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Vimeo Re-enables Furries: An Inside Look
After the DMCA take down notice on March 28, the video had been pulled from the service. As of this afternoon (April 11, 2011), the video is back up and accessible.
Congratulations goes out to Curt Pehrson for winning this battle against Vimeo and fraudulent DMCA take down notices. We’re looking forward to your next work.
Spirit Hoods: Are you a member of the Tribe?
Ke$ha, Katy Perry & More Rock ‘Spirit Hoods’ and get their Furry on. Spirit Hoods are the new fashion trend sweeping the west coast and rapidly moving east.
Gee guys…we in the Furry community have been ahead of the curve!
Spirit Hoods were inspired by people who were wearing ears, tails and other “faux fur” accessories at festivals like Burning Man and Cochella. Each of the designs represents a “spirit animal”. Each animal’s traits are listed, for example “Nasty Rabbit” is “Trickster » Articulate » Lucky” and “Wolf” is “Loyal » Social » Teacher” with a matching description.
It’s not just the new must have fashion accessory, it is actually helping a cause. they have partnered with some non-profits, where a portion of the profits from their “Product Blue” items goes toward saving an endangered animal.
The Spirit Hoods collection features a variety of animal styles, all of which craftily mimic the fur colors rather accurately. They’ve got grizzlies, several varieties of wolves, lions, pandas and more — even a “nasty rabbit.” All hoods come with ears, so it should make for some interesting silhouette while you strut about a dark club (or stumble home after a bender).
The standard design comes with paws that fall down to around the waist area, which you can use as a scarf or a place to wipe all that catsup in your hands after eating fries. They also offer a “half” model for some of the designs, which cuts off the arms, leaving just the hood over your head.
We don’t know how a Spirit Hood will go with your regular dress style. They look crazy good, though. Prices start at $69 for the half models and $129 for the pawed designs.
There is even a kids line
The non-profits that benefit are as follows:
Product BlueThe Spirit Hoods Family is pro wildlife! We are a big supporter of all animals all over the world, and to concentrate our efforts and make sure your donated dollars go to the right place, we’ve created “Product Blue.” When you purchase a Spirit Hood that contains the logo below you are automatically donating a portion of proceeds to help fund a Non-Profit Organization dedicated to helping your particular animal.
Visit SpiritHoods Kids
Polar Bears International is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the worldwide conservation of the polar bear and its habitat. By promoting awareness through research, stewardship, and education they hope to help keep these animals on the planet.
www.polarbearsinternational.org
The unintended activities of humans have increasingly threatened the survival of one of earths most elegant wild cats, the Snow Leopard. It’s now up to us to help support these majestic animals and their fight for survival.
www.snowleopardconservancy.org
Wolves are still a very threatened species in North America and all over the world. A non-profit organization established in 1990, Wolf Hollow offers a unique opportunity to view gray wolves in as natural a setting as possible and teaches people about the importance of the wolf in the wild. www.wolfhollowipswich.org
Pandas InternationalThe Giant Panda is such a delightful and captivating animal, it is also one of the most endangered. The best estimates place the number of wild pandas at approximately 1,600. Pandas International is exclusively devoted to the Giant Panda, and with your help are making an impact on their recovery!
www.pandasinternational.org
You can purchase through our Amazon Store here FNN Shop
You can find their site at Spirit Hoods
The Bear-Riding Cowboy in Color
We’ve talked around here before about Reed Gunther, the weird and wacky wild west comic book independently published by brothers Shane Houghton and Chris Houghton. Now, the comic book returns, this time in full-color and published by Image. Why should furry fans care about a cowboy comic? Perhaps because wildman Reed Gunther’s noble steed is a full-grown grizzly bear named Sterling. The bear doesn’t speak — but he has his own ways of commenting on the action all around him. Which is a lot, as Reed has a habit of meeting (and often battling) all kinds of strange and deadly critters throughout the badlands. In their first adventure from Image (coming this June), Reed and Sterling face off against a giant, cow-eating snake!
Monty Python's Flying Circus predicts furries
Monty Python's Flying Circus predicts furries
Drop in Web Traffic?
