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FC-263 Technicolor Zoo - In this busy episode we feature multiple interviews about recent convention ending drama, following that up with loads of other news & links.
In this busy episode we feature multiple interviews about recent convention ending drama, following that up with loads of other news & links.
Watch Video Interviews:- First, our friends @Digivolve and @Rawr_Jesse join us for some insight on RMFC’s timeline.
- Then we were joined by @BoozyBarrister. A lawyer, blogger and confirmed badger furry, to talk about his blog’s writeup of the RMFC Cease and Desist letter.
- RMFC Related News & Links:
- [Dogpatch Press] Rocky Mountain Fur Con backs neo-nazis, sex offender to intimidate critic for reporting threat.
- [Flayrah] Rocky Mountain Fur Con canceled following neo-Nazi associations, tax irregularities
- [Lawyers And Liquor] Free Furry of The Land: When SovCits and Furries Collide
- [Rolling Stone] Does the Furry Community Have a Nazi Problem?
- FA User RhubarbTheBear’s Boozy Barrister Badger Jingle
- What Killed Rainfurrest 2016 – Trappa Explains at VancouFur 2016
- Furry Psychology with Nuka at Texas Furry Fiesta 2017
- WiFi Sex Toy can be hacked
- How Does a Centaur Eat?
- Draw A Centaur Day is April 16th!
- Tables Turned On Drunk Driver
- Neural Network Generated Pickup Lines
- Woman Brings Therapy Dog to MCFC
- Spawts’s Cardboard Cutout has a Twitter Handle
- CSI Fur Fest: The Unsolved Case of the Gas Attack at a Furry Convention
- How Cats Became Our Feline Overlords (feat. It’s Okay To Be Smart)
- Digital Media Primer with Monty Montgomery
- Update: Sozan’s life is still a disaster
- MFF staff reassures they do audit for multiple bookings
- Engineer ‘Marries’ Robot He Built And It’s Totally Not Creepy At All
- Tyrannosaurus rex was a sensitive lover, new dinosaur discovery suggests
- Artificial Intelligence Systems Are Learning Our Racism And Sexism
- Cheeky Hackers Trigger All Of Dallas’ Emergency Sirens Simultaneously
- Being A Night Owl Might Be Written In Your Genes
Categories: Podcasts
[Live] Technicolor Zoo
In this busy episode we feature multiple interviews about recent convention ending drama, following that up with loads of other news & links.
Interviews:- First, our friends @Digivolve and @Rawr_Jesse join us for some insight on RMFC’s timeline.
- Then we were joined by @BoozyBarrister. A lawyer, blogger and confirmed badger furry, to talk about his blog’s writeup of the RMFC Cease and Desist letter.
- RMFC Related News & Links:
- [Dogpatch Press] Rocky Mountain Fur Con backs neo-nazis, sex offender to intimidate critic for reporting threat.
- [Flayrah] Rocky Mountain Fur Con canceled following neo-Nazi associations, tax irregularities
- [Lawyers And Liquor] Free Furry of The Land: When SovCits and Furries Collide
- [Rolling Stone] Does the Furry Community Have a Nazi Problem?
- FA User RhubarbTheBear’s Boozy Barrister Badger Jingle
- What Killed Rainfurrest 2016 – Trappa Explains at VancouFur 2016
- Furry Psychology with Nuka at Texas Furry Fiesta 2017
- WiFi Sex Toy can be hacked
- How Does a Centaur Eat?
- Draw A Centaur Day is April 16th!
- Tables Turned On Drunk Driver
- Neural Network Generated Pickup Lines
- Woman Brings Therapy Dog to MCFC
- Spawts’s Cardboard Cutout has a Twitter Handle
- CSI Fur Fest: The Unsolved Case of the Gas Attack at a Furry Convention
- How Cats Became Our Feline Overlords (feat. It’s Okay To Be Smart)
- Digital Media Primer with Monty Montgomery
- Update: Sozan’s life is still a disaster
- MFF staff reassures they do audit for multiple bookings
- Engineer ‘Marries’ Robot He Built And It’s Totally Not Creepy At All
- Tyrannosaurus rex was a sensitive lover, new dinosaur discovery suggests
- Artificial Intelligence Systems Are Learning Our Racism And Sexism
- Cheeky Hackers Trigger All Of Dallas’ Emergency Sirens Simultaneously
- Being A Night Owl Might Be Written In Your Genes
Categories: Podcasts
Even furries are no longer safe from neo-Nazi meddling
And... another one...
http://www.avclub.com/article/even-furries-are-no-longer-safe-neo-nazi-meddling-253748?utm_content=Main&utm_campaign=SF&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=SocialMarketing
From the A.V. CLUB
Even furries are no longer safe from neo-Nazi meddling
By Alex McLevy @alexm247
Posted yesterday at 12:59 p.m.
Photo: Carston Koall/Stringer/Getty
Photo: Carston Koall/Stringer/Getty
“First they came for the men dressed as giant furry rabbits, and I did nothing.” This is a sentence you may yet see when the future history of the rise of the “alt-right” (read: fascist neo-Nazis) in our contemporary era is written. A recent online conflagration that led to the cancelation of a furry convention in Colorado has shown that even the world of people who enjoy walking around as giant plush animals isn’t safe from incursion by assholes. The Daily Beast reports that Rocky Mountain Fur Con, an annual summit held in Denver for furries, has been shut down due to the activities of a group known as “Furry Raiders,” a name that actually pairs quite well with “Sad Puppies” and other like-minded groups that appear to have a real problem with minorities.
However, Furry Raiders has done its best to distance itself from these reprehensible ideologies. Or at least they’ve tried to make a show of such distancing. It doesn’t help that the group’s leader is named “Foxler” and dresses in a red armband that is identical to a Nazi armband, save for replacing the swastika with a paw print. If you listen to a lengthy YouTube video he posted last month, Foxler (who is quick to assure people it’s a portmanteau of “Fox” and his supposed surname “Miller,” and not a much more obvious play on “Hitler”) does his best to use the language of diversity and inclusion, saying the Furry Raiders welcome all people of all stripes or species, and that personal expression of any kind is very important to them. Unfortunately, it soon becomes apparent that the main kind of free expression Foxler wants to defend is the right to dress like an anthropomorphic Nazi fox. Also, if you’re pleading for respect for diversity in your desire to dress like a Nazi, maybe don’t send an empathetic tweet of that desire to Richard “I’ll always be the white supremacist who got punched in the face” Spencer. It looks bad.
https://twitter.com/starfoxACEFOX/status/823998732601622529/photo/1
Nonetheless, Foxler, who claims to have been ignorant of WWII history and any resemblance to literally one of the most notorious ideologies in world history, says the events that led to Fur Con’s cancelation are a big misunderstanding. It seems the rise of #AltFurry, a hashtag for furries who presumably don’t care much for women or people of color, led to condemnations of the look and ideas behind Furry Raiders, a group with a “very confusing past and a very confusing history,” according to Fur Con chairman Zachary Brooks, who might have a bit of his own confusion about the difference between the past and history. Regardless, in 2016, after it was announced what hotel the convention would be at, Furry Raiders quickly booked a massive block of rooms, preventing others not affiliated with the group from making any reservations. (“I had like a spare 10 extra rooms,” Foxler notes.) It was “seen by many as a malicious act by them to try to control who could and couldn’t attend. So that’s what really began the controversy with them,” Brooks continued.
From there, other furries began to discover overlap between the Fur Con board and Furry Raiders, and when a furry named Deo (who hadn’t even planned to attend Fur Con) made a crack on Twitter about how she “can’t wait to punch these Nazis” (this was right on the heels of Spencer getting clocked for all the world to see) and got the response that someone would “enjoying watching Deo get shot at the convention.” She notified the authorities, the hotel informed Fur Con it would require a security force that would cost more than twenty thousand dollars, and that was pretty much it for the convention. Whether Foxler himself espouses fascist ideology is unknown—Furry Raiders have started making rainbow armbands, among other colors, as a way to show its commitment to diversity—it seems obvious there are some in the #AltFurry community more than happy to wreck other people’s enjoyment of the non-fascist things in life, like being very, very committed to dressing up as cartoonish mammals.
There’s a whole other aspect to the story that involves a member of the Fur Con board being involved with sovereign citizen activities and also a convicted sex offender, which is probably not high on the list of things with which furries want to be associated. Also, other furries discovered Fur Con, which claimed to be run by a nonprofit, had actually had that status revoked back in 2011 for failure to file statements with the IRS. Basically, it’s a whole mess, and a lot of it can be chalked up to a likely small group of guys who start statements with things like, “I’m not a neo-Nazi, but...” This is why we can’t have nice things, or even harmless but slightly unsettling things, depending on your views of the furry community.
http://www.avclub.com/article/even-furries-are-no-longer-safe-neo-nazi-meddling-253748?utm_content=Main&utm_campaign=SF&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=SocialMarketing
From the A.V. CLUB
Even furries are no longer safe from neo-Nazi meddling
By Alex McLevy @alexm247
Posted yesterday at 12:59 p.m.
