FYI.

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Vice Blog

NEW YORK - Deer Vice,

Dear Vice,
Your posts have been sucking lately so I thought I'd let you in on a this interesting theory I've been working on. It is this: the animal kingdom has a way wider spectrum of happiness than we do. At one end of the spectrum there are animals like deer and pygmy shrew that live in a level of hell only the bible can describe and at the other end there's animals (mostly birds) that live a life of pure euphoria. All of our experience (all 6 billion of us) have lives that fall well within the confines of these two extremes. None of us have lives that are as shitty as a pygmy shrew (not even close) and none of us, no matter how high we get, will never comprehend the joy a turkey vulture has. This subject is considered taboo by most animal folks because they think it will lead to less animal rights for the losers.

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But the truth of it is inescapable. Shit, we only discovered happiness very recently. Go back two generations and happiness was barely in the human vocabulary. They just worked their fingers to the bone through two world wars and a depression, had six kids and died at 60 knowing they are going to get it all paid back in heaven (yeah right). Is it so hard to accept that most animals would kill themselves if they only had the brains to do it?
I have chosen a few random animals and placed them on my happiness chart.

Pygmy shrew: these little losers have to eat something like three times their body mass every day just to survive – no thanks! Talk about high-strung. All you have to do is fart in China and this guy does a triple back flip in panic. And look at mice. Ever see one of them lounging around enjoying the sun? They are constantly whipping back and forth trying to live another day.
Happiness: -50
Human equivalent: none

Wolves: all these guys do is fight. Only one of them gets to breed (the alpha male) and every other male devotes his life to wiping this guy out (which one of them will inevitably do one day). There's only 9,000 of these in all of America. Their reproduction rates suck because even when an alpha male does finally get to the point of fuck worthy the female is usually too stressed out to ovulate.
And hunting is way shittier than you think it is. Something like 1 out of every 20 moose they attack actually goes down. Odds are similar for most of their prey. Only beavers have a steady rate of return.
Happiness: -30
Human equivalent: starving African

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Lions: same shit different animal. If they don't have other alpha male contestants biting through their skin they have motherfucking hyenas literally tearing them a new ass every ten minutes. There is never a day of rest and life is about 100% fighting for your life.
Happiness: -25
Human equivalent: starving Romanian

Deer: they look cute and everything but do you want to wander through the woods all winter hoping for one morsel of one leaf to eat? You see them in the spring with fuckin' open sores all over their bodies that are FILLED with maggots. Nice.
Happiness: -20
Human equivalent: starving Cambodian

Moose: I used to go tree planting in Northern Ontario and moose were everywhere. During black fly season they would charge out to the delivery roads and start bucking and shaking and making these weird animal pleas trying to get the wind to blow off at least one black fly. Just to get a two-second break. Please God. It was watching this that made me start my theory in the first place. 
Happiness: -17
Human equivalent: guy who's spent his whole life in jail

Dogs: yeah they seem happy but those poor bastards are perpetually hungry. You see, the way we made dogs is we took the most puppyish of the wolves (floppy ears, non-violent, always happy to see us) and kept breeding them until we had perpetual children like that black hunk form Baby Boy. Then we fed them sawdust and carbs until we got a stomach that could never be full. Those fuckers will eat everything you give them, then barf it up and eat some more. Wolves will eat a deer carcass and then not get another bite for a week and a half. And they're fine with that.
Happiness: -4
Human equivalent: rural Canadian drug addict

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Cats: who cares?

Swallows: most people agree birds have the best life there is. Who doesn't have flying dreams? But a lot of birds still have shitty lives. Barn swallows for example live their lives totally covered in bloodsucking blowfly maggots. There's hundreds of them in every nest and most young would be very fortunate to make it to adulthood without being bled dry.
Happiness: 3
Human equivalent: mentally ill guy on a farm

Turtles: they seem to have it pretty easy. Lots of sunbathing.
Happiness: 5
Human equivalent: guy who works at Wal-Mart

Grouse: in your article Animals are Gay you talked about a lot of different animals experiencing joy. I agree. In the winter in Ottawa once I saw grouse (or was it pheasants- not sure – I'm not really an animal expert) lining up behind each other to go tobogganing down a small hill on their ass. They waited patently for their turn, went to the top, jumped on to their ass and slid down. Step and repeat.
Happiness: 30
Human equivalent: rich guy that gets laid a lot

Monkeys: they spend an average of about 2 hours a day working on food and water. We spend an average of 8 and that's after European lazers like Italy pull the average down from 9 or 10. Sorry but if you are devoting 22 hours a day to sleeping and fucking around you have a happy life. Do they even have any predators?
Happiness: 40
Human equivalent: none

Turkey vultures: if you've ever seen a turkey vulture riding the thermals in Costa Rica you can maybe begin to understand how shitty your life is compared to these animals. They flap like, once a day, and then go round and round scoping out the scenery for some carcasses to munch on. Sure, that sounds gross to you because you prefer veggie burgers but don't impose your taste on the animal kingdom. When most predators nail their prey they go for the steaming organs and leave our favorite parts for the end. They like the stink.
Happiness: 40
Human equivalent: none

So yeah, the scary part of all this talk is it seems to justify mass meat farming and leaving cows in these tiny cages so they can't walk. I'm not saying that. Nobody thinks it's OK to go galloping through Africa beheading starving children just because their lives are hell.
I'm still a vegetarian. But I'm also a hunter and I think we tend to over humanize animals. I won't eat a cow that's been tortured in a tiny holding cell its whole life but there's nothing wrong with me wiping a deer off the map and munching away at it's delicious body. Is there?
PS if you see a pygmy shrew be a mensch. Step on its head.

Sincerely,
Corey Stillman
New York, NY