had an entire two-bedroom room to ourselves. It was a suite with a flat-screen and even a couch. The bathroom was huge and the entire thing was ten times the room we had back in LA. I couldn't believe how well we were being treated as interns. We both took glorious showers and crashed in our huge beds pretty early.
We all met back up in the lobby at 9am. I had mistakenly trusted Michael and his alarm enough to rely on it, but wound up waking with ten minutes to get ready because he shut it off. Our first stop as a group was to a Trader Joe's so we could each spent about $40 each on groceries for ourselves to sustain us through the weekend. PETA was paying, thankfully. We all took about a half hour to shop. I grabbed a loaf of wheat bread, some Tofurkey, a thing of roasted red pepper hummus, strawberries, a pack of hotdogs. I ended up only spending about half of what I was offered. I stood around outside under the bright and hot sun, squinting painfully from how it reflected off the concrete. A homeless guy on a bike came by and asked if we had any spare change, so I offered him some strawberries, which he was still very grateful for. Chris and Tylor came out from next door with a shopping cart full of gallons and gallons of water for us to each have. And then we were off to the venue! Thankfully, our spot was designated not too far from the gate entrance we were to park outside of and we had lots of trees hanging over where we would be setting up. Right across from us was a taco truck that would be serving food, as well as the bathrooms, conveniently enough. Behind us was the beer garden, which was helpful to us if for no other reason than it offered us lots of room to sit when we needed to and easy access to loads of people who would inevitably be crowding behind us for alcohol throughout the day. Next to the taco truck was a small stage that I looked forward to being able to hear music from while I'd be around the tent. We all immediately got together as a team and started setting up the tent. It was cool to watch others coming and going standing in place and watching us, likely wondering, "What are those PETA people up to today?" Everything came together smoothly and we were done way ahead of time after piles of zip ties and palms hitting PVC pipes into place. For a two-festival, the outdoor venue we were in was relatively small. Even the headliner stage was pretty tiny, especially compared to the other stages scattered around. We all got together and roleplayed a little in preparation of heading out to a real line of people for the first time ever. I mostly stuck with Natalia and we exchanged a few scenarios. She was really nervous, but I tried to keep telling she was doing really well. I thought she was, at least. I roleplayed with Chris and Tylor, two experienced vegan outreachers with PETA2, and they tried to give me a hard time. Thankfully, I'm quick-witted enough to handle any obstacle. I felt good getting through them and just having Tylor around to talk to made everything I was going to spend the day doing go down smoother. Tylor was tall and smiley and another straightedge vegan AFI fanatic. Literally every day I'd seen him he had been adorned in at least three articles of AFI merch. I haven't yet told him that I hate that band because we otherwise have everything in common from anti-theism to our love of bees to our enjoyment of the '80s music playlist that was blasting next to us from a stage being set up across the way.
Each of us grabbed a sign with an assigned word; mine was "gross", appropriately enough. We had to walk around the entire place to get to the other side where lines were supposed to be forming. Rounding one corner, we came across something that was too horrifically ironic for a PETA2 to find: the smelly corpse of a small bushy-faced terrier whose insides were already beginning to eject from their orifices. They had to have been hit by a car or something, but how they got to the sidewalk by some flowers and underneath the shade of the trees around them was a mystery. I turned around and tried to stop the rest of the group from continuing, but next thing we knew Tylor had discovered that only a foot or two away from the body was a live dog of the same breed, emaciated with matted hair, panting behind a bush. The two dogs were clearly stray and likely together. One could even imagine the live dog may have dragged their dead companion over to the sidewalk. Tylor immediately got on the phone with the 24-hour PETA "Animals In Need" pager (757-434-6285), which will call you back within minutes to assess your situation and tell you what is best to do or to give you the proper numbers for your particular area to call for assistance. He gave the poor little dog some water to drink and the dog was more than happy to receive some pets. The rest of us were told to keep going towards lines. When we got there, no line really existed yet. We tried to stop a few people who were on their way, confused and trying to figure out where they were supposed to line up or park. Natalia immediately got a text in from a person driving a car. The first people I saw, a couple, just told me they were too hot to do anything I was asking them to do, which was a bummer. The second people I talked to stared at me coldly whenever they weren't avoiding eye contact. Some slob of a girl stood there with her glasses on and monotonally responded to my script with things like, "But God said we could eat the animals." To which I responded, "Then why did he give them the ability to feel pain?" She coldly said back, "I don't make animals feel pain; I just eat them." A few seconds later, she said, "I hate animals." I was clueless as to what to say to that, so I just asked one more time if they wanted some free stuff from us before they went in for the day. It was a horrible start to the day, honestly.
