"Soy boy" - a case study of how the meat and dairy industries weaponized a meme for profit

[Varallo]

I see. It's very hard to answer when you put it that way.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions; anything good could be co-opted for profit.

I'd still focus on deforestation and perhaps some real policies that promote sustainable agricultural practices.
However, I know how this world operates and what's going to happen. Ultimately, it all depends on local growers and how they work.
Vote with your wallet should apply here. If you truly believe in a cause, invest in it.

I love soy, but everything we touch often becomes a problem. It's not that meat is inherently bad; our approach to meat farming is bad.
We need to focus on education, a good social environment, sound ethics, and much more. It's up to civilization builders, but my voice feels muted.
It looks like making weapons and fighting among ourselves takes priority

Edit: Sorry for pooping on this thread with my ideology. I see that you found soy a good product & cause. All the best, really.
I'm sure you'll be healthier and more content eating something you believe in. My feeble attempt was to point out the complexity of this topic.
People who have the time and means to choose their food are blessed. Enjoy and be grateful. That's my main message, I feel.

Well the thing is that to protect the forest from becoming soybean or palm oil plantations the most effective way to do that is to decrease the amount of lifestock since you would be decreasing the demand for soybeans dramatically.

I agree, but animal products have their place. In northern countries, meat and fish are primary food sources.

That may have been true in the past, but it doesn’t necessarily hold up today. The greenhouse gas emissions from food transport are generally quite low, often less than 5% of the total impact. So, for example in my research I see quite regularly that produce transported from southern to northern Europe can actually have a smaller carbon footprint than locally grown alternatives, all depending on how they’re produced.

Anyway, these are wicked problems, complex and difficult to solve.

 

[Here&Now]

I'm speaking way out of school and I'm sure there's more nuance than I understand, but intuition tells me that if we stopped using soy and other plants for feeding livestock, we'd still have to continue to cut down forests and grow those products if we plan to eat those foods ourselves. Especially if they're going to replace the animals we were previously eating.

 

[Here&Now]

I've done some quick research. Seems that livestock eat an absurd amount of soy, so current studies indicate there'd be quite a large drop in needed production if humans started eating it directly.

 

[Nydex]

I've done some quick research. Seems that livestock eat an absurd amount of soy, so current studies indicate there'd be quite a large drop in needed production if humans started eating it directly.

Indeed. In general, if humanity completely stops all meat and dairy production and replaces it with entirely plant-based or artificial alternatives, deforestation will be decreased dramatically. Still, not all deforestation will stop simply because of fossil fuels and palm oil production, but it will become much less of a problem than it is right now.

Edit: Sorry for pooping on this thread with my ideology. I see that you found soy a good product & cause. All the best, really.
I'm sure you'll be healthier and more content eating something you believe in. My feeble attempt was to point out the complexity of this topic.
People who have the time and means to choose their food are blessed. Enjoy and be grateful. That's my main message, I feel.

That's alright, no need to apologize. You didn't poop on the thread, you provided your perspective, a large part of which I agree with. There's no need to get hung up on the details. My point with this thread was not to glorify plant-based foods or change how people eat, but to debunk a few myths related to soy, highlight its health benefits, and explore how a meme can be weaponized by corporations to protect revenue streams.

 

[northape]

Implementation is much harder than theory, though. Even if we all understand something, it doesn't mean things are going to change.
Sure, we can work for a better future and spread knowledge. But ultimately, we're not in control. Life is finite.
I see the possibility to make my own choices. Influencing the world at large is out of my reach. Something like that.
How do you feel about these issues?

 

[Here&Now]

I suppose my past does make me a little biased. I was a strict vegetarian for over 10 years, and I tried being a vegan for about a year as well. It was mostly sustainable except for the veganism, which simply didn't agree with me health-wise. But I continued to have dreams throughout that time where my subconscious implored me to eat meat. It was like some kind of primal urge from a deeper aspect of my mind. It slowly whittled away at me mentally until I one day randomly just started eating meat again.

That's probably the most unscientific explanation for why someone would switch back and prefer meat, lol. But I guess I can at least say I tried, and probably a lot more so than most of the population.

 

[Varallo]

I'm speaking way out of school and I'm sure there's more nuance than I understand, but intuition tells me that if we stopped using soy and other plants for feeding livestock, we'd still have to continue to cut down forests and grow those products if we plan to eat those foods ourselves. Especially if they're going to replace the animals we were previously eating.