Photo: Carston Koall/Stringer/Getty
Photo: Carston Koall/Stringer/Getty
“First they came for the men dressed as giant furry rabbits, and I did nothing.” This is a sentence you may yet see when the future history of the rise of the “alt-right” (read: fascist neo-Nazis) in our contemporary era is written. A recent online conflagration that led to the cancelation of a furry convention in Colorado has shown that even the world of people who enjoy walking around as giant plush animals isn’t safe from incursion by assholes. The Daily Beast reports that Rocky Mountain Fur Con, an annual summit held in Denver for furries, has been shut down due to the activities of a group known as “Furry Raiders,” a name that actually pairs quite well with “Sad Puppies” and other like-minded groups that appear to have a real problem with minorities.
However, Furry Raiders has done its best to distance itself from these reprehensible ideologies. Or at least they’ve tried to make a show of such distancing. It doesn’t help that the group’s leader is named “Foxler” and dresses in a red armband that is identical to a Nazi armband, save for replacing the swastika with a paw print. If you listen to a lengthy YouTube video he posted last month, Foxler (who is quick to assure people it’s a portmanteau of “Fox” and his supposed surname “Miller,” and not a much more obvious play on “Hitler”) does his best to use the language of diversity and inclusion, saying the Furry Raiders welcome all people of all stripes or species, and that personal expression of any kind is very important to them. Unfortunately, it soon becomes apparent that the main kind of free expression Foxler wants to defend is the right to dress like an anthropomorphic Nazi fox. Also, if you’re pleading for respect for diversity in your desire to dress like a Nazi, maybe don’t send an empathetic tweet of that desire to Richard “I’ll always be the white supremacist who got punched in the face” Spencer. It looks bad.
https://twitter.com/starfoxACEFOX/status/823998732601622529/photo/1
Nonetheless, Foxler, who claims to have been ignorant of WWII history and any resemblance to literally one of the most notorious ideologies in world history, says the events that led to Fur Con’s cancelation are a big misunderstanding. It seems the rise of #AltFurry, a hashtag for furries who presumably don’t care much for women or people of color, led to condemnations of the look and ideas behind Furry Raiders, a group with a “very confusing past and a very confusing history,” according to Fur Con chairman Zachary Brooks, who might have a bit of his own confusion about the difference between the past and history. Regardless, in 2016, after it was announced what hotel the convention would be at, Furry Raiders quickly booked a massive block of rooms, preventing others not affiliated with the group from making any reservations. (“I had like a spare 10 extra rooms,” Foxler notes.) It was “seen by many as a malicious act by them to try to control who could and couldn’t attend. So that’s what really began the controversy with them,” Brooks continued.
From there, other furries began to discover overlap between the Fur Con board and Furry Raiders, and when a furry named Deo (who hadn’t even planned to attend Fur Con) made a crack on Twitter about how she “can’t wait to punch these Nazis” (this was right on the heels of Spencer getting clocked for all the world to see) and got the response that someone would “enjoying watching Deo get shot at the convention.” She notified the authorities, the hotel informed Fur Con it would require a security force that would cost more than twenty thousand dollars, and that was pretty much it for the convention. Whether Foxler himself espouses fascist ideology is unknown—Furry Raiders have started making rainbow armbands, among other colors, as a way to show its commitment to diversity—it seems obvious there are some in the #AltFurry community more than happy to wreck other people’s enjoyment of the non-fascist things in life, like being very, very committed to dressing up as cartoonish mammals.
There’s a whole other aspect to the story that involves a member of the Fur Con board being involved with sovereign citizen activities and also a convicted sex offender, which is probably not high on the list of things with which furries want to be associated. Also, other furries discovered Fur Con, which claimed to be run by a nonprofit, had actually had that status revoked back in 2011 for failure to file statements with the IRS. Basically, it’s a whole mess, and a lot of it can be chalked up to a likely small group of guys who start statements with things like, “I’m not a neo-Nazi, but...” This is why we can’t have nice things, or even harmless but slightly unsettling things, depending on your views of the furry community.
Categories: News
Even furries are no longer safe from neo-Nazi meddling
And... another one...
http://www.avclub.com/article/even-furries-are-no-longer-safe-neo-nazi-meddling-253748?utm_content=Main&utm_campaign=SF&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=SocialMarketing
From the A.V. CLUB
Even furries are no longer safe from neo-Nazi meddling
By Alex McLevy @alexm247
Posted yesterday at 12:59 p.m.
Photo: Carston Koall/Stringer/Getty
Photo: Carston Koall/Stringer/Getty
“First they came for the men dressed as giant furry rabbits, and I did nothing.” This is a sentence you may yet see when the future history of the rise of the “alt-right” (read: fascist neo-Nazis) in our contemporary era is written. A recent online conflagration that led to the cancelation of a furry convention in Colorado has shown that even the world of people who enjoy walking around as giant plush animals isn’t safe from incursion by assholes. The Daily Beast reports that Rocky Mountain Fur Con, an annual summit held in Denver for furries, has been shut down due to the activities of a group known as “Furry Raiders,” a name that actually pairs quite well with “Sad Puppies” and other like-minded groups that appear to have a real problem with minorities.
However, Furry Raiders has done its best to distance itself from these reprehensible ideologies. Or at least they’ve tried to make a show of such distancing. It doesn’t help that the group’s leader is named “Foxler” and dresses in a red armband that is identical to a Nazi armband, save for replacing the swastika with a paw print. If you listen to a lengthy YouTube video he posted last month, Foxler (who is quick to assure people it’s a portmanteau of “Fox” and his supposed surname “Miller,” and not a much more obvious play on “Hitler”) does his best to use the language of diversity and inclusion, saying the Furry Raiders welcome all people of all stripes or species, and that personal expression of any kind is very important to them. Unfortunately, it soon becomes apparent that the main kind of free expression Foxler wants to defend is the right to dress like an anthropomorphic Nazi fox. Also, if you’re pleading for respect for diversity in your desire to dress like a Nazi, maybe don’t send an empathetic tweet of that desire to Richard “I’ll always be the white supremacist who got punched in the face” Spencer. It looks bad.
https://twitter.com/starfoxACEFOX/status/823998732601622529/photo/1
Nonetheless, Foxler, who claims to have been ignorant of WWII history and any resemblance to literally one of the most notorious ideologies in world history, says the events that led to Fur Con’s cancelation are a big misunderstanding. It seems the rise of #AltFurry, a hashtag for furries who presumably don’t care much for women or people of color, led to condemnations of the look and ideas behind Furry Raiders, a group with a “very confusing past and a very confusing history,” according to Fur Con chairman Zachary Brooks, who might have a bit of his own confusion about the difference between the past and history. Regardless, in 2016, after it was announced what hotel the convention would be at, Furry Raiders quickly booked a massive block of rooms, preventing others not affiliated with the group from making any reservations. (“I had like a spare 10 extra rooms,” Foxler notes.) It was “seen by many as a malicious act by them to try to control who could and couldn’t attend. So that’s what really began the controversy with them,” Brooks continued.
From there, other furries began to discover overlap between the Fur Con board and Furry Raiders, and when a furry named Deo (who hadn’t even planned to attend Fur Con) made a crack on Twitter about how she “can’t wait to punch these Nazis” (this was right on the heels of Spencer getting clocked for all the world to see) and got the response that someone would “enjoying watching Deo get shot at the convention.” She notified the authorities, the hotel informed Fur Con it would require a security force that would cost more than twenty thousand dollars, and that was pretty much it for the convention. Whether Foxler himself espouses fascist ideology is unknown—Furry Raiders have started making rainbow armbands, among other colors, as a way to show its commitment to diversity—it seems obvious there are some in the #AltFurry community more than happy to wreck other people’s enjoyment of the non-fascist things in life, like being very, very committed to dressing up as cartoonish mammals.
There’s a whole other aspect to the story that involves a member of the Fur Con board being involved with sovereign citizen activities and also a convicted sex offender, which is probably not high on the list of things with which furries want to be associated. Also, other furries discovered Fur Con, which claimed to be run by a nonprofit, had actually had that status revoked back in 2011 for failure to file statements with the IRS. Basically, it’s a whole mess, and a lot of it can be chalked up to a likely small group of guys who start statements with things like, “I’m not a neo-Nazi, but...” This is why we can’t have nice things, or even harmless but slightly unsettling things, depending on your views of the furry community.
http://www.avclub.com/article/even-furries-are-no-longer-safe-neo-nazi-meddling-253748?utm_content=Main&utm_campaign=SF&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=SocialMarketing
From the A.V. CLUB
Even furries are no longer safe from neo-Nazi meddling
By Alex McLevy @alexm247
Posted yesterday at 12:59 p.m.
