 Hello everyone welcome to another video this will be my last video of 2020 and I always do this as a tradition every year I recap the year that it's been so this year has been obviously difficult for many people and it's been a year that I don't think you know anyone in this generation has experienced the lockdowns the you know the craziness with this virus and all of these things have really put you know a lot of things into perspective I mean it's made people realise certain things that you know you know don't take our freedom for granted really I mean I spent many years on you know house arrest and I've been in prison and things like this so it wasn't that much of a shock to my system but I know that it has been a shock to a lot of people's system people suffering with depression and things like this and it has put you know a hold on a lot of people's work and you know going to the gym and things like this mental health has been a big thing but it's been crazy it's been crazy and so this year has been a little bit more difficult to try to you know get what we wanted achieved and but it's still been a very successful year I would say so I thought we'd go through that and then I thought I'd talk a little bit about what I plan to do so the start of the year for me was pretty interesting like I did a 100 kilometer run last new year's eve to bring in the new year which was pretty crazy I did this on new year's eve I'm gonna attack 2020 like I just attacked that 100 kilometer run so to start off the new year I was invited on to the this morning show to have a debate with a hunter quite a controversial debate I was quite passionate in it and sometimes my passion is you know misinterpreted as aggression you know normal stuff the UK actually has some of the highest animal welfare standards in the world high welfare slaughter is a fairy tale that is nonsense I've received you know positive feedback from that interview also a little bit of negative feedback and you know the let's just say the articles weren't too you know favoring for my side but there's been about over a dozen articles from tabloids and no real credible newspapers have made an article about this because they're just not sensationalized tabloid nonsense don't tell me how to defend animals okay because I'm going to defend them how I think I should it's media it's media for animal rights you know I made a few good responses out of what was said about me in the media and then I was uh invited on to Jeremy Vines show to talk to Jeremy Jeremy's you know an old sort of I could say an old friend of mine in a way like you know we had had an interview together on radio which went pretty crazy back in 2018 invited back on his show to talk about veganism which was good right we can eat meat if we want to well if you're against animal cruelty and you eat meat then you're practicing moral hypocrisy are you you can't you can't just be moral blindness no moral blindness is willful ignorance but you know that animals suffered and died in that steak and then we had a series that I was involved with Get It Released for Veganuary which was quite crazy there were three episodes and they were they aired on BBC three and also BBC one which is one of the biggest stations I think it is the biggest station in the UK so it ended up getting like millions of views uh mostly non-vegans watching it we all took this tiptoe approach with everyone things won't change planting a seed with someone that you hope will grow later on that got the vegan message out you know quite effectively as well which I was really grateful to be a part of that show um you know like reaching an audience like that in a sort of mini sort of documentary it was a three-part documentary on some of the biggest platforms in the UK which I would say is like uh it's a really big achievement for me and for for I feel like getting the animal rights message out to people who would never have otherwise looked for it and I was really yeah happy to be a part of that show and I'm really grateful to be a part of it and you know a huge audience reached and it's still playing I believe it's still playing on BBC three now if you wanted to go check that out but yeah so that was pretty cool for that to be released and also um a little bit later was Febu Dairy so um the dairy farmers have made this month Febu Dairy where they like promote dairy in response to veganuary so I made up a campaign called Febu Scary where I talked about the sexual abuse that is inherent in animal agriculture so all the ways animals are violated and you know the forced breeding that happens to animals I dubbed this Febu Scary and I made a bunch of campaign videos hello and welcome to the introduction of a new campaign which seeks to expose the sexual violation and abuse of animals who are used as breeding slaves for the meat dairy and egg industries uh me and Taz so it was only two of us working on this so people might think oh Joe he's got this massive team behind him but no it's only usually two or three people uh that work with me uh so me my project manager and you know a cameraman editor at times for periods of time so sometimes I'm editing my own stuff for many years I've edited my own stuff but at the moment I've had a cameraman editor so basically what I'm trying to say is it's only really a small team that ever works with me I don't have a massive team of a lot of people yeah Febu Scary which was great Febu Scary reached over seven million people uh on Facebook Instagram and YouTube and it was a bunch of art and information and then we compiled that into a documentary there Chris Irons helped out for a couple of days with Febu Scary and we then went to Australia after Febu Scary was released to tour around Australia and to you know do some activism there and Chris Hines come along with us there too so thank you Chris Hines mate good friend of mind and absolute legend and yet with my Australia tour like I just want to say like I had this focus of