Week 7

Week 7’s readings comprised of two chapters from the book Autistic Community and the Neurodiversity Movement, edited by Steven K. Knapp: Chapter 5, “Autistics.org and Finding Our Voices as an Activist Movement,” by Laura A. Tisonik, and chapter 7, “Neurodiversity.com: A Decade of Advocacy” by Kathleen Seidel.

Both of these chapters centered on the theme of digital spaces as sites of gathering and activity for activist groups – in this case, activists promoting the rights and equality of autistic people and other neurodivergent people. The two authors describe the early websites autistics.rog and neruodiversity.com as invaluable places for them to connect with others who understood their struggle and organize as disability rights activists.

This made me curious about early internet communities in the animal rights movement. Of course, countless sites, social media profiles, YouTube channels, and much more exist today to educate and connect animal rights advocates. But what about early sites, from before the social media age?

Unfortunately, after doing a bit of research, I still don’t know. I’m confident that some sort of animal rights community existed on the early internet, probably in the form of a forum or message board – but I have not been able to find one.

However, thanks to the magic of the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, I have been able to find some of the first animal rights communities online. The absolute earliest appears to be the sparse homepage of the ASPCA’s website from December 1997. Note the “event calendar” link, which indicates early efforts for creating community amongst activists.

Another early example is the site eatveg.org, dating back to at least 2000, which takes community building a step further by advertising its vegan dating site on the homepage.

It also encourages community building via AOL!

Overall, I wish I could find some earlier examples of animal activism online. It would be great to meet a vegan elder who was active in the early internet time and could describe what it was like, like the authors of these chapters. But it is still interesting to see some old sites through the Wayback Machine.