Emily Moran Barwick
Emily Moran Barwick
Emily Moran Barwick is an Animal-liberation Activist, International Speaker, Artist, Writer, Educator, and the Creator of Bite Size Vegan. [undefined]
Emily about herself:
I help people understand veganism- that it’s not an exclusive club, fad diet, or elitist social movement, but rather a logical, compassionate, rational approach to life- especially in regards to the lives of others.
I back up what I say with science while making complex topics engaging and entertaining.
Early years and education
Emily smiling
She was born in Connecticut, but grew up in the South and attended the Episcopal High School. She initially attended college at Brown College, and then transferred to Cornell College in Iowa. She resides in Iowa City and went to grad school there; she was a pre-med student for a while, but dropped that course of study for an art degree. [undefined] She completed her Bachelor's degree in Art and Women's Studies and received Honors in Art for her Senior Thesis Show, "Stations of Her Undoing," which was subsequently exhibited in Chicago at the ARC Gallery and Iowa City at Public Space One. In 2009 she began to study at the university of Iowa and in 2012 she received a Masters of Fine Arts degree in Art with the exhibition "Philanthropic Object(ive): An Interactive Exhibition(ist)" and the publication of her MFA Thesis, "Layers Of The Lapdance Scholarship: Conception & Foundational Thought Processes, History, Development, & Issues Inherent Therein & Arising Therefrom". In the same year she also received a Masters degree in Art with the exhibition, "The John Holmes Prick Parade" and the publication of my MA Thesis of the same title. She was a Chair of Arts Council, Founder and Executive Administrator of the LapDance Scholarship. [undefined] She moved to Northampton in early 2015.
Becoming vegan
Emily's YouTube video
Emily's facebook photo
She talks about how she became Vegan in an interview with Marla Rose. [undefined]
"My journey to veganism is a bit strange in that it began before I was even consciously aware of it in hindsight.
My mother tells me that around the age of four I started to refuse to eat meat.
She says if I could tell that something had ever been alive I would refuse to eat it.
I’ve always been a huge animal lover and when other kids were going door-to-door selling Girl Scout cookies, I was going door-to-door educating about the plight of the mountain gorillas in Africa and asking for donations to the Diane Fosse foundation.
I was a very intense child and I had a lot of anger for my own species.
I simply could not understand how humans could be so cruel and felt completely overwhelmed by the enormity of suffering in the world, and powerless to make any significant change."
[undefined]"As far as my eating goes, as I started to learn about the true nature of dairy and eggs - how mother cows are robbed of their own children so that we can steal their milk and male layer chicks are ground-up alive in an industry - I eliminated dairy and eggs from my diet as well.
This, I think, happened sometime in middle school to high school."
[undefined] Emily's facebook photo
Branding experience
269 on Emily's body
Emily having her head shaved by other activists
Emily being branded
As an Artist, she's sought ways to reach non-vegans in creative ways, and some methods have been seen as extreme. On January 27th, 2013, the day designated by the United Nations as the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust she was branded on the side of her abdomen with a steel cattle iron in front of a rusted shed by a desolate railroad track. [undefined] [10]The expansive scar reads "269", which symbolizes a calf who was born into an Israeli dairy farm and whose life will be cut off not long after it started was saved, near his scheduled slaughter day. By branding his number her body, she wanted to show her solidarity with the victims of the animal holocaust all around the world, remembering to never forget. [undefined]
"The moment the brand hits my skin, I can’t help but think of them.
Him cramped in a metal cell, absolutely terrified, the barrel of a gun to his temple.
Her crying out as her child is ripped away from her moments after his birth, the third child of hers taken from her this way.
And here I lie, face down on the cold earth, my head freshly shorn of its mid-back-length hair, my side literally on fire as the brand melts through layers of my flesh.
I’ve gotten off easy.
Unlike me, they weren’t so lucky.
Unlike me, they lost their lives."
Many call her branding an “extreme” act, but she disagrees, citing the killing of millions of farm animals as the true “extreme”, recalling Isaac Bashevis Singer's words:
“in relation to them [animals], all people are Nazis; for the animals it is an eternal Treblinka.”
and quoting Theodor Adorno:
“Auschwitz begins whenever someone looks at a slaughterhouse and thinks: they are only animals.”