Photo: Carston Koall/Stringer/Getty
Photo: Carston Koall/Stringer/Getty
“First they came for the men dressed as giant furry rabbits, and I did nothing.” This is a sentence you may yet see when the future history of the rise of the “alt-right” (read: fascist neo-Nazis) in our contemporary era is written. A recent online conflagration that led to the cancelation of a furry convention in Colorado has shown that even the world of people who enjoy walking around as giant plush animals isn’t safe from incursion by assholes. The Daily Beast reports that Rocky Mountain Fur Con, an annual summit held in Denver for furries, has been shut down due to the activities of a group known as “Furry Raiders,” a name that actually pairs quite well with “Sad Puppies” and other like-minded groups that appear to have a real problem with minorities.
However, Furry Raiders has done its best to distance itself from these reprehensible ideologies. Or at least they’ve tried to make a show of such distancing. It doesn’t help that the group’s leader is named “Foxler” and dresses in a red armband that is identical to a Nazi armband, save for replacing the swastika with a paw print. If you listen to a lengthy YouTube video he posted last month, Foxler (who is quick to assure people it’s a portmanteau of “Fox” and his supposed surname “Miller,” and not a much more obvious play on “Hitler”) does his best to use the language of diversity and inclusion, saying the Furry Raiders welcome all people of all stripes or species, and that personal expression of any kind is very important to them. Unfortunately, it soon becomes apparent that the main kind of free expression Foxler wants to defend is the right to dress like an anthropomorphic Nazi fox. Also, if you’re pleading for respect for diversity in your desire to dress like a Nazi, maybe don’t send an empathetic tweet of that desire to Richard “I’ll always be the white supremacist who got punched in the face” Spencer. It looks bad.
https://twitter.com/starfoxACEFOX/status/823998732601622529/photo/1
Nonetheless, Foxler, who claims to have been ignorant of WWII history and any resemblance to literally one of the most notorious ideologies in world history, says the events that led to Fur Con’s cancelation are a big misunderstanding. It seems the rise of #AltFurry, a hashtag for furries who presumably don’t care much for women or people of color, led to condemnations of the look and ideas behind Furry Raiders, a group with a “very confusing past and a very confusing history,” according to Fur Con chairman Zachary Brooks, who might have a bit of his own confusion about the difference between the past and history. Regardless, in 2016, after it was announced what hotel the convention would be at, Furry Raiders quickly booked a massive block of rooms, preventing others not affiliated with the group from making any reservations. (“I had like a spare 10 extra rooms,” Foxler notes.) It was “seen by many as a malicious act by them to try to control who could and couldn’t attend. So that’s what really began the controversy with them,” Brooks continued.
From there, other furries began to discover overlap between the Fur Con board and Furry Raiders, and when a furry named Deo (who hadn’t even planned to attend Fur Con) made a crack on Twitter about how she “can’t wait to punch these Nazis” (this was right on the heels of Spencer getting clocked for all the world to see) and got the response that someone would “enjoying watching Deo get shot at the convention.” She notified the authorities, the hotel informed Fur Con it would require a security force that would cost more than twenty thousand dollars, and that was pretty much it for the convention. Whether Foxler himself espouses fascist ideology is unknown—Furry Raiders have started making rainbow armbands, among other colors, as a way to show its commitment to diversity—it seems obvious there are some in the #AltFurry community more than happy to wreck other people’s enjoyment of the non-fascist things in life, like being very, very committed to dressing up as cartoonish mammals.
There’s a whole other aspect to the story that involves a member of the Fur Con board being involved with sovereign citizen activities and also a convicted sex offender, which is probably not high on the list of things with which furries want to be associated. Also, other furries discovered Fur Con, which claimed to be run by a nonprofit, had actually had that status revoked back in 2011 for failure to file statements with the IRS. Basically, it’s a whole mess, and a lot of it can be chalked up to a likely small group of guys who start statements with things like, “I’m not a neo-Nazi, but...” This is why we can’t have nice things, or even harmless but slightly unsettling things, depending on your views of the furry community.
Categories: News
Does the Furry Community Have a Nazi Problem?
Yep...even the Rolling Stone mag has it...
http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/does-the-furry-community-have-a-nazi-problem-w476466
The Rocky Mountain Fur Con has been hosting huge annual conventions for a decade – but will infighting mean the end? Furry Raiders
Rocky Mountain Fur Con 2017 – a convention for enthusiasts who wear animal costumes ingrained with human characteristics for roleplaying – has been canceled. On Monday, the RMFC board of directors organizing the 10th annual event, set to be held in Denver next August, posted a statement that a "movement has grown into a community that promotes violence" which resulted in a "sudden and drastic increase in security costs" exceeding a third of the event's operating budget.
Related
'Radically Mainstream': Why the Alt-Right Is Celebrating Trump's Win
"We've been legitimized by this election," says movement leader Richard Spencer
The announcement came after the founder of the Furry Raiders, an outlier group within the anthropomorphic subculture, adopted an armband which featured a black paw on a red background that some thought had a striking resemblance to a part of the Nazi uniform. Convention chairman Zachary Brooks did not directly name the Furry Raiders in his account, but convention staff identified the Furry Raiders as being at the center of the controversy after being labeled a neo-Nazi group throughout the community, which largely exists online.
Lee Miller, the 29-year-old Fort Collins furry who wears the armband as his Foxler Nightfire fursona, has in turn been accused of being a neo-Nazi. He denies any connection between his armband and that of the Third Reich. Online forums have characterized the Furry Raiders as a "neo-nazi cult-like group" recruiting members with "gifts, grooming and manipulation," according to Dogpatch Press, a blog covering the furry community. But Miller does not agree with such descriptions. "We have a strong stance about keeping equal rights and personal creativity within the fandom," says Miller, who adds that he has never been banned from a convention contrary to other furry beliefs.
On January 26th, a furry identifying as a Tasmanian Devil named Deo tweeted, "Can't wait to punch Nazis," which led another furry with a now-deleted Twitter handle of @Oliviameles to comment, "Watching you get shot by someone defending themselves from unprovoked assault will be far more entertaining."
The Denver Police eventually investigated the comments and found the threats credible enough that convention host Marriott Tech Center demanded $22,000 to hire off-duty officers for security, according to Flayrah, an online news magazine for furry fandom. "People overreacted," Brooks told the Denver Post. "As it got more and more heated, people started talking about beating up people wearing the symbol. They said, 'We've got a right to protect ourselves and we are going to bring weapons.'"
The RMFC board puts on one of the top-10 attended conventions in the United States, and expected over 2,000 furries to attend this summer, according to David Gonzalez, director of marketing at RMFC in Colorado. Their parent company, Mid-American Anthropomorphic and Arts Corporation (MAAAC), is now focused on issuing refunds for the cancelled convention. "The board of MAAAC has not voted to dissolve the corporation, but the continuation of RMFC beyond 2017 does not look very likely," says Gonzalez. Turns out the in-fighting has been an ongoing situation for at least the past year and a half. "The casual threats they were tossing at one another were the final straw," says Gonzalez. "It may be the end for RMFC, but the online threats of violence will crop up again for other conventions." To shed light on the recent cancellation, Rolling Stone interviewed furries to find out what's happening in their community.
Rocky Mountain Fur Con was created for all persuasions
In 2007, the MAAAC hosted the first RMFC convention for the growing number of furries seeking acceptance in Colorado. The social events have since attracted furries mostly of Millennial age to mingle, dance, listen to guest speakers and attend literary events, as well as hosting informational panels. "It's just like any fan-base conference," says Gonzalez. Furry comedian 2 Gryphon often makes appearances and artists sell paintings of their part-animal, part-human avatars. Last year, the RMFC welcomed about 1,670 furries, 65 vendors and 35 artists.
The Furry Raiders group was started on the website Second Life, and now has roughly 1,000 members. Furry Raiders
The Furry Raiders say they have no political agenda
The year of the RMFC debut, a small group of furries started the "Furry Raiders project" formed in the online virtual world Second Life, with no goals other than to "help furries purchase items in the game," says Miller, the founder. The group grew to 1,000 members over three years and he backed out because he could not afford to give furries real money to buy hairstyles for their characters or gardens and castles for their in-game properties. But in 2014, Miller resurrected the Furry Raiders after seeing media accounts describing their community not as a creative safe zone but as a world for kinky fetishists.
"Our goal became to continue the furry fandom in the way it was founded, where everyone has the chance to express themselves and have the creativity they desired," says Miller, who joined the community as a 12-year-old loner struggling with the death of his father. But after a while, he realized some furries were not as accepting as he thought. "People were governing the image of what furry fandom should be," says Miller, referring to furries who told him to remove his armband. "We realized we can't pick and choose what people do. There are furries that are into bestiality. Others draw younger characters and it gives them a creative outlet in a safe manner. If they continue to stay in a creative community like this they won't harm people or animals. We can't just say we hate you."
