Digging Up Positivity - June 2024

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In this episode!

• Cool animation news!
• How an actual photographer won in an generative AI contest
• A furry Halloween in Rotterdam!
• The worlds first furry opera!
• How to win this amazing Pride shirt, so fresh, mine is still in the mail.

But first, the latest charity news from the fandom in the June edition of Digging Up Positivity!

Charity Updates

Pride-Ra

Burubado Print & Design stumbled upon a drawing of the Gender Ideology Hydra which was used in very bad faith, but they did the right thing! Why fight it, if you can conquer it? Thus Pride-Ra was born! They sold 23 shirts, 3 hoodies and 12 stickers so far and the proceedings of $197.93 went to Transcend Australia, an LGBTQ charity dedicated to young trans and non-binary children.

Furlandia

In Portland, USA, 2,060 wonderful fuzzbuts have raised $5,000 for New Avenues For Youth. A non-profit organization from the same city dedicated to the prevention and intervention of youth homelessness!

AnthroOhio

Our furry friends at AnthrOhio have raised $8,551.02 for ONE - Ohio Nature Education, striving for a better environment for us all.

Confuzzled

Meanwhile in the United Kingdom, the wonderful critters at Confuzzled have raised $47,249.13 for the British Wildlife Rescue Center.

StratosFur

And back into the US, the critters from StratosFur have raised $16,334 for Give Us Paws, a center devoted for subsidized and free training for dogs provided to civilians who are deemed disabled under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Northen Michigan Furcamp

And over in Michigan, 50 attendees raised $303 together at Northern Michigan Furcamp for the Skegemog Raptor Sanctuary, a raptor rehabilitation center dedicated to everything related to the survival of those majestic big birds!

Furality Umbra

After all this time, Furality still is going on strong as one of the most dazzling virtual conventions out there, and this year over 21,000 visitors raised $46,120 for The Center, dedicated to provide a place for our LGBTQ+ friends amongst our midsts.

Pride Month

But at the making of this video, Pride Month is still in full swing, and several pride related charities are going on within the fandom. Such as Pride and Kindness and previous guest Sherbert with Transnanigans 2. Of course, those results will be added to the charity index next month and the grand total at the end of this year!

Results so far

Not just did all the furry charities covered by Digging Up Positivity raise over $750,000 this year, but almost 30% of that is devoted to LGBTQ causes: Over 223,000, which is already more than the $157,398.03 raised over the entirety last year! And we are well on our way the record set in last year. I am stoked to see how much furries will raise worldwide in the second half of 2024!

News

Pride Merch

But we are not done. During this month, I released new Pride merch. This lovely Pride shirt, not just for meerkats! If you want one, go check out my ArtworkTee store, or stay until the end of the video to hear how you can win one!

Furry Tea Party is going places

Earlier this year we covered Furry Tea Party, one of the Asian furry events held in Taiwan. This year they also had one of the town officials, the major visiting their event. Our partners at Global Furry Television had an interview on the chaos that ensued when 3 days before the events they heard the major was visiting! You can find the interview linked in the corner or in the description below!

Dutch Comic Con

Twice a year, there is the Dutch Comic Con in Utrecht. Reason why I am covering it here, is this is a perfect opportunity to meet new furry friends! On both Saturday and Sunday, the people from MeetsFurYou are organizing a lovely furry get together, and every year the atmosphere is amazing! The next edition is at November 23rd and 24th and I hope I can be there! Most likely on Sunday!

Thabo in Diggerland

Speaking of furry events! Last year I was very honoured to be invited to Diggerland in Devon (UK) for a meet and greet! And come on: An entire theme park entered around a meerkats favourite activity? That is just awesome! The meet and greet was
a big success so we will be returning on Saturday July 6th! Tickets are available on the Diggerland website! Hope to see you there!

Photographer versus the machines!

It almost looks like you can’t escape it! AI, while it has its uses, especially generative AI is very controversial, and not just because of the numerous copyright issues that really do need to be addressed. It has happened quite a bit that AI work was submitted in genuine human competitions and snatched the prizes away from the very human contenders.

Miles Astray, photographer, says that he did break the rules on purpose at an AI contest while submitting his work titled Flamingone. He chose a surrealistic photo on purpose, where it could easily be an AI photo. And his entry actually won!
Unfortunately after it became known he won, they disqualified him and chose two other AI generated photos as a winner.

But Miles, you will always remain a winner in my book and you have proven your point. Human ingenuity and artistry is at this point a lot better than generated AI.

