 This number, this is how many animals will be murdered in the time it takes for me to finish my speech tonight. This number represents mother pigs and their piglets, dairy cows and their calves, chickens, little baby chicks, lambs, turkeys and marine life, tortured en masse, terrified and suffering, executed for trivial products. This is happening right now as we enjoy this festival. Before I start I'd like us all to please have a moment of silence in honour of the victims of the largest atrocity in human history. These animals are not just a number of barcode or an ear tag, they're individuals each having their own subjective experience. This was one of them. So were they, so were they. Sometimes we can get caught up on the numbers because they're so large, which annually is in the trillions, it's just incomprehensible. But keep this insane number in the back of your mind throughout my talk. So my name is Joey Armstrong and you might know me online as Joey Carbstrong. I'm a vegan animal rights activist, I'm also a reformed gang member and recovered addict. A lot of you know my background but just briefly I spent about 12 years going down the wrong track from 14 to 26 years old. I got involved with drugs young, street crimes, street gangs young, violence and then organised crime gangs. At about 26 years old I landed myself in prison for carrying a loaded firearm. In prison that was the longest I'd been so before for 12 years of my life. You start seeing things a lot differently when you're in a prison cell and you go out to the yard and there's nothing but gang members. I've seen my life from a bird's eye perspective. I started actually thinking about my future, which you don't do when you're on drugs and in gangs. You only think about the next moment. I had an epiphany in prison. I didn't want to stay there. I didn't want to stay in the gangs. It wasn't for me. There I am. My first day out. That's my brother. Love my brother. About a month after my release I went vegan. I had a sea plant I'd on house arrest a little while beforehand but you know when I got out I got sober. I just had this feeling of hypocrisy and I couldn't stand it. When I was a meat eater I used to call people out for it. Don't say save the whales, save the dolphins, save the orangutans in the rainforest. When you've got a piece of a cow on your plate, I couldn't stand it. And you know what? I just looked inside myself and I said that's me. That's me. So I did what a lot of you here did and I aligned my actions with my morals. What I think about myself and what I do. I left the gangs. I level organized crime gangs. Shortly after that which was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. I was on my own. But being sober, being vegan and being out of gangs didn't solve my problems. I was in a storm for years that I pulled myself out of. I was riddled with trauma, shame, having violent nightmares every night. I was uneducated, no social skills, nothing to show for my life. I was lost, completely lost my identity that I'd built up as a gang member and all this. All of these years all I knew was drinking, doing drugs, hanging out with my mates in the gang world and I had nothing else. I didn't know who I was or what I was even doing here. The two most important days of your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why. I spent years causing negativity, violence and pain for my family. What legacy would I leave behind? Because up until now I hadn't been a good one. I thought I'd have to give something back. I remember going to sleep during the day and like waking up after an app and for some reason being in a state of sleep and waking up, losing consciousness for that moment made me think of my own mortality, thinking I'm going to die, my father's going to die, my mother's going to die, we're all going to die. I also had this fire, it's like a pronounced feeling in my heart. It's like a cooling burning inside my chest. It's a fire inside my heart. If anyone else has that fire, never deny yourself the chance to spread it because that's your purpose and it's cooling out to you. But at this point I didn't know what I wanted to do or how it would come about. I was going to help mislead youth, I was going to help recovering addicts, people who wanted to leave gang well, something like this. I didn't know what it would be, but I thought it would be helping human beings. But in my sober mind state, when I first really like actually saw what was going on to the animals, I thought why isn't everyone screaming from the rooftops? And when I say I was so angry, I was angry when I saw it. My inner protector came out, fragile little birds, these innocent pigs. They're so vulnerable and I thought who's going to defend them? In the gang well, you see there's violence that happens. I've committed violence in the gang well, it's usually retaliation. It's usually done to people, they're in the world too and it's something you perceived as wrong or defence or tit-for-tat, something like this. But the animals have done nothing wrong to no one. They definitely didn't deserve what was happening to them. So after a life of crime and drugs, I finally found my way to give back. I had that fire in my heart and all I knew was that I needed