Despite Miller's comments, furries like Crummles Upton believe that the Furry Raiders are "notorious for breaking rules under the guise of free speech." In an interview conducted with Rolling Stone via Twitter, the furry mentions examples of how group members troll furries online and spread hate speech at conventions. "The Raiders have an M.O. of publicly saying stuff along the lines of wanting inclusiveness and just getting along with people, but in person or in DMs they act contrary to that," according to Upton.
Foxer Nightfire's arm band is a furry symbol, he says, not a nod to neo-Nazism
Miller discovered the infamous armband in 2007 as a free item in Second Life. The Furry Raiders then spent over $700 to physically make 100 armbands that varied in color. "The red armband became part of my persona, but people started telling me I had to change and I wouldn't do that," says Miller. Five years ago, furries began calling him a neo-Nazi because they felt there were similarities between his armband and those of the Nazis, as well as a resemblance to armbands worn by the "Furzis" on Second Life, a contentious group of furries interested in German history and World War II. Miller, who describes himself as a high school dropout "knowledgeable in computers but uneducated in history and politics," reached out to actual actual neo-Nazis via online forums. "I told them I was a furry and they said, 'What the fuck is this shit?'" says Miller. "They found out 60 percent of furries are gay males and told me, 'Get the fuck out of here.'"
Last year, Miller wore an armband to the RMFC. "It grew into a big problem," says Miller. After the election last November, a group calling themselves Anti-Fascist Furries organized and tried to get Nazi Furs banned from such conventions, and also encouraged furries to "boycott events that didn’t ban the Furry Raiders from attending," according to Vice.
Last Year's RMFC 2016 might have been the last Rocky Mountain Fur Convention, according to an organizer. Furry Raiders
In January, the RMFC board issued a statement announcing that in light of the controversy, they would ban all clothing and accessories showing "offensive messages or symbols." The RMFC board struggled to weigh the balance between total acceptance and having to get a handle on furry in-fighting. "It's kind of difficult for any kind of convention to police anybody's outside behavior," says Gonzalez. "Ostensibly, we would have a lot of people banned." That same month, Miller tweeted a photo as Foxer Nightfire wearing an armband with the hashtag #altfurry. He believes some furries have abandoned their original message of acceptance. "People have given us a lot of shit for the arm band that I wear," says Miller. "If you want to accept everyone else, I should be welcomed, too."
So, is Miller a neo-Nazi? "I don't know politics," says Miller, who notes that he voted for Foxer Nightlife in last year's presidential election. "I'm not in a position to make any decision on Nazis, Republicans, Democrats and Libertarians. I stick with the furry concept. Some ideas in America need to be protected." Furzis, Nazi Furs and Soviet Furs have asked him about the armband, and he believes they are questioning him because they are "non-political, history buffs, nothing more."
"I do not see my armband as National Socialism," says Miller, who makes a point to say that he has German and Thai lineage and is now dating a man who identifies as African-and Asian-American. "I see the armband as a symbol of furriness. It's not a tool or device to promote Nazism. It's a roleplaying tool. Anything in the furry community is just created out of fantasy and taking it seriously is just asinine. Given my background, Hitler would be rolling in his grave."
A MAAAC board member sent a cease and desist letter to a furry
In January, Deo reached out to the RMFC board via Twitter and sent an email to their security team to report the threats, she tells Rolling Stone through Twitter. There was no response until April 3rd when she received a letter from Kendal Emery aka Kahuki, a board member of MAAAC and RMFC, who personally sent a cease and desist letter to Deo's house. Emery, who stepped down as RMFC chair after a 1993 felony conviction for Criminal Sexual Contact with a Minor was revealed in 2008, wrote that Deo's "false statements" caused "substantial commercial injury damage" and mentioned the possibility of a class-action lawsuit. He ended the letter with a red ink thumbprint, according to Deo. The FBI views such seals and content as representative of the Sovereign Citizens Movement, a lethal subculture whose followers "hold truly bizarre, complex antigovernment beliefs" that are "rooted in racism and anti-Semitism," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. In a recent interview with The Daily Beast, he denied any association with that group, noting that the fingerprint "just means it's me that wrote it."
After receiving the letter, Deo contacted police in her home state, along with a Colorado lawyer. "I do not take lightly to convicted felons mailing me threatening things," says Deo. On April 10th, she went public with the letter to "warn my furry community of these unstable individuals." Later that day, Brooks announced that the RMFC was cancelled. Deo maintains that her tweeting about punching Nazis was a "joke I said to my friend" referring to a meme of Alt-Right leader Richard Spencer.
The RMFC board became aware of Emery's letter after it was made public. "We're not pursuing it," says Gonzalez, speaking as a member of the organizing committee for RMFC. "We deeply regret it was ever sent and contacted the recipient." (Emery told the Daily Beast that he had the full approval of the board to send the letter.) Today, the furry community is heartbroken, angry and confused. "We try to be as inclusive as possible," says Gonzalez. "But furries have become far more politically polarized and there's a greater willingness to call someone out publicly and try to force them to act. That's what happened here. It's fair to say that we're not prepared for that."
Miller, who remains perhaps one of the most polarizing of figures in the furry community, claims that he has been "trolled, slandered, harassed and threatened" over the past year. From his computer, Miller watches the online bickering and he is filled with shame to see the MAAAC and RMFC crumble. "For me, being a furry is a personal outlet to understand the real world," says Miller. "Others find it fun. Others find it spiritual. And others go for sexual purposes. People take on completely different characteristics and sometimes I can't even tell who's in the suit. I'm the same person in and out of the suit."
http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/does-the-furry-community-have-a-nazi-problem-w476466
The Rocky Mountain Fur Con has been hosting huge annual conventions for a decade – but will infighting mean the end? Furry Raiders
Rocky Mountain Fur Con 2017 – a convention for enthusiasts who wear animal costumes ingrained with human characteristics for roleplaying – has been canceled. On Monday, the RMFC board of directors organizing the 10th annual event, set to be held in Denver next August, posted a statement that a "movement has grown into a community that promotes violence" which resulted in a "sudden and drastic increase in security costs" exceeding a third of the event's operating budget.
Related
'Radically Mainstream': Why the Alt-Right Is Celebrating Trump's Win
"We've been legitimized by this election," says movement leader Richard Spencer
The announcement came after the founder of the Furry Raiders, an outlier group within the anthropomorphic subculture, adopted an armband which featured a black paw on a red background that some thought had a striking resemblance to a part of the Nazi uniform. Convention chairman Zachary Brooks did not directly name the Furry Raiders in his account, but convention staff identified the Furry Raiders as being at the center of the controversy after being labeled a neo-Nazi group throughout the community, which largely exists online.
Lee Miller, the 29-year-old Fort Collins furry who wears the armband as his Foxler Nightfire fursona, has in turn been accused of being a neo-Nazi. He denies any connection between his armband and that of the Third Reich. Online forums have characterized the Furry Raiders as a "neo-nazi cult-like group" recruiting members with "gifts, grooming and manipulation," according to Dogpatch Press, a blog covering the furry community. But Miller does not agree with such descriptions. "We have a strong stance about keeping equal rights and personal creativity within the fandom," says Miller, who adds that he has never been banned from a convention contrary to other furry beliefs.
On January 26th, a furry identifying as a Tasmanian Devil named Deo tweeted, "Can't wait to punch Nazis," which led another furry with a now-deleted Twitter handle of @Oliviameles to comment, "Watching you get shot by someone defending themselves from unprovoked assault will be far more entertaining."
The Denver Police eventually investigated the comments and found the threats credible enough that convention host Marriott Tech Center demanded $22,000 to hire off-duty officers for security, according to Flayrah, an online news magazine for furry fandom. "People overreacted," Brooks told the Denver Post. "As it got more and more heated, people started talking about beating up people wearing the symbol. They said, 'We've got a right to protect ourselves and we are going to bring weapons.'"
The RMFC board puts on one of the top-10 attended conventions in the United States, and expected over 2,000 furries to attend this summer, according to David Gonzalez, director of marketing at RMFC in Colorado. Their parent company, Mid-American Anthropomorphic and Arts Corporation (MAAAC), is now focused on issuing refunds for the cancelled convention. "The board of MAAAC has not voted to dissolve the corporation, but the continuation of RMFC beyond 2017 does not look very likely," says Gonzalez. Turns out the in-fighting has been an ongoing situation for at least the past year and a half. "The casual threats they were tossing at one another were the final straw," says Gonzalez. "It may be the end for RMFC, but the online threats of violence will crop up again for other conventions." To shed light on the recent cancellation, Rolling Stone interviewed furries to find out what's happening in their community.