Cows especially are very inefficient, you lose about 95% (I heard, not my personal research) of the calories, and they produce large quantities of methane, so you have an extra negative feedback loop.

Implementation is much harder than theory, though. Even if we all understand something, it doesn't mean things are going to change.
Sure, we can work for a better future and spread knowledge. But ultimately, we're not in control. Life is finite.
I see the possibility to make my own choices. Influencing the world at large is out of my reach. Something like that.
How do you feel about these issues?

Things are already changing enormously, and it’s going much faster than most people realize right now. It’s not going fast enough yet, but things really are changing in an extreme way. When it comes to solutions, of course, it’s always very difficult. Depending on which books you read, you’ll often see that in transitions, and that’s what we’re in right now, the biggest influence comes from shaping the narrative. People need to start thinking differently about how we see the world and how we experience the world, and through that, we can change our reality.

Of course, it’s quite understandable that not everyone will gain a position of power on such a scale that they can actually change things on a very large level. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. From my experience, I really see that if you have the will, you’re capable of changing big things. And sometimes that takes a lot of hard work, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done.

At the same time, we’ll see that many of these changes feel slow. And that has to do with the fact that it’s a very complex transformation of systems. We’re now seeing changes in recent years that are bigger than what you saw during other peak moments in history. So the changes around World War II, technological shift, those kinds of things, what’s happening now is going unimaginably faster. And you can also sense that people sometimes can’t keep up with that.

So don’t lose hope, because hope is truly a verb.

 

[northape]

I was a strict vegetarian for over 10 years

I was a vegetarian for a few years, but I actually lived mostly on coffee
The problem with imported greens is that they are kind of empty of nutrients. I know this because we started to grow our own.
Not all meat is created equally, either. Wild game is very distinct from factory-farmed meat and satiates differently.
That's where I ended up given my life situation. Thanks for that, because my food was much worse before.

So don’t lose hope, because hope is truly a verb.

I'm trying, but it's honestly a hard task for me

 

[Transform]

So don’t lose hope, because hope is truly a verb.

But Hope is a village in Derbyshire Speaking of which, sheep are a good way of turning elevated grassland into protein - even if they're a socioecological catastrophe of their own. It was slow-roasted, greek-style, very local lamb one Easter that put an end to my veganism. And it was heavenly! I'll still get along happily on a vegetarian diet for weeks at a time, but once in a while I'll know that there's a nutritional need best fulfilled by an flesh product, be that (ideally) shellfish, fish, game, or local, free-range meat (almost always chicken or lamb).

Vegan "meat" imitations from a factory are most definitely not the answer, if you ask me. Delicious masoor dhal is so easy to cook at home, for one thing. Tofu and tempeh have already existed for centuries, for another - so there are countless recipes to try out there as well.

Except I'm suddenly craving cheese

One more thing, it almost seems like a luxury that I get to eat wild plants out of my garden, with perennial fruit bushes and trees making for an annual treat to top it all off. Gleditsia needs to go onto my list of perennial harvesting, come to think of it. Beans from a tree, basically.

Forest permaculture gardening ftw!

 

[CosmicRiver]

Thanks Nydex for your research. I didn't even knew that soy had all essential aminoacids. There is a lot of misinformation on vegan diet. But really i should say disinformation because i too suspect that much of it is intentional. The meat and dairy industries are too big not to lobby governments. And they do focus on the little things. For example in my country soy milk, oat milk etc have to be called "soy/oat-based beverage" on packaging because of such lobbying. So it seems likely that they would help spread such memes along with antivegan opinions of social media through paid individuals or bot activity. Akin to what fossil fuel industries have done and are doing.
Speaking about others' experiences i can relate, because i was vegetarian for 4 years and then switched to vegan for a year and lost a lot of weight; then one day i was at a friend's house and his grandma (who didn't know i was vegan) gave me home-raised chicken to eat and as soon as i did i felt a need to keep eating it and it kind of felt good for me. Now i think that i had that response to chicken because i was being very low on protein in my diet since i can't cook very well so i relied on processed vegan foods and didn't include any protein powder, plus no complete omega-3 integration. The point here IMO isn't if our bodies are "made" to function without meat because probably that isn't the case (even if the same thing could be said on dairy and on high meat consumption); the point is if it's the right thing to do in this time period with all these alternatives and the possibility to avoid unnecessary suffering to fellow animals. The confusion on these topics doesn't help and is functional to the meat/dairy industry. At the same time, people who say to just go vegan without addressing the potential struggles don't help either because they make it look too simple and when people see it doesn't go well they become antivegan.

