Not a diet. Not a lifestyle. A matter of right and wrong.

They are not
ours to use

What gives us the right to use animals at all?

Who we are

Earthlings Experience volunteers holding screens during a public outreach event

The Earthlings Experience is a grassroots abolitionist vegan outreach group. Twice-weekly, we challenge the belief that animals exist for humans to use.

Do we have any right to use animals at all? The answer is no. Not because of how they're treated, but because they are not ours to use — even when no suffering is involved.

Footage can be important to witness, but what matters more is understanding the root issue. Better treatment, higher welfare, "kind use" — none of it touches the wrong itself. The wrong sits with us — not the victim. A utilitarian asks how much an animal suffers, and whether that suffering can be reduced — as though the wrong were a quantity of harm to be managed. But veganism was never a calculation. We are moral agents, and our duty isn't to reduce their suffering or to justify our use of them — it's to withdraw from using them at all. Not because of how much they suffer, or what we'd gain, but because they were never ours to use.

A volunteer holding an 'Animals are not property' sign in conversation with two passers-by

A volunteer holding a screen, talking with someone during a public outreach

Two volunteers on the street with a screen and a 'No excuse for animal use' sign

Jo chalking a message on the pavement during outreach

What is veganism

It was never a diet. It's the principle that animals are not ours to use.

"The doctrine that man should live without exploiting animals." — original definition, 1951

✗Not a diet

A plant-based diet is one outcome of the principle — not the principle itself.

✗Not "reducing harm"

It isn't about minimising suffering or chasing zero harm. It's about not treating animals as resources.

✗Not about treatment

"Humane" use is still use. The wrong is the using — regardless of how gently it's done.

✗Not negotiable

You can't be "mostly" against exploitation — just as you can't "mostly" oppose slavery.

And the wrong sits with us — not the victim. Ask a utilitarian and they'll point at the animal: how much they suffer, whether a human or a fox does the killing. But a fox can't weigh right from wrong. We can. That's the whole point — veganism is about moral agents and what we owe. Not refereeing nature, not counting suffering. Simply refusing to use animals, because we are morally accountable — we know right from wrong.

Watch the films

The films

Each film plays right here — just press play. Start with what veganism actually means, then see why it matters.

What Is Vegan?

Short film — the principle, plainly

A plain-language answer to what veganism actually asks: not better treatment, not less harm, but an end to using animals at all.

Watch→

Dominion

⚠ Graphic footage of animal use

The symptoms — a roulette of everyday animal use

What plays on our screens. This is the symptom, not the cause — the everyday, legal use of animals across farming, fishing, clothing and entertainment. It shows what's done to them. The footage isn't the cure; the cure is refusing to treat animals as ours to use.

Watch→

What Is Veganism?

Talk — the case, laid out

Veganism as a moral baseline — why how we use animals was never the question, only whether we have the right to at all.

Watch→

The Vegan Story

Leslie Cross, 1955 — the foundation

Where the word came from and what it was built to mean, in its founders' own words — before it was diluted into a diet.

Watch→

Everything you've just seen rests on one assumption — that animals are ours to use. The only question that matters isn't whether we treat them well enough.

Are they ours to use at all?

Go deeper · get involved

Don't let it settle.

The principle is simple once you see it: animals are not ours to use. Living by it follows naturally. This isn't a virtuous act or going above and beyond — it's a moral imperative: to stop seeing other animals as resources.

For the full case — the history, the definition, the common objections answered one by one — read www.understand-veganism.com. If you'd like to stand with us at an outreach event, reach out.

Understand Veganism→ Ask the vegan chatbot→ The founding letters→