The Critique of DXE: a Decade of Vegan Opposition to "Direct Action Everywhere"

One of the most despised (but most influential) movements in veganism's 21st century, DXE was known for public protest "stunts" that earned them momentary notice in newspapers but permanently discredited the movement as a whole. Initially claiming to be "fully horizontal" and "leaderless", the organization later revealed just how narrowly hierarchical it was as the donations poured in, eventually surpassing a budget of one million dollars per year, and sex scandals (amidst rumors of cult-like conditions at their live-in compound) were responded to with bureaucratic red tape. DXE was founded by Wayne Hsiung, with significant leadership roles played by his sister and two of his ex-girlfriends (Priya Sawhney and Cassie King) who continued to control the money after Wayne resigned, ran for mayor, and dealt with the details of world's most boring (and insincerely exaggerated) sex scandal. More than any other organization, DxE has associated vegans with screaming and weeping at random customers on the floor of fast food restaurants, and getting yourself banned from the local grocery store, with their dubious methodology of "disruption" justified by even more dubious "social science research". Despite big budgets, celebrity endorsements, and court cases with (brief) prison sentences keeping their name in the news, the organization has slid into obscurity in recent years —but the damage done to veganism as a movement (and to the lives of hundreds of individual vegans who were foolish enough to join their "network") still endures.