If you run a furry related website, some of your traffic may be vanishing thanks to a new type of Search Engine abuse. We’re still looking for more detail on why this is happening but common search terms are now showing up like this:
We searched Google for “furmeet” – This was #18 on the list. We’ve noticed this on other searches.
Mephit Furmeet
Sharingmephit furmeet head count art community Pictures of themephit furmeet, a furry convention in olive branch Videos , photobucket picture, …
eaglefirstrealty.com/docs/mephit-furmeet
Clicking on the title link launched http://kingsoft-antispyware.co.cc/fast-scan/ – a program we have never heard of before.
Right clicking and opening either the title link or the bottom link in a new tab brought us to “Eagle First Realty” with no sign of anything having to do with MFM.
If you find a link like this in your browsing, Google has a new feature that allows you to block this from your searches. Make sure you are signed in with your Google account and click “Block all eaglefirstrealty.com results” – A different block link will show up for each bad result.
This has other potential issues. Whoever is doing this is also gathering large amounts of Furry art and embedding it in the bait pages. The sites we have seen before have well known pieces from across the fandom. This is a snapshot from Google’s site preview for the link we showed above.
It is unlikely that the web site owner in question – in this case Eagle First Realty, is even aware of what is going on. It is more than likely a marketer that has promised them massive amounts of “high quality” traffic. They build hundreds of link pages with embedded images and search terms that Google and other search engines then index. The marketer then goes back in and does a “301 redirect” to the real website.
Please watch what links you click on. If you find something fishy like this, block the link and report it to Google. Help drive crap like this off the internet.
Here’s another site that we just got a link to: http://jeffvenableproductions.com/thuja-macro-furries-girls/
Update: This tip just in from Rydel
I work IT at a large Software company and our security group did find information on this issue (it affects non-furry sites too and posed a security risk), but all of this information is available to the public.
A group of hackers found a way to get a massive push of false certificates for several major sites: login.live.com, www.google.com,mail.google.com, login.yahoo.com, login.skype.com, addons.mozilla.com, and “Global Trustee”.
Many Web browser creators have released updates so that their web browsers will reject these modified certificates. Any user affected by this should take the following steps to protect their system, based on their web browser:
Internet Explorer: Install Microsoft Update KB2524375 at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2524375
Firefox: Update to Firefox 3.6.16, 3.5.18, or 4.0
Chrome: Update to latest version (I don’t have the version number with me, but can get it when I check my work email tomorrow)
Opera and Safari do not have a fix at this time. I don’t have information on any other browsers, but if their creators have released an update in the past few days, updating to that is strongly recommended.
Rydel – Thank you for the tip!!
Cracked.com: Monty Python Predicts the Rise of Furries
Cracked.Com recently published a piece about how some comics have predicted the future. They cite eight examples over the past 40 years. Some have been quite uncanny in their accuracy. Even the British sketch comedy troop Monthy Python seems to have made a somewhat accurate prediction – about the then unnamed Furry Fandom.
Cracked features this as #2 in their top eight list.
From Cracked.com:
We’re hoping we don’t have to explain who Monty Python are, but suspect that we probably do for some of you. They were simply the most well-known and respected comedy troupe in the world back in their day.
Their sketches and movies were a unique combination of topical and absurd. So much so that this surreal style is now referred to as “Pythonesque.” But not even they could outdo real life. The second episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, way back in 1969, featured one such “Pythonesque” sketch entitled “The Mouse Problem.”
OK, maybe that one time we got hammered at Disney World. But that hardly counts. And we were way more into Goofy.
Intended as a satirical view of homosexuality and the controversy surrounding it, the sketch takes the form of a news report, investigating a growing social issue of men dressing up as mice as a sexual fetish. These “mice” go to parties, eat cheese and squeak, and these behaviours have resulted in a public outcry against the lifestyle. The newsreader is joined by two guests: an anonymous “mouse” insider, and a psychologist who poses the question: “Who here can say that they have never been sexually attracted to a mouse?”
