“We Chinese just want meat!” An analysis of Chinese netizens’ reactions to vegetarian advocacy

•Vegetarian documentary on Chinese social media sparked resistance despite a solid cultural foundation.•Ethical vegetarianism of the documentary conflicts with Chinese views of a balanced diet.•Vegetarian messages must align with local cultural norms.•Celebrity advocacy can appear elitist and ineffective.•Flexitarian approaches may better resonate for vegetarian promotion. The shift to a vegetarian diet has multiple benefits, including the promotion of public health, sustainability, and animal welfare. Despite these advantages, vegetarian food choices often provoke controversy, particularly on social media platforms. On International Vegetarian Day 2021, renowned Chinese actress Zhang Jingchu endorsed a documentary titled “Vegetarian” on Weibo, igniting widespread discussion among Chinese netizens. Considering China’s deep cultural and practical roots in vegetarianism, the predominantly negative response to the documentary was surprising. This study employs frame analysis to dissect the portrayal of vegetarianism in the documentary, utilizing topic modeling based on Latent Dirichlet Allocation and sentiment analysis to examine over 26,000 related comments. Our findings indicate that the documentary predominantly utilizes health and ethical frames to represent vegetarianism, with a greater emphasis on ethical considerations. Topic modeling of the comments uncovered 14 topics that reflect netizens’ dissatisfaction with various facets of the vegetarian advocacy presented in the documentary. Moreover, the comments reveal three primary strategies netizens use to justify meat consumption and alleviate cognitive dissonance: rationalization of meat eating, skepticism towards vegetarianism, and resistance to the advocacy message of “Vegetarian”. The results imply that for vegetarian advocacy to be more effective, it should align with local everyday concerns, food culture, and the current stage of social development.