to spread it. And I would do that by helping the animals. I found my why. People often, I get this question a lot and people say, well, what can I do, Joey? What can I do? How can I be an activist, things like this? The more important question is why should you do it? You don't need to know how, you need to know why. And through the why, the how will come about. The why leads you to the how. And as Martin Luther King Jr. said, you don't need to see the whole staircase. You just need to take the first step. This is my first start. So my how turned out to be social media, but that just comes to me knowing my why. This is my first video I took out of the nifty dinner. I'm a lot different now if you look at it, it's pretty funny. Filmed on a crappy little iPhone 5. No public speaking skills. I was very anxious to put myself out there. I remember the gangs in crime I come from are serious. So I created an alias, Joey Carpstrong. You know, my last name was quite well known in the gang world. So I want to keep my identity under wraps in case my past come and call them back to fire me. But I didn't let that hold me back. The reason I'm telling you this is because I want you to know that no matter your circumstance, if your why is strong enough, any one of you out there can be an activist too. I wish he was right here right now. I wouldn't have a good. I'd like to take this time to give Gary Orozki his flowers. Gary Orozki was an animal liberation activist who had a huge legacy of activism. He did activism in various forms. He served prison prison time for liberating mink from a fur farm. And when he was released, he went on to become one of the most well known prolific animal rights lecturers of all time. He's best known for his viral speech. The best speech you'll ever hear. If you haven't heard it, go check it out. He's one of my old time inspirations, actually. He was a fighter. He was a great man. And he wasn't a perfect man. But none of us are, are we? He tried his damned hardest to the end until he had nothing left in the tank. In 2017, when Gary retired, he wrote his retirement letter, tag your it. Going to try to read it without getting all teary because this really stuck with me. And I honestly believe this is one of the driving forces of why I stepped it up. So this is the last paragraph of his retirement speech. It says, a huge message shout out to those who fight for animal liberation only. And have always used my activism as a tool to further the cause. Because it's now your job to find people who are thirsting for knowledge, who aren't comfortably numb with all the cruelty and edify them up. If everyone did their part and converted 10, 100, 1,000 or more, a vegan world would be in reach. Just speak for the animals like you would want to be spoken for if it was you in their position. And always follow your heart when it comes to activism. Stop thinking of ideas when you can put those ideas into action. And please stop having meetings in conferences because you'll only end up discussing those meetings at the next conference before scheduling another conference to debate and discuss the previous meetings before having another discussion to debate the meetings scheduled for the next conference and so on. Toggin, don't talk, do. He says, in my prime I was a man of action who lived by the adage that if you wanted something done right then you actually had to do it and do it yourself. You should live by that adage too. Put those tears, all that anger. And all that knowledge into action. You'd be amazed with the results. Unfortunately you discover that enlightenment is bittersweet. Seeing the truth, knowing the truth and living the truth is wonderful. But realising how evil our family, friends and species are is maddening. Just keep opening the eyes of as many people as you can for as long as you can so one day you too can say, tag your rip to a bunch of people you've influenced. So I'm obviously one of the activists that's working on this. So I'm obviously one of the activists that talked Gary's words to heart. His words sent me on a trajectory for my 2018 Vegan Prophecy Tour. On January 1st 2018 I set my new year's intention and it was to bring the ethical vegan message to the forefront of the mainstream media in the UK and that's exactly what happened. I had a media run in the UK that reached millions of people with the animal rights message and it was a rollercoaster of ups and downs and I was not mentally prepared for it at all. But since then I've been featured across TV stations, radio stations, documentaries and have accumulated nearly 300 million views across social media, all for the animals. All of this happened simply because I took Gary's words back then and decided to take action. In 2021 I started my uncovered series. Before I tell you some of my experiences in the farms I want to give you, I want you all here and this is really important actually to give a huge round of applause to all the anonymous investigators who take great risks to bring out the undercover footage. They're anonymous, you won't know who they are, they don't do this for praise, they are selfless individuals and they are absolute heroes in my eyes and they know who they are. So what's it like inside of these