Little did she know, her decade-long vegan journey was about to take a shocking and viral turn.
I 24F am vegan, and have been for a good 10 years. I have not eaten meat since I was roughly 3-4 years old when I found out where meat comes from (spoiler alert: there were a lot of tears). This is no secret and everyone in my life knows and respects this – or so I thought.
Four nights ago, I was at a party and I will admit, I got white girl wasted. My friends thought it would be funny to feed me chicken nuggets as a prank. I checked with them before chowing down “are these vegan?” To which my friends replied “yeah, they’re sunfed” (a type of vegan chickenless chicken).
They tasted off to me but I figured it was just because I was drunk. I was wrong.
I found out the next day when my sister sent me a message telling me to check my friends Snapchat story. The story was them showing the nugget packaging, and then showing them giving them to me (including the conversation where I asked if it was vegan).
The and then later them mocking me and pretending to be me when I found out I ate meat (things like fake crying and yelling “the CHICKENS!!!”). I took a screen recording of the video and took it to the police, on the grounds of food tampering, and now 3 of my (ex) friends are facing charges.
They all think that I’m overreacting to a ‘harmless’ prank, so Reddit, AITA? In my view, they took advantage of my drunken state, tampered with my food, and publically humiliated me. In their view, it was just a prank.
Conclusion
What started as a supposed prank quickly escalated, leading to legal action and shattered friendships.
Now, the internet is weighing in on whether this vegan’s reaction was justified or an overstep.
Here’s how people reacted:
As a chef, you never fuck with someone food. Ever.
ESH.
You’re pressing charges over chicken nuggets. You have a moral stance against meat. That’s fine. But it’s not a life threatening allergy. It’s absolutely a shitty thing for them to do. They aren’t friends. They should be ashamed. But pressing charges is just way too much.
It’s like if you tricked me into wearing a real fur hat when I’m morally against fur, so I called the FBI and told them you were a domestic terrorist.
Edit: with some time, the hat example doesn’t make sense. I just can’t think of something that’s the equivalent of a chicken nugget. A chicken nugget is so generally un-egregious. It’s hard to find comparisons that aren’t dramatic in comparison. Like people have said “imagine being tricked into eating your own pet.” Doesn’t quite match up to me.
They are crappy friends for betraying your trust and giving you meat. They don’t deserve to be in your life. However, you are pressing charges against them which could affect they rest of their lives – job prospects, potential earnings, potential jail time (food tampering is a FELONY) – over chicken nuggets. If I was your other friends I would be immediately distancing myself from both the crappy friends (that prank was dumb) AND you. I would be worried about you going nuclear on me if I ever screwed up.
I think pressing charges is a little extreme, depending on what the fine/whatever is determined to be by a judge. But you absolutely have the right to press charges and doing so does not make you an Ahole. Going as far as you have at the very least scares them and makes them realise the severity of their actions.
This is comparable to lying to a Jewish person and feeding them pork without their consent. That would be religious persecution and cyber bullying.
What you look at it that way, it doesn’t seem like you are overreacting at all!
ESH
Yes they are idiots for doing that, and yes i understand not wanting them to be your friends anymore. But pressing charges… cmon grow the fuck up. They knew it wouldn’t endanger you and despite it being against your morals, its just a fkin chicken nugget.
Charges are way to extreme and frankly i think its quite pathetic.
I know i will get heavily downvoted because all of reddit apparently have a very strong moral compass. But imo pressing charges is way to far and pathetic. The logic of bad things deserve bad consequences only go so far until you are being petty and sad
Your friends for obvious reasons, you for going to the police for something that should be, at worst, a civil lawsuit (but most definitely not something for the police – you are alive, it’s not like they poisoned you).
They are shit friends and the prank was stupid. But it was just a prank, despite how much of a victim you are trying to be. You ate some chicken nuggets. It sucks, but that’s just it.
I think between you and your friends, you are the bigger asshole.