Rocky Mountain Fur Con was created for all persuasions
In 2007, the MAAAC hosted the first RMFC convention for the growing number of furries seeking acceptance in Colorado. The social events have since attracted furries mostly of Millennial age to mingle, dance, listen to guest speakers and attend literary events, as well as hosting informational panels. "It's just like any fan-base conference," says Gonzalez. Furry comedian 2 Gryphon often makes appearances and artists sell paintings of their part-animal, part-human avatars. Last year, the RMFC welcomed about 1,670 furries, 65 vendors and 35 artists.
The Furry Raiders group was started on the website Second Life, and now has roughly 1,000 members. Furry Raiders
The Furry Raiders say they have no political agenda
The year of the RMFC debut, a small group of furries started the "Furry Raiders project" formed in the online virtual world Second Life, with no goals other than to "help furries purchase items in the game," says Miller, the founder. The group grew to 1,000 members over three years and he backed out because he could not afford to give furries real money to buy hairstyles for their characters or gardens and castles for their in-game properties. But in 2014, Miller resurrected the Furry Raiders after seeing media accounts describing their community not as a creative safe zone but as a world for kinky fetishists.
"Our goal became to continue the furry fandom in the way it was founded, where everyone has the chance to express themselves and have the creativity they desired," says Miller, who joined the community as a 12-year-old loner struggling with the death of his father. But after a while, he realized some furries were not as accepting as he thought. "People were governing the image of what furry fandom should be," says Miller, referring to furries who told him to remove his armband. "We realized we can't pick and choose what people do. There are furries that are into bestiality. Others draw younger characters and it gives them a creative outlet in a safe manner. If they continue to stay in a creative community like this they won't harm people or animals. We can't just say we hate you."
Despite Miller's comments, furries like Crummles Upton believe that the Furry Raiders are "notorious for breaking rules under the guise of free speech." In an interview conducted with Rolling Stone via Twitter, the furry mentions examples of how group members troll furries online and spread hate speech at conventions. "The Raiders have an M.O. of publicly saying stuff along the lines of wanting inclusiveness and just getting along with people, but in person or in DMs they act contrary to that," according to Upton.
Foxer Nightfire's arm band is a furry symbol, he says, not a nod to neo-Nazism
Miller discovered the infamous armband in 2007 as a free item in Second Life. The Furry Raiders then spent over $700 to physically make 100 armbands that varied in color. "The red armband became part of my persona, but people started telling me I had to change and I wouldn't do that," says Miller. Five years ago, furries began calling him a neo-Nazi because they felt there were similarities between his armband and those of the Nazis, as well as a resemblance to armbands worn by the "Furzis" on Second Life, a contentious group of furries interested in German history and World War II. Miller, who describes himself as a high school dropout "knowledgeable in computers but uneducated in history and politics," reached out to actual actual neo-Nazis via online forums. "I told them I was a furry and they said, 'What the fuck is this shit?'" says Miller. "They found out 60 percent of furries are gay males and told me, 'Get the fuck out of here.'"
Last year, Miller wore an armband to the RMFC. "It grew into a big problem," says Miller. After the election last November, a group calling themselves Anti-Fascist Furries organized and tried to get Nazi Furs banned from such conventions, and also encouraged furries to "boycott events that didn’t ban the Furry Raiders from attending," according to Vice.
Last Year's RMFC 2016 might have been the last Rocky Mountain Fur Convention, according to an organizer. Furry Raiders
In January, the RMFC board issued a statement announcing that in light of the controversy, they would ban all clothing and accessories showing "offensive messages or symbols." The RMFC board struggled to weigh the balance between total acceptance and having to get a handle on furry in-fighting. "It's kind of difficult for any kind of convention to police anybody's outside behavior," says Gonzalez. "Ostensibly, we would have a lot of people banned." That same month, Miller tweeted a photo as Foxer Nightfire wearing an armband with the hashtag #altfurry. He believes some furries have abandoned their original message of acceptance. "People have given us a lot of shit for the arm band that I wear," says Miller. "If you want to accept everyone else, I should be welcomed, too."
So, is Miller a neo-Nazi? "I don't know politics," says Miller, who notes that he voted for Foxer Nightlife in last year's presidential election. "I'm not in a position to make any decision on Nazis, Republicans, Democrats and Libertarians. I stick with the furry concept. Some ideas in America need to be protected." Furzis, Nazi Furs and Soviet Furs have asked him about the armband, and he believes they are questioning him because they are "non-political, history buffs, nothing more."
"I do not see my armband as National Socialism," says Miller, who makes a point to say that he has German and Thai lineage and is now dating a man who identifies as African-and Asian-American. "I see the armband as a symbol of furriness. It's not a tool or device to promote Nazism. It's a roleplaying tool. Anything in the furry community is just created out of fantasy and taking it seriously is just asinine. Given my background, Hitler would be rolling in his grave."
A MAAAC board member sent a cease and desist letter to a furry
In January, Deo reached out to the RMFC board via Twitter and sent an email to their security team to report the threats, she tells Rolling Stone through Twitter. There was no response until April 3rd when she received a letter from Kendal Emery aka Kahuki, a board member of MAAAC and RMFC, who personally sent a cease and desist letter to Deo's house. Emery, who stepped down as RMFC chair after a 1993 felony conviction for Criminal Sexual Contact with a Minor was revealed in 2008, wrote that Deo's "false statements" caused "substantial commercial injury damage" and mentioned the possibility of a class-action lawsuit. He ended the letter with a red ink thumbprint, according to Deo. The FBI views such seals and content as representative of the Sovereign Citizens Movement, a lethal subculture whose followers "hold truly bizarre, complex antigovernment beliefs" that are "rooted in racism and anti-Semitism," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. In a recent interview with The Daily Beast, he denied any association with that group, noting that the fingerprint "just means it's me that wrote it."
After receiving the letter, Deo contacted police in her home state, along with a Colorado lawyer. "I do not take lightly to convicted felons mailing me threatening things," says Deo. On April 10th, she went public with the letter to "warn my furry community of these unstable individuals." Later that day, Brooks announced that the RMFC was cancelled. Deo maintains that her tweeting about punching Nazis was a "joke I said to my friend" referring to a meme of Alt-Right leader Richard Spencer.
The RMFC board became aware of Emery's letter after it was made public. "We're not pursuing it," says Gonzalez, speaking as a member of the organizing committee for RMFC. "We deeply regret it was ever sent and contacted the recipient." (Emery told the Daily Beast that he had the full approval of the board to send the letter.) Today, the furry community is heartbroken, angry and confused. "We try to be as inclusive as possible," says Gonzalez. "But furries have become far more politically polarized and there's a greater willingness to call someone out publicly and try to force them to act. That's what happened here. It's fair to say that we're not prepared for that."
Miller, who remains perhaps one of the most polarizing of figures in the furry community, claims that he has been "trolled, slandered, harassed and threatened" over the past year. From his computer, Miller watches the online bickering and he is filled with shame to see the MAAAC and RMFC crumble. "For me, being a furry is a personal outlet to understand the real world," says Miller. "Others find it fun. Others find it spiritual. And others go for sexual purposes. People take on completely different characteristics and sometimes I can't even tell who's in the suit. I'm the same person in and out of the suit."
Categories: News
Does the Furry Community Have a Nazi Problem?
Yep...even the Rolling Stone mag has it...
http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/does-the-furry-community-have-a-nazi-problem-w476466
The Rocky Mountain Fur Con has been hosting huge annual conventions for a decade – but will infighting mean the end? Furry Raiders
Rocky Mountain Fur Con 2017 – a convention for enthusiasts who wear animal costumes ingrained with human characteristics for roleplaying – has been canceled. On Monday, the RMFC board of directors organizing the 10th annual event, set to be held in Denver next August, posted a statement that a "movement has grown into a community that promotes violence" which resulted in a "sudden and drastic increase in security costs" exceeding a third of the event's operating budget.
Related
'Radically Mainstream': Why the Alt-Right Is Celebrating Trump's Win
"We've been legitimized by this election," says movement leader Richard Spencer
The announcement came after the founder of the Furry Raiders, an outlier group within the anthropomorphic subculture, adopted an armband which featured a black paw on a red background that some thought had a striking resemblance to a part of the Nazi uniform. Convention chairman Zachary Brooks did not directly name the Furry Raiders in his account, but convention staff identified the Furry Raiders as being at the center of the controversy after being labeled a neo-Nazi group throughout the community, which largely exists online.
Lee Miller, the 29-year-old Fort Collins furry who wears the armband as his Foxler Nightfire fursona, has in turn been accused of being a neo-Nazi. He denies any connection between his armband and that of the Third Reich. Online forums have characterized the Furry Raiders as a "neo-nazi cult-like group" recruiting members with "gifts, grooming and manipulation," according to Dogpatch Press, a blog covering the furry community. But Miller does not agree with such descriptions. "We have a strong stance about keeping equal rights and personal creativity within the fandom," says Miller, who adds that he has never been banned from a convention contrary to other furry beliefs.