hellholes? When you arrive unannounced that's when you see the real truth, isn't it? Not when you see some commercial where they're nice and clean up all the mess. When you open the door you get hit with a smell, pungent stench of rotten corpses and future-fine feces. The sounds of disturbed animals murmuring and agitated, cobwebs, metal bars, slats on the floor, dust and dirt everywhere. The videos you see online do not do it justice. These places are truly hell on earth. Those poor animals have to live there. They live like this and I get to go home after I'm done filming there. This little piglet is just one of many that you'll find on the floor of factory farms inside burrowing crates, gasping for air. The moment they are born they're born into a prison, suffering. They only live for a few hours but that few hours will be pure suffering. I hold this little piglet in my hands and I'm like a little kitten. You have a feeling of helplessness and you think like what can I do to help them? Like I almost felt like I just want to close our little nose and mouth and help them stop reading. You have a feeling of helplessness and then you look around and that's not the only one. There's dead piglets dying, piglets all across the floor, no one there to help them. And then you realise this is happening all over the world. This is just one story, one piglet from one farm from one country in the world. How many more suffer in silence all over the world and you never get to hear their stories? This is a three story mega egg farm in the UK. I've never seen anything like it. Something out of like a Matrix horror movie. Massive big fans in the front, three rows, stairs inside. Insane, I was laying on the grass looking at it and it's massive. I just don't know how humans can create this thing. When you walk inside, just the birds are going crazy, they're going insane. There's tens of thousands of birds in there. You just look into their eyes and they just, they're scattered. It's like an insane asylum, it really is, there's no other way to explain it. I was so disturbed after I walked out of that place, I had no idea it was going to be like this. Chicken farms, if you can't call them farms, can you? You walk through massive sheds, 50,000 birds in the shed, like a sea of birds and as you walk through you'll see many little fragile birds like this. Four or five weeks old, collapsing under the weight of their overgrown bodies, broken legs. Some of them are slowly dying on their faces. Every way you look, every few meters you walk, there is more. Dairy farms, it's an intensive one in the UK. Lame limping cows, walking in their own diarrhea, bellowing out for their stolen calves who were stuck in isolation pens, which are really just prisons, not too far away from them. They can hear their own calves and the calves can hear their mothers, maternal trauma, disgusting. Holding a dead animal in my hand, it's a horrible feeling, eh? Cold, stiff, dead, like no more life left in them. I picked these animals up to show the people watching this video who the victims are. Their death must have been horrible. People think, oh, they just go to a slaughterhouse and many of them die like this. Some bodies are still warm, some are on their final breath. You'll see them breathe them and you'll walk around document, you come back and they stop breathing, they've died while you've been there. The suffering these animals endure is beyond comprehension. And when I started visiting these places, it's a real reality check. We've all seen the footage, but being inside with the animals is just a whole nother level. This is 2017, this is a halal slaughterhouse in Bali. I was actually going there to do a vigil, because I was into the save movement at this time. I thought, you know, one step better would actually be just going inside. This beautiful cow was slashed across the throat. The blood sprayed right past me here and they were vomiting out of the hole in their neck. The most disturbing part about this was watching their face get skinned, nose cut off, eyes cut out. This is what happens inside a slaughterhouse. This slaughterhouse in Austria here, 2018, this was the morning of my birthday. We spent hours sitting with these pigs in the holding pens outside as they knelt with us. When inside, those same pigs were starting to dismembered. One of the most disturbing parts was watching one of the pigs that we were just interacting with, get dropped sword down the center of their body and I could see inside one of their heads. That was one of the most, at that time, one of the most traumatic things I've ever seen. I'm not saying I'm the victim here. I'm just, this is what these places are like. They're horrifying torture dungeons and they're just sickening places. People talk about these humane places. I don't know, who saw this video here? Anyone see this? This is a local slaughterhouse. They only slaughter the animals from local farmers and small holders, you know. Owned by this grandma with the help of my investigators with the cameras inside there. Now, what I found searching through the footage were terrified cows struggling so hard to escape that knot box that they ripped their own horns off. A guy, he's got this cow by the nose. Grabbed this