A 10-second video was uploaded to TikTok on Monday showing a young man wearing shorts and a t-shirt, eating KFC chicken from a KFC box. He is standing perhaps 15 feet away from an animal welfare protest outside Sydney town hall. He looks bored and does not even appear to be particularly aware of the protest ahead of him. The people shooting the video are having hysterics.

The TikTok video has been viewed, at the time of writing, over 262,000 times and received over 2,400 comments. Tik Tok is rapidly becoming one of the fastest-growing social media platforms bringing short-form mobile videos to prominence.

Articles in the mainstream press about this occurrence has have been seen and shared over 380,000 times in the past 24 hours. An article in Ladbible yesterday alone has had 220,000 views and shares, and articles in the worldwide press from the New York Post to 7 News in Australia have had huge viewing figures.

Instant pin-up boy for the anti-vegan movement

The anonymous man has become an instant pin-up boy for the anti-vegan movement. Social media reactions have been bestowing all sorts of great honours and philosophical motivations on him. Protest on a protest kind of thing.

“The bloke eating KFC is very innovative in making his own stand against Vegans protesting and trying to force their views on others. Well played that man,” tweeted one commentator.

Many, of course, found his actions childish.

This writer is not personally convinced that he was especially interested in, or even necessarily aware of the protest ahead of him. He may have been, he may not have been.

Nevertheless trolling vegans with meat has become quite a pastime for some. In London earlier this year a man was fined for eating dead squirrels outside a vegan stall. The recent conversion of a social media vegan star to total carnivore, from which she makes an income, could even be considered to be a form of trolling.

Needless to say very few of the commentaries or articles have made much mileage out of the actual vegan protest. It was a small protest consisting of two blindfolded members of Anonymous for the Voiceless. They were performing one of the organisation’s “Cube of Truth” protests. They are effective and non-confrontational.

It would be nice to think that the hundreds of thousands of views of this frivolous viral social media event might lead to just a few people becoming aware of the Cube of Truth’s profound message. But I’m not holding my breath.