For gig-deprived vegan Bryan Adams, Covid-19 is about MEAT (and some China conspiracy theories)

Micah Curtis is a game and tech journalist from the US. Aside from writing for RT, he hosts the podcast Micah and The Hatman, and is an independent comic book writer. 

12 May, 2020 18:07

With the world in lockdown and millions dying across the globe, it’s meat eaters who are to blame, says fading star Bryan Adams in an astonishing Instagram meltdown. Who’s he kidding?

Everyone has an opinion on the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdowns happening all over the world, and some of them shouldn’t be aired.

Step forward ageing Canadian rocker Bryan Adams, who clearly thought it was a good idea to voice his frustration that a few gigs had been cancelled by urging us all to go vegan and giving some oxygen to anti-China conspiracy theories.

Adams may find himself opening a lot of shows with his song ‘Please Forgive Me’ once Covid-19 passes. Although he and many other artists out there are incredibly frustrated with their inability to perform because of the restrictions, his online outburst went a bit too far.

The noted outspoken vegan blamed the crisis on “bat eating, wet market animal selling, virus making greedy bastards” in an Instagram rant that probably would have been more at home on 4chan’s /pol/ boards.

But there was more to come, as his diatribe continued: “…the whole world is now on hold, not to mention the thousands that have suffered or died from this virus. My message to them other than “thanks a f***in lot is go vegan.”

Where do you start to pick this apart? Well let’s begin with the bat-eating element. It sort of contradicts the “virus making” bit, doesn’t it? Or are we assuming that China created the virus in a lab, put it in a bat, and made some poor soul eat the thing? At that point, isn’t eating the bat the lesser of two evils by a long shot?

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All jokes aside, the whole sentiment is a bit much. Vegan or not, blaming it all on meat-eating doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. It’s a real doubt that the world would be completely free of this disease if no-one ever ate meat. Because that’s what this is really about. Although many will try to cancel the musician over claims of racism, it’s a distraction from what really made him angry: MEAT!

This is just another sanctimonious temper tantrum from a millionaire superstar trying to blame the ills of the world on those of us who enjoy a steak or a hamburger, or anything along those lines.

And he’s not the only musician to vocalize these sentiments. Paul McCartney shared similar thoughts, and even though I love Brian May’s guitar work, his assertion that people “need to re-examine our world in a way that doesn’t abuse other species” is stupid. You may as well stand on the graves of everyone who died, holding a sign that reads: “I’m better than you because I’m vegan.”

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At a time of global crisis, this sort of unhinged attitude isn’t really welcome anywhere, and it tends to do more harm than good. What’s clear from Adams’ post is that he thinks filthy meat eaters screwed up the world. Of all the things that have gone wrong over the last few months, the lack of vegans on Planet Earth is certainly not to blame. 

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