On January 26th, a furry identifying as a Tasmanian Devil named Deo tweeted, "Can't wait to punch Nazis," which led another furry with a now-deleted Twitter handle of @Oliviameles to comment, "Watching you get shot by someone defending themselves from unprovoked assault will be far more entertaining."
The Denver Police eventually investigated the comments and found the threats credible enough that convention host Marriott Tech Center demanded $22,000 to hire off-duty officers for security, according to Flayrah, an online news magazine for furry fandom. "People overreacted," Brooks told the Denver Post. "As it got more and more heated, people started talking about beating up people wearing the symbol. They said, 'We've got a right to protect ourselves and we are going to bring weapons.'"
The RMFC board puts on one of the top-10 attended conventions in the United States, and expected over 2,000 furries to attend this summer, according to David Gonzalez, director of marketing at RMFC in Colorado. Their parent company, Mid-American Anthropomorphic and Arts Corporation (MAAAC), is now focused on issuing refunds for the cancelled convention. "The board of MAAAC has not voted to dissolve the corporation, but the continuation of RMFC beyond 2017 does not look very likely," says Gonzalez. Turns out the in-fighting has been an ongoing situation for at least the past year and a half. "The casual threats they were tossing at one another were the final straw," says Gonzalez. "It may be the end for RMFC, but the online threats of violence will crop up again for other conventions." To shed light on the recent cancellation, Rolling Stone interviewed furries to find out what's happening in their community.
Rocky Mountain Fur Con was created for all persuasions
In 2007, the MAAAC hosted the first RMFC convention for the growing number of furries seeking acceptance in Colorado. The social events have since attracted furries mostly of Millennial age to mingle, dance, listen to guest speakers and attend literary events, as well as hosting informational panels. "It's just like any fan-base conference," says Gonzalez. Furry comedian 2 Gryphon often makes appearances and artists sell paintings of their part-animal, part-human avatars. Last year, the RMFC welcomed about 1,670 furries, 65 vendors and 35 artists.
The Furry Raiders group was started on the website Second Life, and now has roughly 1,000 members. Furry Raiders
The Furry Raiders say they have no political agenda
The year of the RMFC debut, a small group of furries started the "Furry Raiders project" formed in the online virtual world Second Life, with no goals other than to "help furries purchase items in the game," says Miller, the founder. The group grew to 1,000 members over three years and he backed out because he could not afford to give furries real money to buy hairstyles for their characters or gardens and castles for their in-game properties. But in 2014, Miller resurrected the Furry Raiders after seeing media accounts describing their community not as a creative safe zone but as a world for kinky fetishists.
"Our goal became to continue the furry fandom in the way it was founded, where everyone has the chance to express themselves and have the creativity they desired," says Miller, who joined the community as a 12-year-old loner struggling with the death of his father. But after a while, he realized some furries were not as accepting as he thought. "People were governing the image of what furry fandom should be," says Miller, referring to furries who told him to remove his armband. "We realized we can't pick and choose what people do. There are furries that are into bestiality. Others draw younger characters and it gives them a creative outlet in a safe manner. If they continue to stay in a creative community like this they won't harm people or animals. We can't just say we hate you."
Despite Miller's comments, furries like Crummles Upton believe that the Furry Raiders are "notorious for breaking rules under the guise of free speech." In an interview conducted with Rolling Stone via Twitter, the furry mentions examples of how group members troll furries online and spread hate speech at conventions. "The Raiders have an M.O. of publicly saying stuff along the lines of wanting inclusiveness and just getting along with people, but in person or in DMs they act contrary to that," according to Upton.
Foxer Nightfire's arm band is a furry symbol, he says, not a nod to neo-Nazism
Miller discovered the infamous armband in 2007 as a free item in Second Life. The Furry Raiders then spent over $700 to physically make 100 armbands that varied in color. "The red armband became part of my persona, but people started telling me I had to change and I wouldn't do that," says Miller. Five years ago, furries began calling him a neo-Nazi because they felt there were similarities between his armband and those of the Nazis, as well as a resemblance to armbands worn by the "Furzis" on Second Life, a contentious group of furries interested in German history and World War II. Miller, who describes himself as a high school dropout "knowledgeable in computers but uneducated in history and politics," reached out to actual actual neo-Nazis via online forums. "I told them I was a furry and they said, 'What the fuck is this shit?'" says Miller. "They found out 60 percent of furries are gay males and told me, 'Get the fuck out of here.'"
Last year, Miller wore an armband to the RMFC. "It grew into a big problem," says Miller. After the election last November, a group calling themselves Anti-Fascist Furries organized and tried to get Nazi Furs banned from such conventions, and also encouraged furries to "boycott events that didn’t ban the Furry Raiders from attending," according to Vice.
Last Year's RMFC 2016 might have been the last Rocky Mountain Fur Convention, according to an organizer. Furry Raiders
In January, the RMFC board issued a statement announcing that in light of the controversy, they would ban all clothing and accessories showing "offensive messages or symbols." The RMFC board struggled to weigh the balance between total acceptance and having to get a handle on furry in-fighting. "It's kind of difficult for any kind of convention to police anybody's outside behavior," says Gonzalez. "Ostensibly, we would have a lot of people banned." That same month, Miller tweeted a photo as Foxer Nightfire wearing an armband with the hashtag #altfurry. He believes some furries have abandoned their original message of acceptance. "People have given us a lot of shit for the arm band that I wear," says Miller. "If you want to accept everyone else, I should be welcomed, too."
So, is Miller a neo-Nazi? "I don't know politics," says Miller, who notes that he voted for Foxer Nightlife in last year's presidential election. "I'm not in a position to make any decision on Nazis, Republicans, Democrats and Libertarians. I stick with the furry concept. Some ideas in America need to be protected." Furzis, Nazi Furs and Soviet Furs have asked him about the armband, and he believes they are questioning him because they are "non-political, history buffs, nothing more."
"I do not see my armband as National Socialism," says Miller, who makes a point to say that he has German and Thai lineage and is now dating a man who identifies as African-and Asian-American. "I see the armband as a symbol of furriness. It's not a tool or device to promote Nazism. It's a roleplaying tool. Anything in the furry community is just created out of fantasy and taking it seriously is just asinine. Given my background, Hitler would be rolling in his grave."
A MAAAC board member sent a cease and desist letter to a furry
In January, Deo reached out to the RMFC board via Twitter and sent an email to their security team to report the threats, she tells Rolling Stone through Twitter. There was no response until April 3rd when she received a letter from Kendal Emery aka Kahuki, a board member of MAAAC and RMFC, who personally sent a cease and desist letter to Deo's house. Emery, who stepped down as RMFC chair after a 1993 felony conviction for Criminal Sexual Contact with a Minor was revealed in 2008, wrote that Deo's "false statements" caused "substantial commercial injury damage" and mentioned the possibility of a class-action lawsuit. He ended the letter with a red ink thumbprint, according to Deo. The FBI views such seals and content as representative of the Sovereign Citizens Movement, a lethal subculture whose followers "hold truly bizarre, complex antigovernment beliefs" that are "rooted in racism and anti-Semitism," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. In a recent interview with The Daily Beast, he denied any association with that group, noting that the fingerprint "just means it's me that wrote it."
After receiving the letter, Deo contacted police in her home state, along with a Colorado lawyer. "I do not take lightly to convicted felons mailing me threatening things," says Deo. On April 10th, she went public with the letter to "warn my furry community of these unstable individuals." Later that day, Brooks announced that the RMFC was cancelled. Deo maintains that her tweeting about punching Nazis was a "joke I said to my friend" referring to a meme of Alt-Right leader Richard Spencer.
The RMFC board became aware of Emery's letter after it was made public. "We're not pursuing it," says Gonzalez, speaking as a member of the organizing committee for RMFC. "We deeply regret it was ever sent and contacted the recipient." (Emery told the Daily Beast that he had the full approval of the board to send the letter.) Today, the furry community is heartbroken, angry and confused. "We try to be as inclusive as possible," says Gonzalez. "But furries have become far more politically polarized and there's a greater willingness to call someone out publicly and try to force them to act. That's what happened here. It's fair to say that we're not prepared for that."
