30 Second Summary
MyChats is a new platform that connects people who’ve just watched the 3-minute movie challenge with trained vegan mentors for live video calls, so they can process what they’ve seen and get support. The article explains the origins of the idea, why online outreach needs real conversations (not just comments), how MyChats works in practice, and how it will help us learn from thousands of conversations. It also shares where the project is up to now and what’s coming next.
What is MyChats?
Last year we announced MyChats as a concept. Since then, a lot has changed, and as we move towards an official release it’s likely to get a lot of attention – so here’s a clear rundown of what it is and why it matters.
If you prefer to watch rather than read, you can see the reveal announcement from VARC conference here: https://youtu.be/seS5F5iSi7Q?si=L5u7kfvNlNG0CiAL
The context: the 3-minute movie challenge
If you’re reading this, you probably already know about the 3-minute movie challenge – either from street advocacy or from our website 3minutes.wtf, which hosts the challenge online.
We think the challenge is incredibly powerful, and we consistently get fantastic feedback from people who’ve watched it.
When our social media team started sharing photos of people’s visceral reactions to the footage, we hadn’t anticipated just how many others would comment or DM asking to see the video themselves. They were intrigued by the reactions and wanted to know what was behind them. That interest is what led us to create 3minutes.wtf as a home for the movie challenge online.
The problem with online outreach
After showing the movie to tens of thousands of people on the street, we’ve learned something important: most people don’t just watch the video and then quietly decide to go vegan on their own.
Instead, they usually have some big feelings and questions they want to unpack. We’re pretty sure that the deciding factor isn’t only powerful footage. Having an inspiring coaching conversation is really important too.
The internet is brilliant for reach, but it has downsides. Online outreach can feel impersonal, and seeing someone in a comment section write, “I guess you’re right, I’ll go vegan,” is about as rare as seeing a unicorn win the lottery.
Simply uploading the video and trying to reach people in the comments isn’t enough. We need real conversations again. We need to bring back human connection. That’s why we created MyChats.
Introducing MyChats
MyChats adds a new step after someone watches the movie online:
“We know that was a difficult watch. Would you like a short chat with a volunteer to share your thoughts? You’ll also be entered into our quarterly $200 prize draw.”
People can then choose to enter a live call with a vegan mentor, possibly in exchange for a prize draw incentive. The goal is to recreate the supportive, one-to-one conversations we see on the street – but online, and at scale.
Why MyChats is so exciting
We’ve been working hard all year to turn this concept into reality. In the meantime, 3minutes.wtf has gone super-viral, with around 12 million views on our website this year thanks to the hard work of our media team promoting it across dozens of social media accounts.
With that level of traffic, MyChats has the potential to:
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Collect impact data and conversation transcripts from tens of thousands of outreach conversations.
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Analyse what the most and least successful conversations have in common.
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Use those insights to improve future training.
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Provide powerful AI analysis and recommendations to make our advocacy more effective.
In other words, MyChats isn’t just a way to support individuals after they watch the film – it’s also a tool to help us learn, adapt, and continually improve how we advocate for animals.
We’ve already started testing the platform, and one of the first real conversations is shown in the screenshot: a young person from the United States processing what they’ve just seen, reflecting on their own choices, and committing to concrete next steps with the help of a mentor.
Where we are now
We originally hoped to launch an early-access version in summer 2025, but we faced some technical limitations that we had to overcome. Right now, MyChats is in a closed beta, being tested on an invite-only basis.
Our early testing highlighted lots of improvements we want to make before a wider release, and we’re actively working on those. We expect to see a broader roll-out in the new year.