This sketch fails to remain “Pythonesque” in the age of the Internet, thanks to “furry fandom,” a phenomenon so popular that we’re assuming more of you have heard of it than have heard of Monty Python — 2008 played host to nearly 40 conventions for furries. And a recent survey [NOTE: Not the survey conducted by University of Waterloo & Niagra County Community College] shows that while most furries consider themselves entirely human, nearly half admire qualities of other animals, and 3.5 percent truly think of themselves as animals.
Only 1.4 percent of those animals bear any resemblance to a living creature.
And as for the sexual fetish aspect of it, well, that’s something you can take up with Google Image search. Have fun.
"The Saga Of Rex", a cute fox comic book.
Preemptive Strike: PR For Furry Cons
Editorial by: Markos
Over the past few weeks, since Atlanta’s Rock 100.5 Radio “under cover” happening at FWA, I have been thinking about Public Relations. Since Furry conventions began, as a community, we have been very protective, shunning media coverage, or carefully cultivating the image we allow the media to see. In some cases, this works very well, and in some cases, it comes around and bites us on our collective tails.
The question is, why are we so secretive? What goes on at an average Furry convention is no worse that anything that goes on at any other type of sci-fi or fantasy convention. I have a 28 year history in the convention business. I’ve seen almost everything. When you get enough of any group together, add a light hearted and fun atmosphere, maybe some alcohol, and some hormones on overdrive, things will happen. Klingons, Storm Troopers, Pirates, Anime characters – I’ve seen it all.
What we need is better Public Relations. To take a page from another convention’s handbook (Dragon Con), Furry Conventions should consider doing a media tour a day or two before the start of a convention. The idea is simple. As a convention organizer, you send out a press release two to three weeks in advance, letting television stations, radio stations and news papers know you will be in town. Be sure to include all relevant contact information as show hosts or producers may contact you to ask you to come on their show. If they do, book a time and be sure to show up.
There will be radio and television stations that don’t call you for interviews. Take the extra step to contact them directly. Call the morning show’s producer and ask for a five to ten minute interview. Many television and radio stations will be happy to have you on.
Now that you’ve got time slots booked, it’s your time to shine! Pick three or four members of your convention that you feel best represent the furry community and take them with you! Maybe an artist and a couple of fursuiters, maybe someone who does puppetry. Find the people who make your convention stand out. Before you go, think of the most off the wall, hard ball questions someone might ask you and practice your answers, that way, when they ask you the hard questions, you won’t hesitate to answer.
Don’t know quite what to say? Uncle Kage has been one of the best spokespersons for the Furry fandom. Watch his interview segments in Curt Pehrson’s “Furries: An Inside Look” Kage covers just about everything and does so with confidence and authority. Like him or not, he answers those hard questions.
[NOTE: Curt Pehrson's documentary had been taken down due to DCMA. Vimeo reposted the video Monday, April 11, 2011.]
Rotten Egg Creations did an interview where Uncle Kage gives a variant of his defense of the Fandom:
When you come in to do your interview, do your best to be very warm and personable. Let the hosts and audience know about your event’s history, what your theme is, and highlight some key events. Highlight things like your fursuit parade, any contests you may have done in the past, and dances.
This is also the best possible time to talk up your charity! I would venture to guess, few if any media outlets have ever covered the charity aspect of a Furry convention.
If your event is family friendly, stress that fact. If you have convention hours where no one under eighteen is allowed, make sure that is known too. Be as transparent and up front as you can.
For television stations, take the extra step to get any kind of promotional footage of your event and of your charity to the producers well before the interview so they can air the footage during your interview. Most stations can handle footage on DVD, or better yet, in standard MPEG2 video format. If there is a question on the format they need, follow up with the producer for any technical specs.
It is up to you if you want to invite the media in to the convention. Going to them first will often be all the story they really want to run.
The next big thing is to let your attendees know that the media will be running interviews before the convention. Alert them to the fact that some media has been invited into the convention as well. If your attendees know ahead of time, they may be more alert and may refer media types who try to sneak in to either convention security or to your media liaison.
If you do end up with someone from the media getting in uninvited, don’t panic. If you have a chance to meet them face to face, find out what media outlet they represent and talk to them about their intent. If they are looking to run a shock piece, there is not too much you can do to stop them unless they purchased a badge and have violated your published media policies.