Miller, who remains perhaps one of the most polarizing of figures in the furry community, claims that he has been "trolled, slandered, harassed and threatened" over the past year. From his computer, Miller watches the online bickering and he is filled with shame to see the MAAAC and RMFC crumble. "For me, being a furry is a personal outlet to understand the real world," says Miller. "Others find it fun. Others find it spiritual. And others go for sexual purposes. People take on completely different characteristics and sometimes I can't even tell who's in the suit. I'm the same person in and out of the suit."
http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/does-the-furry-community-have-a-nazi-problem-w476466
The Rocky Mountain Fur Con has been hosting huge annual conventions for a decade – but will infighting mean the end? Furry Raiders
Rocky Mountain Fur Con 2017 – a convention for enthusiasts who wear animal costumes ingrained with human characteristics for roleplaying – has been canceled. On Monday, the RMFC board of directors organizing the 10th annual event, set to be held in Denver next August, posted a statement that a "movement has grown into a community that promotes violence" which resulted in a "sudden and drastic increase in security costs" exceeding a third of the event's operating budget.
Related
'Radically Mainstream': Why the Alt-Right Is Celebrating Trump's Win
"We've been legitimized by this election," says movement leader Richard Spencer
The announcement came after the founder of the Furry Raiders, an outlier group within the anthropomorphic subculture, adopted an armband which featured a black paw on a red background that some thought had a striking resemblance to a part of the Nazi uniform. Convention chairman Zachary Brooks did not directly name the Furry Raiders in his account, but convention staff identified the Furry Raiders as being at the center of the controversy after being labeled a neo-Nazi group throughout the community, which largely exists online.
Lee Miller, the 29-year-old Fort Collins furry who wears the armband as his Foxler Nightfire fursona, has in turn been accused of being a neo-Nazi. He denies any connection between his armband and that of the Third Reich. Online forums have characterized the Furry Raiders as a "neo-nazi cult-like group" recruiting members with "gifts, grooming and manipulation," according to Dogpatch Press, a blog covering the furry community. But Miller does not agree with such descriptions. "We have a strong stance about keeping equal rights and personal creativity within the fandom," says Miller, who adds that he has never been banned from a convention contrary to other furry beliefs.
On January 26th, a furry identifying as a Tasmanian Devil named Deo tweeted, "Can't wait to punch Nazis," which led another furry with a now-deleted Twitter handle of @Oliviameles to comment, "Watching you get shot by someone defending themselves from unprovoked assault will be far more entertaining."
The Denver Police eventually investigated the comments and found the threats credible enough that convention host Marriott Tech Center demanded $22,000 to hire off-duty officers for security, according to Flayrah, an online news magazine for furry fandom. "People overreacted," Brooks told the Denver Post. "As it got more and more heated, people started talking about beating up people wearing the symbol. They said, 'We've got a right to protect ourselves and we are going to bring weapons.'"
The RMFC board puts on one of the top-10 attended conventions in the United States, and expected over 2,000 furries to attend this summer, according to David Gonzalez, director of marketing at RMFC in Colorado. Their parent company, Mid-American Anthropomorphic and Arts Corporation (MAAAC), is now focused on issuing refunds for the cancelled convention. "The board of MAAAC has not voted to dissolve the corporation, but the continuation of RMFC beyond 2017 does not look very likely," says Gonzalez. Turns out the in-fighting has been an ongoing situation for at least the past year and a half. "The casual threats they were tossing at one another were the final straw," says Gonzalez. "It may be the end for RMFC, but the online threats of violence will crop up again for other conventions." To shed light on the recent cancellation, Rolling Stone interviewed furries to find out what's happening in their community.
Rocky Mountain Fur Con was created for all persuasions
In 2007, the MAAAC hosted the first RMFC convention for the growing number of furries seeking acceptance in Colorado. The social events have since attracted furries mostly of Millennial age to mingle, dance, listen to guest speakers and attend literary events, as well as hosting informational panels. "It's just like any fan-base conference," says Gonzalez. Furry comedian 2 Gryphon often makes appearances and artists sell paintings of their part-animal, part-human avatars. Last year, the RMFC welcomed about 1,670 furries, 65 vendors and 35 artists.
The Furry Raiders group was started on the website Second Life, and now has roughly 1,000 members. Furry Raiders
The Furry Raiders say they have no political agenda
The year of the RMFC debut, a small group of furries started the "Furry Raiders project" formed in the online virtual world Second Life, with no goals other than to "help furries purchase items in the game," says Miller, the founder. The group grew to 1,000 members over three years and he backed out because he could not afford to give furries real money to buy hairstyles for their characters or gardens and castles for their in-game properties. But in 2014, Miller resurrected the Furry Raiders after seeing media accounts describing their community not as a creative safe zone but as a world for kinky fetishists.
"Our goal became to continue the furry fandom in the way it was founded, where everyone has the chance to express themselves and have the creativity they desired," says Miller, who joined the community as a 12-year-old loner struggling with the death of his father. But after a while, he realized some furries were not as accepting as he thought. "People were governing the image of what furry fandom should be," says Miller, referring to furries who told him to remove his armband. "We realized we can't pick and choose what people do. There are furries that are into bestiality. Others draw younger characters and it gives them a creative outlet in a safe manner. If they continue to stay in a creative community like this they won't harm people or animals. We can't just say we hate you."
Despite Miller's comments, furries like Crummles Upton believe that the Furry Raiders are "notorious for breaking rules under the guise of free speech." In an interview conducted with Rolling Stone via Twitter, the furry mentions examples of how group members troll furries online and spread hate speech at conventions. "The Raiders have an M.O. of publicly saying stuff along the lines of wanting inclusiveness and just getting along with people, but in person or in DMs they act contrary to that," according to Upton.
Foxer Nightfire's arm band is a furry symbol, he says, not a nod to neo-Nazism
Miller discovered the infamous armband in 2007 as a free item in Second Life. The Furry Raiders then spent over $700 to physically make 100 armbands that varied in color. "The red armband became part of my persona, but people started telling me I had to change and I wouldn't do that," says Miller. Five years ago, furries began calling him a neo-Nazi because they felt there were similarities between his armband and those of the Nazis, as well as a resemblance to armbands worn by the "Furzis" on Second Life, a contentious group of furries interested in German history and World War II. Miller, who describes himself as a high school dropout "knowledgeable in computers but uneducated in history and politics," reached out to actual actual neo-Nazis via online forums. "I told them I was a furry and they said, 'What the fuck is this shit?'" says Miller. "They found out 60 percent of furries are gay males and told me, 'Get the fuck out of here.'"
Last year, Miller wore an armband to the RMFC. "It grew into a big problem," says Miller. After the election last November, a group calling themselves Anti-Fascist Furries organized and tried to get Nazi Furs banned from such conventions, and also encouraged furries to "boycott events that didn’t ban the Furry Raiders from attending," according to Vice.
Last Year's RMFC 2016 might have been the last Rocky Mountain Fur Convention, according to an organizer. Furry Raiders
In January, the RMFC board issued a statement announcing that in light of the controversy, they would ban all clothing and accessories showing "offensive messages or symbols." The RMFC board struggled to weigh the balance between total acceptance and having to get a handle on furry in-fighting. "It's kind of difficult for any kind of convention to police anybody's outside behavior," says Gonzalez. "Ostensibly, we would have a lot of people banned." That same month, Miller tweeted a photo as Foxer Nightfire wearing an armband with the hashtag #altfurry. He believes some furries have abandoned their original message of acceptance. "People have given us a lot of shit for the arm band that I wear," says Miller. "If you want to accept everyone else, I should be welcomed, too."
So, is Miller a neo-Nazi? "I don't know politics," says Miller, who notes that he voted for Foxer Nightlife in last year's presidential election. "I'm not in a position to make any decision on Nazis, Republicans, Democrats and Libertarians. I stick with the furry concept. Some ideas in America need to be protected." Furzis, Nazi Furs and Soviet Furs have asked him about the armband, and he believes they are questioning him because they are "non-political, history buffs, nothing more."
"I do not see my armband as National Socialism," says Miller, who makes a point to say that he has German and Thai lineage and is now dating a man who identifies as African-and Asian-American. "I see the armband as a symbol of furriness. It's not a tool or device to promote Nazism. It's a roleplaying tool. Anything in the furry community is just created out of fantasy and taking it seriously is just asinine. Given my background, Hitler would be rolling in his grave."
A MAAAC board member sent a cease and desist letter to a furry
In January, Deo reached out to the RMFC board via Twitter and sent an email to their security team to report the threats, she tells Rolling Stone through Twitter. There was no response until April 3rd when she received a letter from Kendal Emery aka Kahuki, a board member of MAAAC and RMFC, who personally sent a cease and desist letter to Deo's house. Emery, who stepped down as RMFC chair after a 1993 felony conviction for Criminal Sexual Contact with a Minor was revealed in 2008, wrote that Deo's "false statements" caused "substantial commercial injury damage" and mentioned the possibility of a class-action lawsuit. He ended the letter with a red ink thumbprint, according to Deo. The FBI views such seals and content as representative of the Sovereign Citizens Movement, a lethal subculture whose followers "hold truly bizarre, complex antigovernment beliefs" that are "rooted in racism and anti-Semitism," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. In a recent interview with The Daily Beast, he denied any association with that group, noting that the fingerprint "just means it's me that wrote it."
