Why Do People Pretend to Be Vegan?
People love accusing vegans of virtue signalling.
Apparently, refusing to treat animals as resources is showing off. Refusing to buy someone’s body, milk, eggs, skin or forced labour is attention seeking. Saying “animals are not property” is performative.
But a new Faunalytics report points to something far more revealing. Across 837 nationally representative sources, covering 58 countries over 10 years, researchers found a gap between people who identify as vegan or vegetarian and people whose behaviour actually matches that claim.
In Europe, 1.65% of people, on average, claimed to be vegan. Only 1.01% followed an animal-free diet. In North America, 3.24% claimed to be vegetarian. Only 0.75% actually abstained from flesh. So the question is not just: why are people confused?
The question is: why are people claiming a label attached to a justice movement they are not actually living by? Because veganism is hated loudly, but respected quietly.
People mock vegans because veganism exposes something they would rather not inspect. It says animals are someone, not something. It says exploitation is not made acceptable by habit, taste, law, culture or convenience. It turns “normal” into something grotesque. That makes people defensive. But the moral status of veganism still exists underneath the backlash. People know, at some level, that rejecting animal exploitation is the right side of the argument. They may not want to do it. They may resent being reminded of it. They may spend half their time sneering at vegans online. But some still want the credit. They do not want to be vegan. They want to be seen as the kind of person who would be vegan.
This is not unique to veganism. People do the same with feminism, anti-racism, environmentalism, class politics and every other justice issue where the label has moral weight. They want the identity without the inconvenience. The status without the sacrifice. The language without the principle.
And yes, this is exactly the behaviour trolls accuse actual vegans of. The people rejecting animal exploitation are not the ones signalling. They are changing behaviour. They are refusing to participate where they can. They are accepting the social consequences of saying no. The signal is claiming veganism while still using animals.
The signal is taking the moral credit while animals continue to be treated as commodities.
The identity-behaviour gap is not just a data problem. It is a mirror. It shows that veganism has moral force even among people who resist the practice. It shows that the idea is powerful enough for people to borrow, even when they refuse the principle.
The issue is not that too many people want to look vegan.
The issue is that too few are willing to stop using animals.