This is how the militant vegan ticks: “Dad wants you to torture animals”

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Provoking at all costs: “Your dad wants you to torture animals” – that’s how the “militant vegan” Raffaela Raab ticks

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Being vegan polarizes. Even more so if you deal with it like the young Viennese doctor Raffaela Raab. She takes advantage of the polarizing power of the topic and has built up a gigantic fan base on social media in a short time. But how did she come about, and how does the “militant vegan” tick?

Blonde bob haircut, sunglasses boldly pushed up, black blouson and T-shirt, a bright red shoulder bag over it – that’s how the “militant vegan” can suddenly appear in any German city. And get down to business quickly when a father next to his wife and child replies “No” to the question of whether they are already vegan. And politely added that he accepted her as a vegan. “I really don’t have to accept you, just as I don’t have to accept racists, Nazis or other idiots.”

Then the young woman on the video, which was shot a few days ago in some pedestrian zone, denies the family the right to eat meat because “I can’t just decide that I’m going to send you or your child to the slaughterhouse.” At the end, the vegan, who is actually verbally militant, also yells at the child because – like the parents not in the picture – it is apparently passing a veganism flyer to the father: “Don’t accept anything new! Your dad wants you to continue torturing animals. Just don’t listen to the vegan. She could be right and shake my whole world view!”

Ten million views for a single video

The clip, which can be seen on TikTok, has now been clicked more than 750,000 times. The “militant vegan”, whose real name is Raffaela Raab and comes from Vienna, has already collected more than half a million followers there. Her provocative posts get up to ten million clicks. More than 56,000 people follow her on Instagram, almost 82,000 on YouTube and almost 48,000 on Twitch.

But who is this Raffaela Raab actually? And how did she come to this radical activism?

“As a dictator, I would ban animal products”

The now 27-year-old activist comes from a Viennese family of doctors, studied medicine in Munich, did her dissertation there at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in 2021 and has been eating increasingly vegan before.

The key experience that made her become a radical vegan activist dates from Dr. Raab on a game night in December 2020. “I had to answer the question of what law I would introduce if I were dictator of Austria,” she revealed to “Spiegel” a few weeks ago. “I said I would ban animal products. A huge argument broke out over this.”

“When I understood, I saw animal corpses and murderers everywhere”

As a reaction to this experience, she then began to deal with the ethical foundations of veganism – such as the book classics “Treblinka is for the animals every day” by Charles Patterson or “The Liberation of the Animals” by the Australian philosopher Peter Singer. It stands for criticism of so-called speciesism, to which vegans like Raffaela Raab include all those who place human well-being above all other living beings on earth. “When I understood that, I suddenly saw animal corpses and murderers everywhere.”

“Have you been to the slaughterhouse with your daughter?”

In order to convert people to veganism, Raab also likes to get into the verbal ring with celebrities. Such as with Leeroy Matata, Youtuber with 2.2 million subscribers for his talk format “Leeroy wills know” and the ex-professional bodybuilder Markus Rühl.

In contrast to many of her short and provocative street appearances on TikTok, the 27-year-old argues calmly for long stretches in the 47-minute video round of three. Explains in a relaxed manner how she came to vegan activism herself and lets her two interlocutors have their say.

But even in this round she cannot refrain from drastic comparisons. “Would you allow me now,” asks Raab Rühl, pointing to the presenter Leeroy, who is sitting between them in a wheelchair, “that I send him to the slaughterhouse?” set the Bundestag, however, she only gets rid of it with a short “no” without explanation.

When Rühl then talks about his five-year-old daughter, that she can freely decide whether to eat an apple or a salami sandwich and would like to choose the latter, Raab asks whether Rühl has ever been to a slaughterhouse with her. “Why should I?” replies the muscular father. “So that she can make her own decisions,” says Raab. “You ensure that animals go to the slaughterhouse. And then you give her the body parts of those murdered animals.”

“Who likes to work with the Holocaust vegan?”

She proves again and again how extremist Raab can argue when she uses the Holocaust as a comparison for factory farming. “I then got a book where I understood that this is the greatest mass annihilation that has ever taken place on this planet in the history of mankind,” says her outrageous comparison, referring to “several not only mental but also technical parallels to the Holocaust”.

So far, she has not been legally prosecuted for this. However, in 2012 the European Court of Human Rights had already confirmed in a judgment a ban on a German advertising campaign by the animal protection organization “Peta”, which compared the suffering of fattening animals with a “Holocaust on their plate” on a poster.

Financially, however, this apparently has a significant impact on her independence as a radical activist. Because while similarly successful influencers can usually afford a completely carefree life with click numbers like Raab achieves, the steep quotas themselves are of little use to her. “Who wants to work with the Holocaust vegan?” She summed up the problem in an interview with “Spiegel”.

In order to generate sufficient income, since she has now hung up her doctor’s coat for love of her vegan activism – and almost all other clothes. Because since April, Raab has been offering erotic photos of himself on a corresponding portal. She’s not above herself for this meat inspection – and poses there in raunchy poses – available for 20 dollars a month or 120 euros a year.

Meat consumption fell by 8.1 percent in 2022

A look at the latest comparisons of figures shows that new times are dawning for the meat industry with or without “militant vegans”. According to the Federal Statistical Office, meat production in 2022 fell by a whopping 8.1 percent compared to the previous year. More than ever since 2016. In the case of pork, it was almost 10 percent.

According to the statisticians, the decline is also due to an increasingly difficult situation for farms, which is mainly due to the sharp rise in production costs such as feed, energy and fertilizer. But the new diet trend is now also contributing to the sharp decline.

“The woman triggers indescribable aggression in me”

Despite all the provocation, Raab, too, occasionally manages with her stereotypical arguments to get spontaneous conversation partners to make a small promise to consume less or no animal products in the future. Or to sow speechlessness and doubt.

At the end of a “rap battle” a young man was left speechless next to his girlfriend when Raab accused him of saying it was silly to choose between a vegan diet and a steak for the latter just because the steak “tastes great ‘ and killing an animal for it. That is neither “manly nor strong”. While the young man nodded in embarrassment and smiled, his girlfriend said to Raab: “I somehow find your argument really fascinating.”

However, if the “militant vegan” appears too militant, the comments quickly turn into the drastic opposite. Such as with the verbal attacks on the family of three mentioned at the beginning. “Diggah, I was afraid of her as a child,” comments a user named “Hannah_xy” on the insult to the family in the pedestrian zone. “It’s not ok to talk to others like that, especially kids,” wonders “Ninni’mylife”, liked 790 times.

And a “T5” finds, “The woman triggers indescribable aggression in me.” What 1900 followers see the same way.