What? Actual vegans definitely talk like that. Not just online, in real life. I have personally heard vegans say the same thing. It isn’t even just a small handful. I know a decent number of vegans out here. Some of them are friends and relatives, so I spend time with them in restaurants, bars, and other shared spaces as well as private spaces.

The ones that are part of my life by choice are the sorts that don’t treat being vegan like a crusade, they make their life choice, and live it with strength and their own actions without making it about imposing their beliefs on others.

And I have personally been present when some of them were verbally attacked for that. By vegans. The exact phrase “you aren’t a real vegan” has been used in my presence by vegans to vegans. Also, “you’re just a vegetarian, you don’t really care about animals” because the target simply wasn’t willing to fuss and fight non vegans over a difference in belief.

Hell, you just drew a gatekeeping line by saying “actual vegans don’t talk like that”. So, if you’re a vegan, you just talked like that, even though it wasn’t the same gatekeeping.