You're an angry Joe. The normal response to finding out facts about other people's lives is "oh, I did not know that."
I'm pretty sure the intended takeaway from his videos wasn't to start using 'angry Joe' as an ad hominem .I've been pretty clear and levelheaded in my posts, and made a point to delineate the limited point I am trying to make.
Or it could just mean "I'd rather not eat your sandwhich". I don't know how complicated your life is, but when my friend refuses a sandwhich I offered him by reminding me he's vegetarian, I just say "okay" and move on.
Except it obviously doesn't just mean that because otherwise people would say that instead. This is exactly the point I'm making: There is more meaning embedded in saying "I am a vegan" than just "I don't want your sandwich". People don't want to admit this because it removes you from a place of neutrality and in the context of his video, a kind of moral superiority. It means you can't simply castigate everyone responding to you in a non-positive way as the 'bad guys', it forces you to think about the mode of expression you are choosing. Is it more important for you to express why you don't want X or simply that you don't want X? That's where identity politics comes into play.
Side note, why do people keep switching the context to that of friends when he clearly described the examples in his videos to be more between acquaintances or even strangers, it's an important distinction. ED: Heh, I just noticed I did this too without realizing it. Friend is so generalized it's easy to assume/impute different definitions and contexts without much reason for it, apologies.
In the grand scheme of things, yes, sure, the statements we make and why we make certain choices are political. But that's beside the point of the videos. We're not talking about analyzing every day decisions. We're talking about a standard scenario, a simple occurrence that could happen any day. People don't fret on every political sentiment out there. And when they do, it's usually in the form that was described in the video, when people take a neutral statement and turn it into a political action against themselves regardless of intent.
If you're familiar with the term micro-aggression, then you're aware that feminists and critical race theorists do just that regarding 'everyday' or 'ordinary' behavior. I'm not putting forward any particularly novel analysis here, although to be clear, I'm not equating these two things, I'm just pointing out that they operate via similar mechanisms. Let's turn the scenario into one that more clearly implicates traditional concerns, I think you might see that your position is perhaps a bit too strict.
If I invite someone to my gay friend's anniversary party, and they respond with "I'm a Christian", is that an apolitical or neutral statement? Is their answer truly interchangeable with "No thank you"? Is the fault truly on me alone for responding to that in a different way than had they simply said no? What about reminding a friend that Rite-Aid is offering free flu vaccines for kids, and they respond "We do natural parenting" or "We don't vaccine".
Is someone saying "I don't drink" or "I'm a recovering alcoholic" to your offer of a drink going to make you considering the political ramifications and their stances on prohibition because saying "recovering alcoholic" doesn't necessarily tell you exactly their stipulation on alcohol (maybe they're weening, or only certain alcohols, or whatever)? I'd assume not, so unless you're offering the drink at an AA meeting, it's okay to not have to consider every single political ramification of a solitary statement that might not necessarily be intended.
I would wager that most people's reaction to that statement would be to think about why the person they are talking to doesn't drink. Do I think they go through the specific logic chain he details, no, but internally something analogous to that may be operating under the hood. That's a completely normal reaction, it would be abnormal to assume the person does not drink for no reason. I discussed the problem of the bolded in my original post which I'll copy over (although people will have the same objections because I'm mostly just reiterating):
Now many people are just thinking ahead and assuming that the next question from the person will be "Why don't you want my sandwich?" or some other kind of aggressive political interrogation; they're just trying to shut that down before it happens: "I just want to decline a sandwich without having to make it political". But this is the same kind of problematic thinking that we're castigating the question asker for: "I just want to offer a sandwich to my friend without it becoming political". The difference is that the respondent is the one interjecting politics directly in a flawed attempt to circumvent it, and then complaining that the other party responded to that latent expression of values in a normal way.
I think you're reading too much into this. "I'm a vegan" could equally mean, "Yes, I'm hungry but for <reasons> I don't want your sandwich". Those reasons could be due to personal preference rather than personal politics.
I think you're missing my point entirely which is that personal preference is personal politics (as well as selling vegan-ism short because I don't think many would describe it simply as an aversion to the taste of meat or a preference for non-meat). I discussed the decision-reasoning jump in earlier posts (some of which is above).