Eek, and we thought the whole “Google removing the egg from the salad emoji to make it vegan” debacle was scandalous.

The recent and ongoing drama between two vegan YouTube vloggers – which includes a defamation lawsuit for being falsely accused of offering sex online – is definitely far more serious than a mere emoji makeover.

According to a report by the BBC, PhD student and vegan vlogger Anna Scanlon [pictured above on the right] became targeted by a fellow vegan vlogger Charles Marlow-Cremedas [also pictured above and below], who goes by the handle Vegan Cheetah on YouTube.

Yeah, that username doesn’t make sense to me, either. Doesn’t Marlow-Cremedas know that cheetahs aren’t into the vegan lifestyle?

Still, we’ll refer to him as Vegan Cheetah throughout the article to make life easier.

Anyway, Scanlon’s YouTube channel covered vegan issues, explains the report:

Like in other subcultures, arguments in the vegan world are often fractious and – for those outside the subculture – often tediously detailed. Vegans argue back and forth about questions like whether it’s OK [sic] to date non-vegans, or keep pets, and a host of other issues.

Sounds, um, pretty normal, as far as vegan matters go.

Then Scanlon came upon the California-based Vegan Cheetah’s videos back in 2016. Although she initially saw the appeal of his channel – which published videos on debates about veganism and amassed 37 000 subscribers – Scanlon reckons that Vegan Cheetah ran out of original ideas, and his channel “just became bashing individual vegans”.

But when Scanlon threw some criticism at him, Vegan Cheetah’s fragile snowflake self started posting videos about her, claiming she was offering online sex:

[Scanlon] posted criticism of [Vegan Cheetah] in a private Facebook group, but somehow the drama vlogger got wind of it and began making drama videos – about Anna. He claimed that [Scanlon] called him on Skype, exposed herself to him, and started performing sexual acts on camera – all things which [Scanlon] says “never happened.”

It culminated in a four-hour broadcast on another video site, YouNow. [Vegan Cheetah] repeated the allegations and encouraged people to join in a live-streaming conversation.

Wow, talk about all kinds of messed up.

Obviously, Scanlon was hella shocked when she found out:

At one point I Googled myself and I got the result ‘Anna Scanlon offers sex.’ I threw up …

I did confront [Vegan Cheetah] asking him to retract his statement, but as it went on I think he really enjoyed the attention that he got from saying these things. His audience loved it and joined in.

It was very shocking to me because it had no basis in reality. I felt disgusted, at that point I thought about taking legal action.

And legal action she did take.

Per the report, Scanlon filed a defamation suit in California in April last year. Vegan Cheetah, who until recently continued to make a series of reaction videos insulting Scanlon and denied her allegations, declined to comment.

And if that wasn’t enough, his YouTube channel is still online, although most of his old videos were taken down.

For goodness sake, YouTube, you had one job.

Then again, I shouldn’t have raised my expectations for a site that lets gay-bashing pastors post idiotic shit.

Vegan Cheetah filed a response to Scanlon’s lawsuit in May, 13 months after the lawsuit was originally filed, and a trial is now pending.

Let’s hope for Scanlon’s sake they put this beef to rest.

[source:bbc]