However, the rest of the line went pretty smoothly with the exception of a few people whose providers wouldn't allow them to text in. From that point on, everyone I interacted with was pretty receptive and cooperative and I was able to go from one or two people at once to the next in about 45 seconds. Kids were pretty cool with the wristbands and our utter stickers with the letters WTF?! on them. We had to put those stickers on each kid we talked to; they were their free entrance into our funhouse tent and helped other kids we hadn't yet spoken to begin to wonder what the hell the utters meant and where to get them. I tried to stay underneath the shade of some of the trees hanging over the cobwebbed fence everyone was lining up against and awaited the kids coming in from around the corner. It wasn't that bad. We were there for about two hours before it was time to head back to the tent. Throughout the day, I had short shifts alternating with the others working inside of the tent and going out and doing outreach while walking around. The temperature got over 100 degrees for a large portion of the day and I could feel my skin heating up even with the layer of Kiss My Face sun tan oil rubbed into me. I was filling up and drinking an entire Nalgene of water every half hour, but I was talking to a lot of kids. Inside the tent was especially fulfilling. To see it in action for the first time erased any concern in my mind that PETA had wasted their money and six months worth of planning and design had been in vain. Kids were lined up and we were busy pretty continuously throughout the day. Inside, my job was to direct kids to take pictures as a zoo animal, try the dead baby coat on, and stamp their faces with blood red tears, all while connecting the dots between what they were laughing about with the realities of animal enterprise.
"Take a picture as a sad zoo animal."
"This coat signifies fur and leather coats; it can take up to forty dead little animals to make one stupid coat."
"These blood tears are to remind you that there are products out there that still pour toxic chemicals into the eys of tiny animals like bunnies just because they're weak, disposable, and cheap."
I remember when one kid walked in, saw the dead baby coat hung up in front of our banner, which included a real picture of a cow having their throat slit, standing there wide-eyed and muttering, "That's a really good fucking point." A lot of kids had fun in there, a lot were grossed out by everything they saw. Every time they'd decline one of the parts of the inside of the tent, I'd respond, "Yeah, no one wants to be a zoo animal... not even zoo animals," or, "Yeah, no one wants to wear pieces of dead things on them," or, "Yeah, no one wants to cry blood." At one point, a young lesbian couple came in, one of them in the process of eating a pepperoni pizza. As I slowly guided them through the tent, I mentioned how good vegan pizza was and motioned to my body to show them just how much I love pizza as a vegan. "Yeah, I've always wanted to try vegan pizza!" the girl said. Her girlfriend's face cringed more and more and by the time they were about to exit, she said to her partner in the most disgusted tone, "Have fun eating that pizza!"
An older woman and her daughter came in, too. Surprisingly, they wound up being the most interested of the entire day and kept coming back. Talking to them inside the tent, they shared with me that they had many animals back at home. The daughter even told me she made efforts to always buy cruelty-free after I motioned to the bunny image. The mother seemed mortified, but totally reeled in. I stood with her and said, "We all love animals, regardless of how we currently live our lives. We all have a deep connection with them. Some of us just aren't aware of how bad things really are and how we can change to help protect them." She shook her head in agreement and later bought a shirt. I met a vegetarian or two who assured me they would be working on going vegan, as well as an ex-vegan who got off track because her doctor told her she, "needed more protein," that had to come from either chicken or fish. I asked her, "It felt bad eating meat again, didn't it?" and directed her to talk to an actual nutritionist and to watch Forks Over Knives on Netflix. I could sense her guilt. I talked to almost 400 kids that day out on the field and at the tent and even though I felt like I was burning alive and on the verge of death a lot of the time, seeing how receptive to what I was telling them they were and how hard the imagery and metaphors of the tent hit even the youngest of them welled my heart up to the point that I thought I'd burst. To stand there and be able to witness the precise moment that synapses are firing and they are putting two and two together for the first time is priceless. We did meet one vegan the entire day and she was a total sweetheart. Standing outside of the tent for a little while, being the "carnival barker" and trying to get people to text in and then get inside our tent, I could see kids exiting from the games and literature table section of things. It was so satisfying to see groups of kids standing around in a bundle with our literature opened up, pointing to things to their friends and discussing it.