 

[blig-blug]

I do some "anthropological observations" in some internet backwaters, and what @Nydex has concluded about the soyboy meme campaign aligns with some of what I've seen. However, the soyboy meme has gone beyond soy, and it also is used to criticize attitudes of conformity and overconsumption that I'm more sympathetic too.

However, all these meme campaigns are likely being influenced by many organized groups, from industrial lobbies as observed here to state and political actors. So in my opinion, the best way to handle any current meme campaign with social or political implications is to NOT spread it and NOT engage with it, regardless of any possible sympathy one could feel towards the apparent implications. It's just not possible to know what one may be playing into and what the real interests or ends are.

Memes can be funny (and I do enjoy many funny memes) but other than that are a terrible way to approach any important topic. They tend to cloud and make difficult real communication. I think we (humans) should aspire to more than parroting and repetition of witty memes.

About the soy and meat issue: in my opinion, the whole debate exists to focus the issue on consumer choices instead of systemic issues. To put blame on individuals and let the whole insane machine keep churning, accumulating capital, and going towards ever more perfected techniques of human behavior management. And I say that as someone that gets almost all his protein from soy.

 

[Transform]

Now here's something: soya's not a viable crop to grow in my region, but I've always loved broad beans ('garbanzos'?) since I was a kid. This may be a complete tangent now, but I've just put the pieces together that it could their DOPA content that might be an important factor for me, what with the association between dopaminergic deficiency and ADHD.

But what I'm really saying is that globally imported foodstuffs grown in mass monocultures will have sustainability issues, albeit that eliminating the step of feeding plants to 'meat animals' is a significant improvement.

Human activity in maintaining a nutrition base looks like a plate-spinning game that's on the verge of coming crashing down. Secure local alternatives, and get used to eating less.

in my opinion, the best way to handle any current meme campaign with social or political implications is to NOT spread it and NOT engage with it, regardless of any possible sympathy one could feel towards the apparent implications.

 

[CosmicRiver]

About the soy and meat issue: in my opinion, the whole debate exists to focus the issue on consumer choices instead of systemic issues. To put blame on individuals and let the whole insane machine keep churning, accumulating capital, and going towards ever more perfected techniques of human behavior management. And I say that as someone that gets almost all his protein from soy.

i agree and even here it's similar to the fossil fuel industries, even if on the other hand all these industries exist because they have consumers to sell to

Now here's something: soya's not a viable crop to grow in my region, but I've always loved broad beans ('garbanzos'?) since I was a kid. This may be a complete tangent now, but I've just put the pieces together that it could their DOPA content that might be an important factor for me, what with the association between dopaminergic deficiency and ADHD.

thanks i wasn't aware of it!

 

[newusername1]

People in south east asia are probably world champions soy eating. Tofu or tempeh are known for centuries there as "the poor mans' meat".
Southeast asia is also quite populous. In indonesia, the population is still growing and has probably passed 300 million already. By natural reproduction.

Another thing: outside the USA, the soyboy meme never really took off.
I think it's mostly contained within the alex jones fanbase. And maybe some roganites as well.

It's probably something like "they're turning all of the frogs into homosexuals". Tapping into some kind of uniquely american folklore that people outside of the U.S. can never realy understand.

 

[Transform]

People in south east asia are probably world champions soy eating. Tofu or tempeh are known for centuries there as "the poor mans' meat".
Southeast asia is also quite populous. In indonesia, the population is still growing and has probably passed 300 million already. By natural reproduction.

Another thing: outside the USA, the soyboy meme never really took off.
I think it's mostly contained within the alex jones fanbase. And maybe some roganites as well.

It's probably something like "they're turning all of the frogs into homosexuals". Tapping into some kind of uniquely american folklore that people outside of the U.S. can never realy understand.

Erik of 'Internet Comment Etiquette' fame has cashed in on these memes and more with some hilarious merch.