You may be able to minimize the situation by inviting the person in and introducing them to some of the other aspects of the convention that they may have not known about, again, like the charity.
The idea is to desensitize the media about Furries. To compare this to another group, every year, you used to see “shock coverage” of Gay Pride events. Now the events are so well known, it’s rare that the local media (in my experience) even makes more than a passing note about it.
You have to realize that as individuals, we are intelligent. As a society, we are stupid and gullible. ”People” believe whatever is put in front of them on TV and on the radio. It is up to us to go out, grab the media’s attention and show them who we really are – not the fetishists depicted on CSI and in Vanity Fair, or even a hack radio show. We, as a growing community and subculture need to stop hiding and make a stand. We are geeks like everyone else. Instead of dreaming, writing and costuming Star Trek or Star Wars characters, we do things a bit differently – we show our inner animals, and we’re okay.
So, convention organizers, think this over. Talk it out with your boards of directors and test the waters. Taking this kind of action could change your conventions, and the furry subculture forever. Don’t get me wrong – it won’t stop us from being mocked. All geek subcultures are mocked in some form – any Trekkie can attest to that. It may just give us the little boost we need to let people say – hey, Furries are cool.
Preemptive Strike: PR For Furry Cons by Markos is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.furrynewsnetwork.com.
Federally Funded Comic Books? Yes Indeed. Meet Squeaks!
Via The Blaze
Just when you think there are no new ways for the Federal government to waste your tax dollars, those creative geniuses in DC surprise us all. Say hello to the money-munching mouse known as Squeaks! Launched late last year, Squeaks created a little bit of a government-sponsored buzz;
Yes, of course, the history of printing is something that should be taught in our schools, but did the Federal government need to reinvent the wheel here? This space-exploring mouse is the star of a comic book printed by the GPO at a cost of $5.90 PER COMIC BOOK! If that doesn’t make your head spin, wait until you hear that the GPO sells the book for just $5.00, a loss of nearly one dollar for each comic book!
Are there no comic book companies left in the country that could have taken this project and execute it at a lower cost? Hello? Marvel and DC Comics would likely trip over themselves to get a hold of a large government printing contract.
Read more at The Blaze
Link to this post!I'm at an awesome b-day party right now.
I'm at a birthday party right now, and the theme is How to Train Your Dragon. Ill snag a pic of the cake later.
Best babysitting ever.
submitted by BonKerZ[link] [4 comments]
Godzilla: Gangsters and Goliaths
Ya gotta love Kaiju fans sometimes. The come up with things like: Godzilla: Gangsters & Goliaths. (“Kaiju”, if you didn’t know, is Japanese for “giant monster”.) This new five-issue full-color comic book miniseries comes to us this June from IDW. It’s written by John Layman (Chew) and illustrated by Alberto Ponticelli (Unknown Soldier). Here’s the story: Tokyo detective Makoto Sato is on a never-ending quest to bring down the Takahashi crime syndicate. Soon, his efforts win him a one-way ticket to a tropical paradise… known as Monster Island! Before long Sato is battling for his life against behemoths and bad guys… and to survive, he must enlist the aid of some “bizarre friends”. We’ll find out what that means this summer.
Spanish-speaking sports website features article on climbing fursuiters
Spanish-speaking sports website “Monta??ismo y Exploración” recently featured an article showing a couple of fursuiters doing mountain sports such as climbing and rappel.
The first of the videos was filmed in the Stone Summit facilities in Atlanta, GA and on it we can see “Cinnabar” climbing an artificial wall.
The second was filmed during Camp feral in Algonquin, Ontario in Canada.
And finnaly the last one we see “Oki Doki” in Robbers Cave state Park during Wild Nights 2010 showing his rappeling skills.
Additionally, browsing in Youtube we found a couple more with some trekkings and more stuff, so it seems our fursuiting friends are starting a trend on mountain sports!
You can read the original spanish article right here.
And if you are wondering with all that says, here’s an english translation of the text:
Have you ever been climbing and noticed all those mice, lizards and other animals while you climb? so why to doubt it? Animals climb and now they also do it in artificial walls.
