“The Worst Offense Here Is the Misrepresentation”: Thug Kitchen and Contemporary Vegan Discourse

Abstract

The language we use to conceive of and communicate about ourselves and our environments has material implications for the ways we navigate the world and interact with others, because, as Lakoff and Johnson write, “we act according to the way we conceive of things.”1 Given the increasing public attention to conscientious food consumption, it is imperative to examine the language surrounding, and consequently, the conceptual system structuring, cultural food habits, especially for those who, by nature of their “vegan” designation, are attentive to food practices. Thug Kitchen (TK), a popular vegan blog that frequently uses aggressive and racialized language to popularize its recipes, prompted controversy when the food and cooking website epicurious revealed the bloggers to be a young white couple—Michelle Davis and Matt Holloway—in September 2014.2 In the months since the epicurious article, various writers, bloggers, and other commentators have discussed the implications of TK’s caricatured use of African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) throughout its posts. In spite of this controversy, TK has become one of the most popular vegan blogs. If, as Lakoff and Johnson argue, the metaphors that govern the language we use to communicate—here we highlight veganism—are bound up in a broader conceptual system,3 then, even though TK has attracted new audiences to vegan practices, the language it uses to promote veganism needs to be examined because the tropes imbricated in that language point to broader cultural issues concerning power, oppression, and patterns of consumption.