 

[blig-blug]

Another thing: outside the USA, the soyboy meme never really took off.
I think it's mostly contained within the alex jones fanbase. And maybe some roganites as well.

You may be right about the original soyboy concept, but the soyjack meme seems to have spread way more. There's even an online subculture of edgy teenagers fully devoted to soyjacks, and it seems to be quite international in composition.

 

[Voidmatrix]

Hey brother, good shit. I haven't had the opportunity to read the whole thing (a bit braindead) however, the topic and your conclusions are unsurprising and it's another instance of follow the money.

I love the fear, particularly of macho men, that soy will lead to feminization and lowered testosterone, just because it has estrogen, which shows the lack of understanding of androgen systems as well similar estrogenic and adronergic compounds from other sources. The argument is a stupid and goofy as the idea that plant testosterone will actually impact testosterone in our bodies. That being said, estrogen from plants also behaves differently in the body just as ecdysterone does.

But that industry (soy) is a threat to the meat industry at the end of the day.

One love

 

[Nydex]

People in south east asia are probably world champions soy eating. Tofu or tempeh are known for centuries there as "the poor mans' meat".
Southeast asia is also quite populous. In indonesia, the population is still growing and has probably passed 300 million already. By natural reproduction.

Another thing: outside the USA, the soyboy meme never really took off.
I think it's mostly contained within the alex jones fanbase. And maybe some roganites as well.

It's probably something like "they're turning all of the frogs into homosexuals". Tapping into some kind of uniquely american folklore that people outside of the U.S. can never realy understand.

The meme itself might not be thriving right now, but it has definitely left its mark in many people's minds. Even close friends of mine that I consider in the upper echelon of general intelligence have fallen for these misconceptions and treat soy as the mortal enemy of manliness itself. And those are people that have moved on from the meme a long time ago.

Add to that the large number of massive content creators (e.g. Pewdiepie) who have leveraged the meme for funny moment haha content, and you get hundreds of millions of kids exposed to these kinds of ideas globally.

We can't let ourselves underestimate the traces these events leave in our subconscious mind. They can echo for decades onwards in way that we are oblivious to despite them staring us in the face, and manifest in subtle ways in our reactions and perspectives to certain things.

Hey brother, good shit. I haven't had the opportunity to read the whole thing (a bit braindead) however, the topic and your conclusions are unsurprising and it's another instance of follow the money.

I love the fear, particularly of macho men, that soy will lead to feminization and lowered testosterone, just because it has estrogen, which shows the lack of understanding of androgen systems as well similar estrogenic and adronergic compounds from other sources. The argument is a stupid and goofy as the idea that plant testosterone will actually impact testosterone in our bodies. That being said, estrogen from plants also behaves differently in the body just as ecdysterone does.

Thanks brother. Following the money is indeed a strategy that has yet to fail me. As you outline, the issue is rooted in a deep-seated ignorance about these things. And part of that issue stems from people's willingness to accept whatever slop is being shoveled in their gullet from the media and popular faces that appear on the TV screens. A little bit of even low-effort searching through the internet would reveal the utter foolishness of the beliefs and misconceptions I pointed out, yet most people don't care enough and find it easier to consume whatever is handed to them on a platter. It's a problem as old as humanity itself.

But that industry (soy) is a threat to the meat industry at the end of the day.

Bingo

 

[The Traveler]

I am always amazed by how white these 'milk' products are.

When you make your own fresh milk from nuts it's always very dark yellow or brownish.

For me it's on the same level of stupidity where they regularly test the yolks of eggs, to check if they have the 'correct' yellowish color. If not they add additives to the chickens food to make them produce the 'expected' yolk color.

The Netherlands is known for this insane expectation food industry. We even bake our grains darker to fool people into believing it's whole grain.


Kind regards,

The Traveler

 

[Nydex]

For me it's on the same level of stupidity where they regularly test the yolks of eggs, to check if they have the 'correct' yellowish color. If not they add additives to the chickens food to make them produce the 'expected' yolk color.

This is something I've observed in my country a lot. Most people will almost always buy the darker yolked eggs even though in reality the chickens that laid them are kept in the exact same way as all others, but their feed is colored orange, and the price of these eggs is 50% higher.

It's insane that people fall for this kind of thing, but again it comes down to ignorance and laziness to do one's own research.

Baking grains darker to make them appear "more whole grain" is insane though, NL beats BG on this one