I didn't get lunch until 2:30. I felt so sick to my stomach that I couldn't even get through my Tofurkey sandwich. Three or four of the girls had already vomited, but I was feeling pretty steady. The stage across from us seemed to exclusively have all-white reggae bands play, and each set lead to an overwhelming blast of weed smoke to come floating our way, which mixed with the fried chicken smell made me feel pretty light-headed and awful. Out in the field, I kept running into straightedge kids. Every time I'd notice a shirt or tattoo, I'd go up to them and talk about straightedge, then tell them about caso-morphins in their cheese. All of them ate it up, nodding their heads and raising their eyebrows, exclaiming, "Yo, it is addictive!" The younger ones were even more interested in what I had to say as I told them how straightedge was one of the things that got me into veganism. A young girl who had found me and told me she liked my beard several times that day hung around me. Her name was Sydnie and she was a total cutie. She kept making little flirty comments that I just couldn't take seriously for the life of me, including trying to talk me out of doing my work. We hated people together while I stood with my sign under the shade of a tree where a lot of kids were seeking sanctuary from the heat. I would kneel down and say, "Hey, since y'all are just chillin' out, wanna text in and get some free stuff from me?" Across from me was a stand with the douchiest shirts imaginable: designs including "UNITED STATES MILITARY METALHEAD" and "CHUG WHISKEY, EAT PUSSY, WORSHIP SATAN". It made my stomach turn, but the kids ate it the fuck up.
By the end of the day, the guy who owned the taco truck loved us and lots of kids we'd talked to kept saying hi and wanting to talk to me. It felt good. As the sun set, it cooled down. A ska band called Suburban Legends played across from us with choreographed stage dancing and a small skanking pit below them. It was fun to chill out with Tylor and enjoy it while cooling down a bit. Natalia volunteered to dress up as a pig as we walked around and handed out free literature, stickers, and DVDs. Breakdowns were erupting all around us and kids from all corners were running up to take pictures and hug the person in the pig outfit. Of course, there had to be that one group of bros who tried to talk their friend into grabbing the pig's ass. Later, when Vivian got into the outfit, a shirtless and muscular bro walked by and nonchalantly slapped her ass as hard as he could. It made me want to cut his fucking arm off. At the end of the night, Circa Survive played, a band I hadn't heard since high school, and we stood by the exit with giant signs and handed out little packages of literature, stickers, and DVDs to every single kid who walked by. A lot of it wound up on the ground and it broke my heart, but I knew even more of them went home with these kids and that some of them would actually read it. At the end of the night, we had to take down all the games. Thankfully, we could leave most of our stuff set up overnight and just put the rest inside, zipped up. I don't think I'd ever been that exhausted in my life, but it felt so good at the same time. We sat around the table together as everyone cleared out and had our nightly meeting. A lot of them looked destroyed and one or two of them were already saying things about going home, but I think the nightly meeting made everyone feel a little better. As we all walked out to our vans, fireworks began going off over us. It was pretty cool. I'd been on my feet in unbearable weather, talking to hundreds of kids over the course of thirteen hours and had only eaten some strawberries and most of a single sandwich, but I knew I was ready for a second day. It was nice feeling like I was part of something bigger for a change. I'd changed a few lives on the Internet, sure, but face-to-face was a whole other experience. Michael and I fell asleep pretty early, but both made sure to eat some more food and take showers. I was covered in sunburn.
Oh, and by the way, that sad dog was eventually picked up by animal control. They were either mercifully euthanized or helped and eventually adopted out. Unfortunately, we can't ever know what wound up happening to them in Bakersfield, but Tylor did all he could and that dog is no longer suffering thanks to him.
I forced a candid on all of them outside of Trader Joe's. Left to right: Kelli, Tayler, Michael, Adrienne, Natalia.
Natalia as a pig.
An Instagram post collage by Tylor.