What did you do this week? Worked long hours? Cried on the phone with your mom? Got in a fistfight? Went to an underwater spinning class? Wrote your wedding vows? Whatever it is that you did, just know that while you were doing it, there was a vegan talking into a computer about another vegan who disgusts them.
In just a few dispatches from the vegan YouTube drama trenches, we have amassed a small but terrifying cast of characters: thereās Freelee the Banana Girl, aka Leanne Ratcliffe, a thirty-something Australian vegan YouTuber who eats a casual one million bananas per day and loves starting drama; thereās Tana Mongeau, the 17-year-old sort-of-vegan YouTuber who will not capitulate to Freeleeās bullying because, not to be rude, Tana has more followers; and thereās lifestyle entrepreneur Cassey Ho, aka Blogilates, who Freelee keeps claiming is suing her.
And now, it is time to introduce another member of this apocalyptic hell-tribe: Freeleeās boyfriend Harley Johnstone, aka Durianrider, who together with Freelee runs the website 30 Bananas a Day. (Note: do not eat 30 bananas a day.) Johnstone, who promotes not only a fanatical diet but also, oddly, vasectomies, often posts pictures and videos of Freelee in lingerie, occasionally with captions like this:
Johnstone, who describes himself on his YouTube account as āa high carb, plant-based vegan cyclist who gives no fucks about saying what needs to be said,ā has fewer YouTube followers than Freelee (about 200,000), but his demeanor is equally if not more alarming, with the unblinking, slightly unfocused stare of a 14-year-old playing Jesus Christ in a youth group production.
I can only catch about every other word of the above video, released earlier today, but in it Johnstone appears to be hurling insults at YouTuber Tana Mongeau, with whom both Freelee and Johnstone have been in a longstanding feud for reasons that remain somewhat unclear (beyond the fact that fighting with other famous YouTubers is good for traffic).
āTana!ā Johnstone yells, from underneath his neon green bike helmet. āCorrect me if Iām wrong, and no hatinā, just sayinā, but your boyfriend is over-age, and youāre underage! In the state of California, correct me if Iām wrong, he could get motherfuckinā locked up! Youāre jailbait! Correct me if Iām wrong!ā
He then goes on to call her āFuckinā Tana handbag basic,ā āhandbag basicā evidently being Harley Johnstoneās favorite phrase. āWeāve already got enough handbag basics, and motherfucking fake natty [?] shit-cunts,ā he explains.
Just to give you some additional context as to what Harley Johnstone is about (spoiler: he himself does not appear to know), a recent Durianrider video, from four days ago, is titled āIs Being Gay A Choice?ā In it, Johnstone says he was taken out of context recently when he said being gay is a choice, and then he goes on to clarify that he does in fact believe that being gay is a choice.
āWhen you say those wordsābeing gay is a choice, being fatās a choice, being obese is a choice, blah blah blah is a choice, people start to examine it and all this stuff, and they have their own personal definitions of what that actually means,ā he says, appearing to think this is not wildly offensive, and that it makes some kind of logical sense.
āPeople say Iām a homophobe. I guarantee you that Iāve got more gay friends than you, and I get more gay people writing to me asking me for advice than you ever will in your entire life.ā He goes on to repeat this statement twice, and then explains that he believes being gay is a choice because āI subscribe to the choice theory in life. Choosing life, man. Thatās my choice.ā
Then, of course, we go here: āObviously, I canāt choose my skin color. I mean, I try and get darker every dayāI wish I had black skin, but I canāt choose that. If I could go out today and buy black skin for a hundred thousand bucks, boom, I would buy it. Because I prefer that skin color!ā Then: āI canāt be a femaleāoh, Iām not gonna go there, these people just love to take me out of context.ā
I think thatās about enough for today!
This has been a Vegan YouTube Drama Update.
Image via screengrab, animation by Bobby Finger.