like being a little bit more aggressive in my approach I know people already call me aggressive but I thought you know I'm going to be a little bit more unapologetic with this and I'm going to go really in people's faces with this message and see how that turns out I mean for the most part I think it worked well but I also think for some of the parts it was too much a little bit too much like honestly I'm always self-reflecting I'm pretty critical of myself um you might not think I am but I am I'm always uh reflecting and there were parts of the Australia tour where I thought you know maybe I'm letting this my energy getting the way of the message a little bit getting the way of reaching people and yeah so I reflected a bit after the Australian tour I mean yeah for the most part like I said was good but some parts I feel like I could have done better a little bit after the Australia tour got back and then there was all of this lockdown and stuff like that and it was pretty crazy it hit the content pretty hard I mean you couldn't really go out as much but luckily I'd pre-filmed in Australia yeah we ended up getting a bit of media in Australia after doing a little shopping thing with uh the truth walker's there in Sydney Sydney got a great crew there and then yeah it was just it was mainly just editing and uploading and social media work and then uh we raised about £10,000 for two animal sanctuaries as well by selling our t-shirts which you know I feel like was a nice little touch for the coronavirus because there was the uh you know a bit of the sanctuaries were taken a hit too because obviously people couldn't donate the same amount so we raised a bit of money there and yeah then a little bit later on in the year I started working with a cameraman editor Dan thanks for coming down Dan Dan was started working with me which means I could do more and we started producing um content together so Dan would film and I would direct um and he would edit and we basically uh went out and did a bunch of concepts um so basically I sit down with the drawer and board and I go okay what concepts do I want to do speciesism this and that and then we go out and execute it um and I need a cameraman editor to put that together and so that I'm freed up to do other things in the background and it worked really well we ended up getting over 50 to no over 50 pieces of content on YouTube and we're still going basically um from mid-year so about five or six months ago to now so we've we really we've reached a lot of people just this year and um you know a lot of my posts they actually go viral on Facebook and Instagram did really good as well this year but like I was really focusing on the speciesism thing this year like handing out you know pretend dogme and you know cat milk cheese and like we did like a swan you know for swan meat to try to get people to connect the dots you don't need swan do we uh do we eat other birds though chickens and turkeys yeah also uh started a new form of activism called stands for change where we I set up stands instead of having people hold the screen standing in the circle like obviously I can do it by myself I'm not going to have two screens with the footage playing so stands for change um sort of was born out of this year as well and handing out food at these type of animal rights outreach events I feel like has been like one of the best things I've added to my activism and I thought I'd give it a go because I've done it before I've handed out food before but handing out food at activism really has been so good to creating good conversation I didn't expect it to be and it gives them this experience with vegan food that they hadn't had before and when people are eating vegan food they're more likely to you know talk well about or to be open-minded to the topic because they're eating the vegan food and they you know wow this is good yeah I'm participating in this right now so I'm having the food experience and what's this going on with animals you've given me you've given me something for free as well and then I'll take the information I'll listen to it's just it's been it's been really good like a lot of content has come out of this year which I'm really happy about and um yeah like then we moved into onto the Christmas campaigning and campaigning with Tinsel the turkey rescued Tinsel campaign made a campaign called Donate Tinsel which I feel like was really powerful like Tinsel really moved to me a lot and I was trying to get people to connect with Tinsel to connect with other animals from the Tinsel story you know what I mean experienced a turkey farm as well factory turkey farm which I hadn't been in before I've been in other factory farms but not for turkeys and that was quite quite a crazy experience as well also recently a massive superstar singer called Billie Eilish shared one of my videos and it just got three and a half million views on instagram which I thought was crazy I mean like Billie Eilish who's like one of the biggest singers in the world right now sat there and watched my video and shared it in a story and it was pretty crazy because Billie Eilish had made some comments in the interview once where she didn't like the pushy vegans and stuff like this and then she goes on to share that which was a video which had a lot of animal rights footage in there actually of gas chambers and it was you know quite a quite intense video and she shared it to her she's got 70 million followers on instagram which I thought was crazy really crazy and intense so thank you Billie Eilish if you're watching this you're probably not but if you are thank you very much for sharing that so yeah this year has been crazy and I wanted to say like thank you to everyone who is you know followed along for the journey this year you might have seen like a little bit of evolution of myself see I go through stages I'm like go through stages in my advocacy does this work does that work what am I doing here like I'm always trying