Digging Up Positivity - January 2024

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Hello! In this episode we cover:

• The final numbers of the Furry Charity Index 2023 and a new total
• Charities by the furry fandom in January
• Controlling your fuzzy ears with your brain in VRChat
• Animation news
• An exclusive interview with Laser The Sharkfox
• Announcement winners of the Tshirts and Pawpillows!

Charity updates from last year

Fursuit Extravaganza raised $8,200

Fursuit Extravaganza is a group of talented fursuit makers that come together for an annual livestream, but it doesn’t stop there! They raised $2,000 for the Dumb Friends League, a lovely organisation helping cats and dogs through various means, helping people who cannot afford veterinary care, or help finding them new homes or making sure they got a safe place to stay. But they also raised $6,200 for Horseback Miracles during Denfur, providing a significant chunk of the $25,000 raised in total during that convention!

Howloween raised $2,565

In Canada Howloween raised $2,565 for the Wildlife Rescue Association BC, an organisation dedicated to the rehabilitation of Wildlife in the province of British Columbia.

Team Tony raised $8,738

Joe G Bear and Team Tony continued to keep raising money, their new total is $8,738 raised for ALS in honour of DogBomb!

Spicy Ramen Challenge Pt.1 raised $80

Bandit and his friends started a really awesome spicy Ramen Challenge where, you guessed it, they eat spicy ramen. Just watching that makes me want to try it. After all, some people know my ‘Instant Regret’ chocolate. Speaking of which, at Nordic Fuzzcon, I will be bringing along Instant Regret Wodka. But those hot musings aside, Bandit will continue with this hot series where every round they pass, more will be donated for the fight against ALS!

Bewhiskered raised $10,879

Bewhiskered, a lovely convention in Durham, raised $10,879.00 for ‘Safe Haven For Cats’, an organisation that made it their mission to give as many wonderful cats a forever home!

Updated 2023 total!

Thank you for pointing me towards these wonderful people, without your help I would not have found them! The updated amount raised over last year is— [Drumroffle]— $1,515,480.43!

Seriously, I am floored! And this huge amount raised worldwide has been possible thanks to awesome beans like you all! Please do keep on submitting charities in the form below so I can track as many as possible!

But of course, the new year barely started and already we have done so much, so lets continue shall we?

Back to the current year

Furvester raised $11,051.55

In Germany, 639 people raised $11,051.55 dollars for the Vaihingen/Enz Animal Shelter, I hope the chairman won’t kick me, he likes round numbers, adding a generous amount up to 10.000€. And here I am screwing things up by converting it into dollars!

New Year Furry Ball raised $2,079.69

And back in the US, the lovely critters from New Year Furry Ball raised $2,079.69 for I am Me Inc. an organisation devoted to create social spaces for the LGBTQ community with programs that uplift and unify this wonderful community.

Flappy New Year raised $10,103

A staple of every new year is Flappy New Year, hosted Adler the Eagle and his friends where they raised $10,103.00 for ‘Give Kids The World’. A non profit resort in Florida, USA, that provides week-long cost-free wish vacations for critically ill children and their families.

FNNY raised $1,346.85

Of course our Irish friends started out this year with their traditional ‘Furry Not New Years’ or FNNY supporting the Transgender Equality network, where they raised $1346.85, a significant increase from last years $868.39!

Stay awesome you lovelybeans!

Jekyll & Lunari raised $8468.56

In the Dutchfurs community we have many creative and passionate people. Two of those were a lovely couple, Jekyll and Lunari. For a brief moment things were looking so great. They finally got themselves a lovely house, a fancy car and then— one night it all went up in flames. However the community came together.

Countless [numbers] of people raised money in their name. Together with Mieno and Jaina I hosted a charity stream earlier this month, adding around $325 to their GoFundMe, which at the moment has a total of $8468.56!

Further Confusion raised $23,576

At Further Confusion, over 5,000 furries raised $23,576 for the Bill Willson Center, an organisation that provides services to prevent youth and family homelessness. Further Confusion always has been a big part of their local community. Local TV
Station ABC7 even covered them in quite the wholesome manner.

Benji raised $280

Fellow Youtuber Benji the Beagle unfortunately got hit by several very heavy medical bills but fortunately furries donated $280. Which was more than enough to cover it. Benji donated the remaining funds to the Trevor project. Good bean!

AnthroNewEngland Raised $30,000

Our friends at AnthroNewEngland raised a whopping $30,000 for Wings of The Dawn, wild bird and small animal rescue and for Youth On Fire, a drop-in center for homeless and street involved youth. With their 4,428 attendees this convention is rapidly growing and making a huge impact on the fandom and beyond.

Lucky Bun raised $2,630.39

Lucky Bun and their friends had a spicy stream where Bun and their friends went through the Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual, and made their verdict to either smash or pass on the beasties within. And in the meanwhile they raised $2,630.39 for the Trans Empowerment Project.

2024 total so far

We are barely past one month, and already furries raised $115,424.10 for charity! Will we break last years record? I certainly hope so!

Other news

Next level VRChat

It is no secret that furries have a huge presence in VRChat. I have had guests on the show before like BioGodz and Sherbert who are very active there. And during the great plague we started to hold huge parties on VRChat, rebuilding entire hotels in the virtual space, and Furality is still going strong! We had virtual dance competitions way before we had TV shows like Dance Monsters.

And now, we have critters like Rantis who managed to get BCI (Brain Computer Interface) working in VRChat , here you can see him training to get the ears done right. I myself was working on the predecessor of this technique all the way back in the 90’s at the HKU and I think this is so exciting! Youtube Raeal did make a very cool short explaining how it all works.

Hazbin Hotel

Back in the days, I stumbled upon the videoclip Die Young by Viziepop, like so many others. And later we had Zoophobia, with her signature style, she continued to rise and when the pilot of Hazbin Hotel things really started to rock. Hellovaboss, set in the same universe kept the momentum going and now the first 4 episodes of Hazbin Hotel are out on Amazon Prime! I am currently watching the show myself. While it does hit different at times from the pilot, I'm really loving it so far! The first episode you can check out on the Prime Video YouTube channel for free!

And now for our featurette: [Interview with Laserfox]

Thank You

A big thank you for staying with us till the very end of this first episode of 2024! During the Furry Charity Index, I told that Artworktee graciously provided some paws and Tshirts for a little raffle. So I went to the comment section and we picked some random winners. Here are the lucky ones:

• Thabo T-Shirt; Longtooth and Mishi45
• Thabo Meerkat paw; Arie, and LorekByrmison086

Of course, if you want one yourself. Go check out my store! And there may be some new designs in the works soon! I will keep you posted. Furthermore, I will be streaming art with some lo-fi beats almost every Monday on twitch and in between I am releasing short quickdig videos about all sorts of positive bits and bobs on this channel.

The next episode of Digging Up Positivity will feature a well known Dutch Angel Dragon to celebrate the 10th year anniversary of the 'DAD' community. And this episode will be going live on February 24th. Yes, when I am at NordicFuzzcon. Going to be a pleasant bit of chaos there. And of course, if you would like to support this channel, you can do that through getting some from the shop, or toss a coin to your meerkat like the following people:

• Subscribe Star: Hanzana, Manick, Cosmik with a K, Taross, Score Chaser
• Patreon: Tantroo McNally, Ishnula, Els Decker
• Youtube: Longtooth, Wither
• Current subscribers at Twitch: AjabuYeen, Falconeio, Jake_R_G, SwexTheMischieviousFOx, AuraPuff, DrohanStarBear, Duwahli, JansDeTrekGans, MarcelCoppersan, Ishnula