cow by the nose, swearing up this cow, shot them in the head, cut the cow's throat and when the cow was still moving, decapitated this cow through the cow's head across the slaughterhouse floor. Family run humane local slaughterhouse. I actually went back and forth to that grandma. She didn't know that I had the footage in my pocket. So I went back and go, oh yeah, what goes on here? She assured me everything inside was all humane. All lies. All of these experiences bearing witness helped me to understand the suffering and brutality animals endure in a much more visceral way. These experiences helped me be a stronger voice for the animals. Tulip. So in May this year, we exposed one of the most notorious gas chambers in the UK. There's Pilgrims Pride in Manchester. Formerly known as Tulip Meats. Notorious because you can hear the pigs screaming from the sidewalk. I'd spent a few vigils there and spent a few times hearing the pigs screaming from the side of this place. And I knew what was going on there. Probably the same thing that goes on an old gas chamber. There's something horrifying. And lo and behold, the footage that we obtained was harrowing and disgusting, shocking. The footage received 2 million views across my social media in the first week. Guardian did an article on it. And say the Pilgrims corporate were very happy about it. Went back to the slaughterhouse to apply some pressure. This guy here on the right, he's been working there 20 years. He gas lights all the activists out the front there tells you, no, those screens aren't the gassing. Those screens aren't pigs suffering. Those screens are the pigs like mating together or just playing rough or whatever. Gas lighting. And you know, it felt really good to grab that footage and go, hey, you've been lying to us this whole time. Now we've exposed you. Corporate staff tried to deny it was their chamber, but they couldn't deny it to me. Because I was the one who put the cameras in the chamber. Me and my team. Pilgrims knew this footage was part of a much wider investigation expose coming to light in a documentary that I've been working on. Because I had to send them a right to reply. Some allegations in the film. There's more. There's more than this. So they were under a bit of pressure. And I know for a fact that they were not happy about this Guardian article. I can't tell you how I know, but I know they weren't happy about it being up. But they couldn't do anything about it. Two weeks later, Pilgrims UK announced they'd shut it down. The slaughterhouse had been operating for 30 years. Two months later, they killed their last pig there. They actually did it. The closure is no coincidence. They would never admit that it was a work of activists. We pushed them. They fell over. Never underestimate the power of exposés and pressure. Amongst all the chaos, I've been working on this documentary since 2019. We've worked so hard on this and taken so many risks to complete it. I'm getting ready to release it soon in the coming months. This is the biggest thing I've ever released. To be honest, it won't have the effect it needs without your support. So I need your help to promote this film. I can't do without you all. What is activism? Let's read the definition, shall we? Activism is designed as the policy or action of using rigorous campaigning to bring around political or social change. Activism comes in many forms. Anyone can do whatever form of activism their heart tells them to. The goal of this speech is not to tell you what kind of activism to do. The goal of this feature is to remove some of the personal barriers you might have and inspire you to get started. Many things can hold activist backs, but this is some of the things I believe. This is what helped me. The fear of criticism. And I'm not talking about constructive feedback. I'm talking about character attacks, questioning of your motives, backhanded criticism, real negative stuff. People, this can hold activist back. You can never let the fear of criticism hold you back from being an activist. I'm my own worst critic, but on top of that I get criticised by meat eaters and anti-vegans. Just check out my Facebook comments section. Even by vegans and other activists, those seem to hurt the most. There's only one way to avoid being criticised. Say nothing, do nothing and be nothing. When I was in gangs using drugs, hurting people around me, I was getting criticised. I turned my life around, started speaking up for animals, trying to change the world, create peace. Still getting criticised. So the point is you're going to be criticised no matter what you do so you might as well follow your heart. To be an activist you do have to have courage. But courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is having fear, feeling the fear, but doing it anyway. One way of tackling the fear is by having perspective which is why I showed you what those animals are going through in those farms and slaughterhouses. I want to tell you a story about my, I think it was about my third street interview. I was one of the first people to do vegan street interviews online back in 2015, I started that and I had incredible social anxiety. And people might think I was street interview, who cares dude? Like