The 27-year-old Raffaela Raab polarizes as “The Militant Vegan” already on TikTok and YouTube, now she spreads her views on animal rights also on Twitch. Reason enough for MeinMMO to take a closer look at the activist.
Note: This article was originally published on March 12 and updated on April 6.
Who is The Militant Vegan? The 27-year-old Austrian Raffaela Raab advocates for animal welfare online as “The Militant Vegan.” She claims to be a doctor and to have worked in a hospital, but in the long run, she wants to make a living from her activism.
She gained fame primarily through TikTok, where her videos sometimes reach several million views. In addition to her appearances on all major social networks and even on German television, the activist is now also present on Twitch and even OnlyFans, which has already caused a lot of commotion.
Where does the name come from? “Militant Vegans” is actually a derogatory term for vegans who supposedly want to impose their lifestyle on others. The 27-year-old was apparently called “militant” so often that she made the term her trademark.
The streamer Sandra Friedrichs advocates for a new perspective on gaming as abnormaldisaster on Twitch:
The Militant Vegan Polarizes
Why is she so controversial? As an animal welfare activist, The Militant Vegan wants to convince people to refrain from animal products and to no longer support animal suffering. However, her methods are highly controversial.
For many, it is not just a specific diet, but a lifestyle: They avoid, as far as possible, products that involved animals in their production, such as detergents with animal-derived surfactants or cosmetics that have been tested on animals.
How does the activist approach it? In many videos, The Militant Vegan can be seen confronting passersby in pedestrian zones and discussing with them. She often confronts her conversation partners brutally with details of factory farming and animal suffering.
She rarely allows counterarguments and often interrupts her conversation partner, not infrequently with deliberately provocative questions such as: “Would you also find it okay to eat humans?” or “Would you also kill the animals yourself?”
The term speciesism also frequently comes up: The discrimination against beings based on their species is equated with discrimination against humans and often placed on the same level as racism or the Holocaust.
Critics see this as a trivialization of the atrocities committed against humans and an insult to the victims (via taz).
What is the point? The 27-year-old is well aware that she provokes with her approach and it seems that she wants it that way. In a conversation with the YouTubers ApoRed and Leon Machère, she explained that she does not want to be just another “cooking vegan” or “health vegan.”
Rather, she asked herself how she could draw attention to the problem of factory farming and has also used her marketing experience to make the topic accessible to a wide audience (via YouTube).
One can therefore assume that The Militant Vegan is at least to some extent putting on a show and deliberately relying on the shock factor.
Reach for a “good cause”
What is The Militant Vegan doing now on Twitch? The activist has only one goal: to reach as many people as possible. For that, she now also uses the streaming platform Twitch. She has had an account since 2021, but has hardly streamed actively until now.
Since mid-February, the 27-year-old has been regularly visible on Twitch. She is mainly seen in the “Just Chatting” category and speaks with guests about veganism, but also shows the similarly controversial game Hogwarts Legacy.
She already has over 24,600 followers and averages more than 1,000 viewers (via sullygnome).
She was also involved in her first Twitch drama when she clashed with the German streamer HoneyPuu on a call. When she lost her temper with the 22-year-old, HoneyPuu accused her of pressuring her conversation partners and not allowing them to think. She promptly ended the conversation (via YouTube).
Even the casting show “Germany is looking for a superstar” (DSDS) was used by The Militant Vegan to spread her message. This is simply the next logical step to establish veganism in pop culture, she explained.
Even if singing is less the focus during her appearances, the 27-year-old is active as a musician on Spotify. The title image shows a screengrab from the music video for her latest single “What You Don’t Want” (via YouTube).
Here you see a reaction to her appearance:
Does the end justify the means?
How is this received? The activism of The Militant Vegan is intended to provoke, and she is quite successful at it. Clips from her videos were for a time indispensable in almost every reaction compilation. There, she was met with mild laughter by some, while others reacted with disdain and mockery.
Even among vegans, the methods of the 27-year-old are controversial. Many, including the Twitch streamer Simon “Unge” Wiefels, who has been vegan for 13 years, believe her cause and message are correct, but do not agree with her methods, calling them “catastrophic” (via YouTube).
Some fear that such an approach will not convince anyone of a vegan lifestyle; rather, it would scare people away. In a vegan forum on reddit, it is argued that some people simply need a push in the right direction.
Controversy over transphobia and ties to the far right
What other criticism is there? At the beginning of the year, the vegan YouTuber TiltedFloste released a video in which he showed the Militant Vegan’s statements in a Discord.
The activist is accused of making transphobic remarks and “jokes” at the expense of people with disabilities. She is also said to provide a platform for far-right “swabblers,” which is particularly problematic in light of her comparisons to the Holocaust (via YouTube).
What does The Militant Vegan say about it? These allegations against the 27-year-old are not new, but they have been summarized once again. In the past, she had denied the accusations (via Twitter).
From The Militant Vegan to The Wild Vegan
What is the new development? Since early April, the activist has also been found under the new name “The Wild Vegan” on the pay platform OnlyFans, where she sells erotic content. This has been actively discussed on Twitter.
Critics of the 27-year-old now even speculate whether her entire previous appearance was just a show to attract attention and then rake in money with OnlyFans: after all, she seems to have been producing content for a while that she is only now publishing.
However, The Militant Vegan justifies the decision by stating that she can draw even more attention to her cause, animal welfare.