to work things out I don't claim to be the greatest activist on earth like I'm not I'm I've been humbled many times since I've been an activist and I'm just trying to do my best and work things out as I go and you know like a lot of people they might look up to me and think oh Joey knows everything about activism he's just like you know he look he's always doing look I'm still learning and I make mistakes and I'm just trying my best I'm just like all of you I care about animals I've done this online so people know me but um I really just just try my best and yeah I'm not I don't claim to like know it all or anything like that like just just speak from my heart and you know and it's been quite successful so this year like reached tens of millions of people literally um YouTube Facebook Instagram like Facebook particularly like was reaching seven million a month at one stage on there like just crazy amounts of reach and people walk up to me in the streets all the time and say look I know you're from Facebook and in the gym I literally everywhere in the UK wherever I go someone comes up to me and they're not vegan but they watch my stuff or they're gone vegan from my stuff it's just it's an it's a crazy way to reach people social media amazing form of activism you're doing your outreach magnified which is just so powerful thank you to all my amazing patrons as well thank you so much for sticking by me thank you to all my other donors in the background as well who help pay the staff that work with me we have a such a small team but we get lots done projects manager has been amazing has you know revolutionized the website and we've made pamphlets and it's just helped me with all the design stuff and like um helping to plan things in the background which has been a super big help also helps with research and we've had a couple of uh freelancers as well but like work with the small team so thank you to patreons and supporters thank you to everyone who comments and shares and you know follows the journey a lot of you have been following me from day dot come out of gangs come out of prison come off of substances and now I speak for animals a lot of you know my story some of you don't but um it's just it's a beautiful thing now like now I can reach people I feel like now when I'm on the streets I really feel connected to people a lot more than you know at the start of the year I was a bit more like I was coming at them hard but now I'm a little bit more sharing I'm giving out food to people trying to connect with them and trying to help them connect the dots I'm still direct don't you worry I'm still direct and I'm unapologetic as well but I try to you know try to be a little bit more personable with people I think that helps a lot and um makes you feel better and you know burn out less I guess and this year I just want to say there's been some amazing things happen with other groups as well like you know like I've seen I don't want to start naming them because I don't want to leave anyone out but there's been some amazing animal rights groups this year that have done so many good things so much amazing work and it's just been amazing to be a part of the movement right now there's just it's been crazy um the the investigations that have come out you know new sanctuary started um just people revolutionizing their activism and evolving and doing crazy amazing things all across the world in all different styles and forms and approaches and not just animal rights as plant-based people there's doctors and there's you know sanctuary owners and there's campaigners and protesters and just all different forms of people from all different walks of life and I just think it's great to be a part of this movement um I love you all and yeah I like what I'm planning to do like I don't know what's happening yet but I could possibly be leaving England um I've had such an amazing time here in England I've spent the last few years predominantly being in England and I've got a lot of media here I've you know feel like I've made my own impact here you know a lot of people make an impact here I feel like I've been an integral part of making an impact here and I feel like maybe it's time for me to go elsewhere um but I'm going to see how that turns out so um you just have to wait and see I've got other things in the background I'm working on as well and um I'm going to step things up next year I think we should all challenge ourselves step outside of our comfort zone if your lifestyle allows you to I know not everyone can be a full-time activist it's just you just don't lot people's circumstances won't allow it um but those of you who do have the privilege to be a full-time activist who you know really are dedicated to the movement I think always challenging yourself is really good and um take a break when you need to but I think challenge yourself and try to step outside your comfort zone and also I want to say to anyone who doesn't he's not a full-time activist don't feel guilty about that you can always do things that are forms of advocacy that you can sort of add to your lifestyle anyway so you can just be talking online and advocating online sharing videos or turning up to events when you have opportunities to and supporting activists who are in the front line and sanctuaries and things like this is a great way to get involved yeah we're all part of a massive movement so we all work together so I want to say thank you to everyone and here's to 2021 that was a crazy year 2020 um you know massive restrictions all over the world and pretty crazy time pretty uncertain time try to get as much done as possible for the animals try to reach as many people as possible and I feel like yeah I feel like I've had a good year I've had a good year I mean I could always do better but I feel like it's been good so thank you so much to everyone for all of your support and for standing by me and let's hit it up 2021 for another big year for the animals let's do it