There were many legal and medical concerns that frightened people in relation to this event.
In Iowa winter weather, there is always risk of Hypothermia and Frostbite. And, in all reality, she would be receiving a first-degree burn. But Emily responds:
Emily being branded "That isexactlywhat this event is about! All the fear and concern for me, for ourselves, for the legal aspects and the possible outrage the event would cause, it was all for an act that is done tomillionsof animalsevery day. Why is it so objectionable against the human animal but not them? Their capacity to emote is no less than ours. Does a steer awaiting slaughter not smell the blood and fear of those before him? Does a mother cow not cry out when her child is taken from her moments after birth? Does a baby chick not feel pain as her beak is cut off without anesthesia? Or a young pig as he is castrated while fully conscious? We cannot hear their cries and see their eyes fill with terror and say they are separate from us. Fear is Fear. Blood is Blood. Suffering is Suffering. (...) What I went through is not even close to a fraction of the horrors the animals experience. I don’t see a distinction between them and myself, save for one crucial difference: I have a choice. I get to go home."
Career
Emily's YouTube video
Bite Size Vegan
Emily's quote
Before 2013 Emily didn't have a single Social media account, and against all odds, in the age of viral cat clips, she had never been on YouTube. Since 2013 though, she runs a YouTube video channel and an accompanying website, "Bite Size Vegan," that has more than 100,000 subscribers, although she describes herself as "terrified of technology." [undefined] Since then she has been a Producer, Researcher, Author, Editor, Activist, Artist and content creator. When asked how she did it -going from zero social media experience to having a captive audience - she explains that it's been a gradual progression over the past three years. [undefined] She says her early videos were "a hot mess."
"I was using my computer's in-built camera, and had giant bald head up in the screen.
I just kept making mistakes and adjusting and learning new ways to go about things."
She started by quoting other people, but eventually found her own voice.
And the fact that she's slightly awkward and quirky makes her videos more enjoyable, she acknowledges.
"There is a LOT of information and misinformation on veganism out there and with our hectic schedules and modern attention spans, most of us don’t have the time or energy to research important issues.
Bite Size Vegan simplifies complex vegan issues in an engaging, approachable way that appeals to non-vegans and vegans alike, creating new vegans and arming existing vegans with the tools they need to get active!"[undefined]
From thoroughly researched academic video reports with accompanying cited articles to engaging videos for kids to moving mini documentary-style videos, to humorous parodies packing a powerful message, she provides a wide range of educational approaches for diverse learning styles.
"Bite Size Vegan is ever-evolving to bring the most effective and engaging video activism backed by intensive research, and rather often, biting sarcasm."
She says that her videos take between 60 to 80 hours to research and produce, on average.
It's like writing a research paper in one day - bibliography included.
She lists her sources beneath her videos.
She stresses accuracy in her content, and said she tries her best to balance the entertaining and informative aspects of her videos.
"It's me trying to put out the highest caliber content I can, and people seem to respond to that.
I do know I could grow the channel faster with gossipy, controversial things.
But I have to weigh my purpose versus what's going to get the most views."
The channel has become her full time job; it's enough to making a living at this point, she said.
But YouTube doesn't pay her much, despite her sizable following.
"My videos aren't the ones advertisers are clamoring to get ads on," she said, laughing.
Her cash flow comes mostly from Patreon, a crowdfunding platform popular with YouTube content creators and musicians. The funds allow her to travel and speak to organizers, groups and schools at no cost. [undefined]
Inspirations
Gary Yourofsky's famous speech "Best speech you will ever hear"
She says that the greatest influence in her life as far as her activism is concerned is Gary Yourofsky.
I was vegan long before I first heard Gary’s speech, but he lit a fire inside of me and gave me the tools I had desperately been searching for to make a difference for the animals.
He showed me that education was the number one way to spread the message, and he helped me get out of myself and take action regardless of my fear.
I never stop learning and educating myself and I have a full library of books, too large to even detail here.
I did find Dr. Charles Patterson’s Eternal Treblinka particularly influential.