Joseph Armstrong, known professionally as Joey Carbstrong, is an Australian animal rights activist. A former criminal, he has since undergone a personal transformation towards advocacy for animal liberation and veganism, through social media and public speaking engagements, as well as debates and various televised interviews.
Personal life
Carbstrong was born Joseph Armstrong in Adelaide, Australia. He has publicly stated that before his fame he was involved in substance abuse and crime. He became vegan after his release from incarceration. He has a “Vegan” tattoo behind his ear. At the age of 14 he had left school and developed a heavy drug addiction. He had various blue collar jobs before receiving welfare at age 22. By this point he had gained a lengthy criminal record which included three assaults. He spent 18 months under house arrest. An arrest in September 2011 was the result of police discovering a concealed, loaded shotgun which Armstrong was bringing to a drug deal. Multiple weapons and additional ammunition in his hotel room were also discovered and he spent six months in jail. In May 2017, he released a video to celebrate his completion of four years being sober.
Joey has been involved in animal rights street activism in Australia, Hong Kong, and the United Kingdom, promoting groups such as Anonymous for the Voiceless and the Save Movement, an organization that holds vigils outside abattoirs and aims to turn the world vegan by sharing images of the animals' treatment on social media. During one protest against a slaughterhouse in Spenymoor, he stated, "Slaughterhouses are usually on the outskirts of towns and hidden away. I am sure if they had glass walls not so many people would be eating flesh. We are here to bear witness to the animals being sent to slaughter. We take their photos and show them to the public so they know where the meat they are eating comes from. These animals are individuals and they want to live. We don’t need meat to survive and we hope to make people think more about the food choices they make." Carbstrong has also commented that "We can't love animals whilst we're consuming their flesh or paying for them to go into a slaughterhouse," and that "Slaughterhouse workers are a product of a sick society who want to consume animal flesh."
Debates
In January 2018, he began a 'Vegan Prophecy UK tour', which involve protesting against multiple slaughterhouses. During which he had multiple televised debates, including on the Jeremy Vine Show, This Morning, and Good Morning Britain. In 2018, Armstrong appeared on the British TV programme This Morning to debate farmers Jonny and Dulcie Crickmore. During the heated discussion Armstrong described artificial insemination in female cows as a form of sexual abuse and the dairy industry "sexually violates" cows. On the Jeremy Vine Show Armstrong criticized Vine's ham and cheese sandwich that was on his desk. Carbstrong stated that "cheese comes from a mother who had her children taken from her, and had hands shoved in her anus and was artificially inseminated with bull semen. Probably why vegans would say that a dairy farmer is akin to a rapist. I wouldn’t call a farmer a rapist, I wouldn’t use any of those words without explaining to them the process and why they involve themselves in these types of practices."