Years ago, in one of the Banff Mountain Film Festival we saw a dog that was really climbing using paws, head and all its body to go beyond where most dogs stopped. In that moment everyone liked the film.
Maybe it was that dog, we really don’t know, but the thing is that there are many animals climbing walls. Well, what we could think it’s an animal at first sight is really a person with animal mascot costumes climbing or doing another mountaineering activity.
Let’s correct that last statement, it’s not strictly a “mascot costume”, they are called “fursuits”, in other words: an animal-shaped costume which is a representation of the people inside. Because who wears the suit is not just some random person but a member of a community that seems to have grown beyond of what they thought themselves.
The generic term for them is furry (plural: furries) and it’s an English word. It’s meaning is “with fur”, that simple.
Like everywhere else where mascots show up, where furries show up there seems to be a great commotion from children. And well, these characters begun to appear in the mountaineering scene, mainly in artificial walls where it seems they are well accepted, mainly by climber kids and teens.
These characters share their joy and fun once they are inside the suit. It’s the benefit of annonimacy. However it should be good if someone could get in touch with them and tell them a bit about security regulations. In the third video, the wall is locked on a flexible steel cable and in the last; the furry is jumping on the rope while the rope is rubbing against a sharp edge. Both are to be avoided as they may represent a security risk.
However, it seems that this will be a new way to bring people to climbing sports in mass. Just a comment, you should keep an eye on your pets, especially if you see them near to your climbing harness”.
With content from montanismo.org
translated with permission from the author.
Spanish-speaking sports website features article on climbing fursuiters
Spanish-speaking sports website “Monta??ismo y Exploración” recently featured an article showing a couple of fursuiters doing mountain sports such as climbing and rappel.
The first of the videos was filmed in the Stone Summit facilities in Atlanta, GA and on it we can see “Cinnabar” climbing an artificial wall.
The second was filmed during Camp feral in Algonquin, Ontario in Canada.
And finnaly the last one we see “Oki Doki” in Robbers Cave state Park during Wild Nights 2010 showing his rappeling skills.
Additionally, browsing in Youtube we found a couple more with some trekkings and more stuff, so it seems our fursuiting friends are starting a trend on mountain sports!
You can read the original spanish article right here.
And if you are wondering with all that says, here’s an english translation of the text:
Have you ever been climbing and noticed all those mice, lizards and other animals while you climb? so why to doubt it? Animals climb and now they also do it in artificial walls.
Years ago, in one of the Banff Mountain Film Festival we saw a dog that was really climbing using paws, head and all its body to go beyond where most dogs stopped. In that moment everyone liked the film.
Maybe it was that dog, we really don’t know, but the thing is that there are many animals climbing walls. Well, what we could think it’s an animal at first sight is really a person with animal mascot costumes climbing or doing another mountaineering activity.
Let’s correct that last statement, it’s not strictly a “mascot costume”, they are called “fursuits”, in other words: an animal-shaped costume which is a representation of the people inside. Because who wears the suit is not just some random person but a member of a community that seems to have grown beyond of what they thought themselves.
The generic term for them is furry (plural: furries) and it’s an English word. It’s meaning is “with fur”, that simple.
Like everywhere else where mascots show up, where furries show up there seems to be a great commotion from children. And well, these characters begun to appear in the mountaineering scene, mainly in artificial walls where it seems they are well accepted, mainly by climber kids and teens.
These characters share their joy and fun once they are inside the suit. It’s the benefit of annonimacy. However it should be good if someone could get in touch with them and tell them a bit about security regulations. In the third video, the wall is locked on a flexible steel cable and in the last; the furry is jumping on the rope while the rope is rubbing against a sharp edge. Both are to be avoided as they may represent a security risk.
However, it seems that this will be a new way to bring people to climbing sports in mass. Just a comment, you should keep an eye on your pets, especially if you see them near to your climbing harness”.
With content from montanismo.org
translated with permission from the author.
Episode 135 - Fandom Is Weird!
Neil Gaiman: furry :)
Don't forget this:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004G0943Y
Neil Gaiman: furry :)
Don't forget this:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004G0943Y