what are you talking about, these heaps of more crazy forms. It was a big deal. Come out of gangs, had social anxiety. I only socialised when I was drunk or on drugs. I was by myself and I was like, you know what? These questions are pretty hectic about dairy and I was like, I'm going to turn back. And then I thought it came to me and I'm like, who are you doing this for? Are you doing this for yourself? Or are you doing this for those dairy cows who will be raped their entire life, have their calves stolen and be murdered inside a slaughterhouse? Perspective. So I went and did it. If I had turned back that night, I would have said a precedent, wouldn't I? I would never have gotten this far and I would have made no impact whatsoever. So do not let fear hold you back. Courage is not something you are born with. Courage comes from slowly stepping out of your comfort zone over time and you have to take risks. Nothing amazing ever happens inside your comfort zone. You just have to take the first step. This is the best afternoon bath I've got. It's like simple. I didn't come up with this but I'll use it because I think it's on point. Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. And don't give a damn what anyone thinks about it. Another fear that can hold you back, the fear of failure. Don't let that hold you back either. You're going to have failures along the way. I've failed many times publicly, publicly in front of thousands of people. You all make mistakes. I've made many. I don't care about it when I do. But it's not the failures that make us. It's whether we don't let them stop us. Do you know what the worst kind of failure is? It's not even trying to begin with. I've got to be honest with you, like I'm a human being and these days I feel like giving up at least once a week minimum. Being an activist is not the easiest thing in the world and the longer you're active, the harder it gets. It's more, it gets you down more. It's like still, same thing. I say this a lot, but nearly every speech I do, but in the words of my late father, no matter how hard it gets, never give up. When I'm going through hard times as an activist, I just remind myself of how hard it must be to be born a pig on this earth or to be that little piglet suffering to death on the coal floor with no one to help them. I think of what they're enduring. The animals don't have the luxury to give up. The animals cannot help themselves and they need all of you to stay strong and keep fighting. This is a war. A war waged against innocent animals. A war of misinformation. A war of propaganda. A war against the most vulnerable who have no chance to escape. A war against those who can't even fight back. They can't even defend themselves. Ex-vegans, carnivores, media and industry liars. More non-vegans have been born every second. So the question is, are we winning? In the golden years 2018, I would have sure felt like we were winning. We can change the world and I was just like, so apt. But now, I don't really know anymore. I don't say this to disheartening. I'm saying this to motivate you. Do not get complacent. Do not. If we think of the truth like a light, it only takes a tiny pin prick of light to brighten a room full of darkness. We have the truth about these disgusting vile industries and there's nothing more powerful than that. We just need all of you to get the truth out there. And if I think of each of you activists or activists to be like a candle, remember it only takes one candle to light a million candles. And I want to ignite that fire inside you all so you can get out there and spread it. I believe in you if you don't believe in yourself. I think about this all the time, mate. Just a bit of a break for a second. I'm doing this speech because these are the things that I think about. This is what I need to hear and that's why I wanted to share this kind of speech with you. Life is fleeting. What if I told you that tonight was your last night on earth? Would you be happy with what you've achieved? Would you have tried a little harder if you had another chance? Would you have let go of the fear that people might judge you? Would you have stepped outside your comfort zone just a little bit more? Every single day of my life I confront my own mortality. I'm going to die. Every single one of us here are going to die. After this life, we're never coming back for eternity, not that we know. What legacy will you leave behind? The realisation of my own mortality is what motivated me at the start along with the plight of the animals, and my impending death is what still motivates me to this day. 90 million animals, 90 million feeling, sensitive sentient beings, slaughtered against their will in the time it's taken you to hear this speech. What are you going to do to reduce this number in our lifetime? No one individual can do everything, but everyone here can do something. Knowing what you know now, would you let fear hold you back? Do you fear of what other people think? Or will you take that knowledge, the anger in the tears, and get out there and put it into action? I'll leave you with this. The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who stand by and watch. So let's get out there and do something. Bless you.