I was really expecting them to lean into my stupid old joke. I’m a vegetarian once removed, I only eat animals that only eat plants.

Can’t even clear that low bar of creativity.

As a vegetarian I do want it to taste like meat. That's how you get more people to try veggie meals.

Source: me with my family.
My immediate family now eats less meat due to liking the stuff I have, and more veggie stuff in general.

Some even prefer the 'meat' burgers -Beyond, Aldi plant based etc- over their old beef burgers.
They wouldn't have even thought of trying them and be converted if they weren't any "creepy and gross" alternatives.

The best vegan/vegetarian food I've had was the stuff that got away from finding substitutes for meat and just did its own thing.

As someone who currently eats meat but trying to reduce consumption for environmental reasons, I 100% want a vegan burger that tastes like the real deal

creepy and gross.

We are talking burger here, not your genitals.

Is that how it works? In that case I have some business ideas ...

Some do consider it vegan, same as the "freegan" subset. There's even at least one influencer who is a bit infamous for it But there's also a few problems with this line of reasoning. It still normalizes the idea of the consumption of animal products, so it's a slippery slope at best. It's also not scalable, as soon as probably even a modest proportion of people would adopt such a diet, demand would quickly start to surpass supply which would incentivise the artificial production of more road kill.

And then there's just the why? of it. Like if we're talking about extreme situations like starvation and poverty where there is literally no other choice, okay that would make sense. But otherwise, what is so wrong with eating plants that someone would go out of their way to eat carrion instead? With the likely putrefaction involved we are talking about literal self harm to avoid eating some good ol grains and beans.