Cara

And on the subject of AI. It has become no secret that generative AI is flooding various big named art sites and communities. Much to the dismay of many artist who are still making art the conventional means, who did not consent those sites for their material to be used to feed their respective generative models. So the search for a new space began! And Cara is quickly emerging as a new community.

I am there as well, it even has Glaze integrated, a tool that ensures your material becomes unusable for AI scraping methods. It's a free tool available for both Apple and PC. I am slowly moving my gallery over to Cara and will be uploading my art on there going forward.

Phenomenotter

Jakob Oettinger , nicknamed Otter or Phenomenotter released a promo, it made the rounds with furries who love ice-hockey and quickly spread beyond. And as a meerkat who is not familiar with the game at all, I was floored at the amazing catchiness of it all! Go check it out. The pace, the music, pure hype and with an excellent message: The power inside you and me. When we are him, we can do anything!

NCHProductions

A citizen from Singapore, who is a huge Pokemon fan, is releasing cute little animations from time to time, and his latest series are just hilarious. From an Eevee tasting lemon, to what happens if you try to disassemble a Magneton. They are short and extremely silly! Go check them out!

Punked Pooch

Punked Pooch is a very lovely animation where Fifi, a guitarist poodle, is getting invited to play along at a venue with her old high school band. Unfortunately tensions are rising as old rivalries emerge. The animation style does remind me of the old Cartoon Network style like Dexters Laboratory and the old Powerpuff girls. Where the voice actors sound a little inexperienced and sometimes the audio levels are a bit all over the place, the flashback frames and tension build up make up for it big time! I hope they will make more episodes, since the rather abrupt open ending screams they wanted more time for this!

Dungeon Flippers

While lately I don’t play it as much as I used to, not nearly, I always loved Dungeons and Dragons, scouring dungeons, and even building them in Dungeon Master! When I saw Dungeon Flippers, I was sold! It's a very well executed pilot with plenty of callbacks to those dungeons.

The story follows Maulie, an ambitious manticore with great imagination and Cleveland, a business savvey dragon. And who are trying to sell a dungeon as the dungeonflippers to a wizard, who is an exceptionally difficult customer. will they succeed? The music really stands out, complimenting the nice pacing of this 16 minute pilot episode.

Bun Hunting: Overture

A previous guest on the show, all around amazing animator Piti Yindee, has released Bun Hunting:Overture. They released the first half of an animation that has been in the making for over a year. It started out as a classic ‘Wolf versus rabbit’ idea, including the delightfully corny gags that would make Tex Avery blush. But just before the end of the first half it takes a very interesting twist that makes me yearn for the release of the second half!

Worlds’ First Furry Opera: Flüfferdämmerung

Nordic Fuzzcon always stood out in their creativity. They allow their staff to come up with a wild variety of shows and ways of doing things. One of the reasons why I pride myself to be a part of them! Last convention they had a very special opera: The Flufferdammerung, and the performance is phenomenal! The video is linked here and really recommend it! Sit back, don your fancy drinks and enjoy the 1 hour show!

Reffurence

While Halloween is not as big in the Netherlands as it is in places like the US, we do have a furry convention coming up there in the end of October: Reference. And as a lead from the charity team, I am happy to announce our guest of this month: Iris, also known as Roxanne, who works at Reffurences’ charity of choice.

[Featurette: Iris]

Thank You

And this brings us to our lovely outtro. If you wish to win one of those pride-shirts I showed in the beginning. Please do let us know in the comments if you want to have one, and I will pick a random winner and announce them next episode.

Of course, if you want one regardless: Go check out my Artworktee store. However, a like and subscribe will come a looong way. And every Monday-ish I will be streaming on here and twitch. You can become a member on this channel or on subscribe start and receive early access to my videos, usually one day ahead of schedule! After all, we are talking news here!

And now a special thanks to my supporters! On Subscribe Star: Manick, Cosmik with a K, Taross, Hanzana, Score Chaser. Our Youtube Members: LorekByrnison086, Longtooth, Wither. For Patreon: Tantroo McNally, Ishnula, and Els Deckers. Twitch Subscribers include: Jake_R_G, James_TGS, TretronTheDragon, Falconeo, HanzanaJanssen, Lightnympha, Drohan Star Bear, Marcel Copperas, Swex The Mischievous Fox, EvolverTV, Drieka, Arie1985, and AjabuYeen.

The next episode of Digging Up Positivity will be on Juli 27th, see you around and all the hugs!