Ed Winters, better known on social media as Earthling Ed, is a vegan activist and educator. He is twenty-eight years old and currently lives in London, England.
Ed, like most of us, didn’t grow up vegan. For twenty-one years, Ed ate meat almost every day. He was a regular at his local KFC where they knew him by name and knew his order. He once made fun of his friend for not wanting bacon on pizza, because what’s a pizza without bacon or pepperoni? When he was in middle school and high school, Ed made fun of vegetarians and didn’t understand how anyone could possibly become vegan. He raised his hand in class one day and exclaimed that vegans are weak. However, everything changed when he saw the news a few years ago and learned that there had been a truck accident that was carrying 7,000 chickens to a slaughterhouse. Thousands of the chickens died and thousands of others suffered the most horrendous injuries. He felt so bad for them, but quickly realized he was being a hypocrite, because he himself was a paying consumer to send the chickens there in the first place. He also watched the documentary Earthlings around this time, and these were the moments that shifted Ed into veganism. Today in 2019, there is very little that Ed hasn’t done, and he is one of the biggest names in vegan activism today.
On EarthlingEd.org, it lists that Ed is the co-founder and co-director of Surge, an animal rights organization that’s been focusing on creating street ads. In 2016 Surge created the Official Animal Rights March in London, which is growing more popular each year. In 2017 Ed produced the documentary Land of Hope and Glory which shows undercover footage inside UK slaughterhouses. He has spoken at over 1/3 of UK universities and at 6 Ivy league colleges, including as a guest lecturer at Harvard University. He has given speeches across the world, including two TEDx talks in early 2019. Below is a speech he gave last year at a school which has over two million views. He is known for his incredibly calm and respectful aura during his street interviews, and has millions of views on his YouTube channel as well as over 200,000 followers on Instagram.
If you already thought that was already a lot, in the fall of 2018 Ed co-founded a non-profit vegan diner called Unity Diner in London where all of the profits go directly back into helping animals. In February he launched his first podcast, The Disclosure Podcast, where he has had debates and thought provoking talks.
Earthling Ed is an incredible example of an alternative form of media. He has used countless creative and unique approaches to get his messages out to people, through the works of free e-books, his podcast, street protests, televised debates, youtube videos, recipes, and undercover footage. He educates people all around the world on topics that nobody wants to talk about. He exposes to us the information that the food industry wanted to keep from us forever. People get extremely angry with him at times for speaking the truth, and many want to refuse to listen to what he has to say. However, he is extremely known for his patience, understanding and respect he has for the people he speaks with, and it has inspired thousands of people around the world. Ed is respected wholeheartedly for his ability to have polite debates with strangers on the street who witness the protests he is part of. He has learned that the best way to talk to people is to use logic, ask them questions, never be condescending, and try to use a sense of humor. It’s amazing watching videos where people get so aggravated with him and even go as far as to threaten to hurt him sometimes, and he never loses his composure.
Ed is also very good at keeping his emotions minimal when talking about veganism, and instead using logic to make his points clear. He has found a way to debunk every single possible argument against veganism, and his composure and knowledge of the issue makes him extremely hard to beat in a debate. Despite being so good at debating and standing his ground, he receives death threats and lots of hate comments all over his social media from people.
When we think about veganism today, it’s easy to jump to the idea that only hippies and tree huggers are vegan, or that it’s just a current lifestyle that is trendy. Ed makes it clear in his work that the movement is much more powerful than a current Instagram food trend, and describes in videos often how he believes veganism will be much bigger in the future. He isn’t one of the vegan’s who practice the diet as a health mainstream- He does it for so many other reasons besides that, and is extremely open about it. Ed is vegan for moral and ethical reasons, as he realized that eating animal flesh from animals who don’t want to die doesn’t align with his moral beliefs, and therefore he couldn’t do it anymore. He does it for the environment as well, and will always back up his arguments with scientific research proving that animal agriculture is one of the worst ways we harm our planet. He also does it for human rights as well, since slaughterhouse workers often develop awful mental illnesses, and people in third world countries will be the first to experience the effects of climate change. He will also be the first to tell you that vegan diets are an easy fix to world hunger, since we have enough food to feed more people than are on the planet, but we just feed that food to livestock.
Another way Earthling Ed is an alternative form of media is his belief that he thinks it’s okay for vegans to be radical and angry. Vegans are often criticized of being this way by omnivores, and he doesn’t think this is something vegans should be ashamed of. He explains in one of his podcast episodes that vegans have a duty and responsibility to share their beliefs and knowledge of health, ethical and environmental impacts of eating meat and dairy and it isn’t enough to not say or do anything. He doesn’t condone violence or aggressive behavior by vegans in any way, shape or form, but does believe they have a right to be angry. He doesn’t understand why being “radical” has become so negative. Another way he has been countercultural has been when he challenges people to the idea of propaganda. People often call the work he does propaganda, but he challenges that by saying everything about our mainstream culture and how we feel about food is propaganda. He will explain that cartoon pictures of happy livestock and happy farms just simply are not true, and that words such as “fresh, organic, and humane” are what the true propaganda is.
Unlike the meat and dairy industry and even other forms of media, Earthling Ed does not make a living off of his activism. He receives donations from people who love and support his work all around the world, and has over one thousand people supporting him on Patreon. His mission has nothing to do with money for himself and has everything to do with halting animal and environmental cruelty. Even though the information he educates us with is true, many people have never heard what he teaches us before. He is often one of the first activists that people will find online when researching veganism for the first time. He has started going to elementary schools and continues to give speeches to many college campuses, where he has found that younger people are more accepting and willing to make a lifestyle change in order to help the environment and the animals. The amount of work that he has done is mind-blowing, and has remained more motivated and determined than ever. His Instagram has been gaining more popularity too; in the last month he has gained more than 15,000 followers. Earthling Ed will hopefully one day be seen by everyone as not a controversial soyboy anymore and instead as the inspiration that his followers know he is. His work has and wlll continue to spread the positive messages of veganism and help educate people to follow his and millions of other vegans footsteps onto the path of peace and compassion.
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