After receiving the letter, Deo contacted police in her home state, along with a Colorado lawyer. "I do not take lightly to convicted felons mailing me threatening things," says Deo. On April 10th, she went public with the letter to "warn my furry community of these unstable individuals." Later that day, Brooks announced that the RMFC was cancelled. Deo maintains that her tweeting about punching Nazis was a "joke I said to my friend" referring to a meme of Alt-Right leader Richard Spencer.
The RMFC board became aware of Emery's letter after it was made public. "We're not pursuing it," says Gonzalez, speaking as a member of the organizing committee for RMFC. "We deeply regret it was ever sent and contacted the recipient." (Emery told the Daily Beast that he had the full approval of the board to send the letter.) Today, the furry community is heartbroken, angry and confused. "We try to be as inclusive as possible," says Gonzalez. "But furries have become far more politically polarized and there's a greater willingness to call someone out publicly and try to force them to act. That's what happened here. It's fair to say that we're not prepared for that."
Miller, who remains perhaps one of the most polarizing of figures in the furry community, claims that he has been "trolled, slandered, harassed and threatened" over the past year. From his computer, Miller watches the online bickering and he is filled with shame to see the MAAAC and RMFC crumble. "For me, being a furry is a personal outlet to understand the real world," says Miller. "Others find it fun. Others find it spiritual. And others go for sexual purposes. People take on completely different characteristics and sometimes I can't even tell who's in the suit. I'm the same person in and out of the suit."
Categories: News
Brain Injuries Can Lead to Personality Change
Hi, Papabear.
I don't know who else to turn to. I'm to ashamed to talk to my family about this or anyone else.
I recently had a concussion and had to go to the hospital. Everything was progressing just fine until another box hit me in the head. Not as hard but it hit me. I didn't notice anything different until much more recently.
I've started having panic attacks which I've never had before. Never ever.
Today even while I'm writing this letter. I am at a family gathering and we were going to go tubing, well I get down there and... I don't want to do it anymore. I run upstairs and I locked myself in the bathroom. I started crying and hyperventilating. I'm physically fine. But I don't know why I ran or came to the bathroom. I don't know who else to ask or how to search up what's wrong with me. I know this may be asking to much. But if there's anything you can do or say? Please please tell me.
Anonymous (age 21)
* * *
Hello, Furiend,
When you went to the hospital, what was the diagnosis? Were you treated for a concussion?
Papabear
* * *
Yes. I was treated for the concussion. It was a small pinpoint bleed in my brain. The doctor said there was nothing seriously wrong and said it would be best to just take it easy and take acetaminophin and I did. But now I've started having panic attacks whenever I'm in uncomfortable situations so now. I don't know what's going on. I don't know if it's because of the concussion or because of my new promotion or both.
* * *
Hi, Furiend,
Okay, a "pinpoint bleed in my brain" is key here. It would be very important to know where, exactly, the brain injury occurred. Depending on what part of the brain was injured, different symptoms can arise. If you suffered injury to the amygdala, for example, that could definitely lead to panic attacks. The amygdala controls the body's limbic system, which controls many of the functions associated with symptoms of panic.
The brain is a very complicated organ, and damage elsewhere in or on the brain could also cause behavioral changes. Brain trauma is also often associated with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information website, PTSD is diagnosed when the following are true: "First, one must have been exposed to or witness an event that is threatening to safety, and one must respond to this event with fear, horror, or helplessness. Second, one must report a re-experiencing symptom, which may include intrusive memories, nightmares, a sense of reliving the trauma, or psychological or physiological distress when reminded of the trauma. Third, there need to be at least three avoidance symptoms, which can include active avoidance of thoughts, feelings, or reminders of the trauma, inability to recall some aspect of the trauma, withdrawal from others, or emotional numbing. Fourth, one must suffer marked arousal, which can include insomnia, irritability, difficulty concentrating, hypervigilence, or heightened startle response. These symptoms must cause marked impairment to one's functioning, and can only be diagnosed when they are present at least 1 month after the trauma."
I would consult with a doctor and tell them everything you are experiencing since your head injury. You don't have to go to the same doctor who originally treated you. In fact, I wouldn't because a second opinion very much seems in order here.
Please see a doctor, and good luck!
Papabear
I don't know who else to turn to. I'm to ashamed to talk to my family about this or anyone else.
I recently had a concussion and had to go to the hospital. Everything was progressing just fine until another box hit me in the head. Not as hard but it hit me. I didn't notice anything different until much more recently.
I've started having panic attacks which I've never had before. Never ever.
Today even while I'm writing this letter. I am at a family gathering and we were going to go tubing, well I get down there and... I don't want to do it anymore. I run upstairs and I locked myself in the bathroom. I started crying and hyperventilating. I'm physically fine. But I don't know why I ran or came to the bathroom. I don't know who else to ask or how to search up what's wrong with me. I know this may be asking to much. But if there's anything you can do or say? Please please tell me.
Anonymous (age 21)
* * *
Hello, Furiend,
When you went to the hospital, what was the diagnosis? Were you treated for a concussion?
Papabear
* * *
Yes. I was treated for the concussion. It was a small pinpoint bleed in my brain. The doctor said there was nothing seriously wrong and said it would be best to just take it easy and take acetaminophin and I did. But now I've started having panic attacks whenever I'm in uncomfortable situations so now. I don't know what's going on. I don't know if it's because of the concussion or because of my new promotion or both.
* * *
Hi, Furiend,
Okay, a "pinpoint bleed in my brain" is key here. It would be very important to know where, exactly, the brain injury occurred. Depending on what part of the brain was injured, different symptoms can arise. If you suffered injury to the amygdala, for example, that could definitely lead to panic attacks. The amygdala controls the body's limbic system, which controls many of the functions associated with symptoms of panic.
The brain is a very complicated organ, and damage elsewhere in or on the brain could also cause behavioral changes. Brain trauma is also often associated with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information website, PTSD is diagnosed when the following are true: "First, one must have been exposed to or witness an event that is threatening to safety, and one must respond to this event with fear, horror, or helplessness. Second, one must report a re-experiencing symptom, which may include intrusive memories, nightmares, a sense of reliving the trauma, or psychological or physiological distress when reminded of the trauma. Third, there need to be at least three avoidance symptoms, which can include active avoidance of thoughts, feelings, or reminders of the trauma, inability to recall some aspect of the trauma, withdrawal from others, or emotional numbing. Fourth, one must suffer marked arousal, which can include insomnia, irritability, difficulty concentrating, hypervigilence, or heightened startle response. These symptoms must cause marked impairment to one's functioning, and can only be diagnosed when they are present at least 1 month after the trauma."
I would consult with a doctor and tell them everything you are experiencing since your head injury. You don't have to go to the same doctor who originally treated you. In fact, I wouldn't because a second opinion very much seems in order here.
Please see a doctor, and good luck!
Papabear
FA 066 Shame 3: Direct to VHS - Is CNN in favor of polyamory or are they couple-centric? Is this finally the end of us talking about shame? Is multiple-personality-disorder an appropriate defense for cheating, or is it just insanity? All this, and more, o
Hello Everyone!
We open this week's episode with a discussion on monogamy and polyamory. We look at an article recently published on CNN's website that discusses polyamory in a mostly positive light. We go over the highlights, the minor issues, and why articles like this are important in the long run.
Our main topic this week is the conclusion of our series on shame. We talk about the common missteps and conflicts that can prohibit you from finding true independence from a shameful existence, like fear of abandonment or betrayal. We then get to the light at the end of the tunnel and go over the steps and actions you must take in order to live a life of genuine self-validation, and how to communicate with your current partners about the path that you feel you must take.
We close out the show with a question on long distance relationships and cheating. Our questioner's boyfriend claims that his multiple-personality-disorder is causing him to have an affair, and the questioner wants to know if this passes our smell test.
For more information, including a list of topics, see our Show Notes for this episode.
Thanks and, as always, be well!
FA 066 Shame 3: Direct to VHS - Is CNN in favor of polyamory or are they couple-centric? Is this finally the end of us talking about shame? Is multiple-personality-disorder an appropriate defense for cheating, or is it just insanity? All this, and more, on this week's Feral Attraction!
Categories: Podcasts
The Bizarre Fall of Rocky Mountain Fur Con
I find this very disturbing. Please read the original:
http://www.nerdandtie.com/2017/04/12/the-bizarre-fall-of-rocky-mountain-fur-con/
April 12, 2017 Trae Dorn
When most conventions end their run, it’s usually for pretty simple reasons. Either the con has run out of money, the organizers’ personal lives have gotten in the way, there isn’t enough staff to keep going, or they have unsolvable venue issues. For good or bad, it’s usually straightforward.
Well, this time it’s not.
Earlier this week, Rocky Mountain Fur Con (originally scheduled for this August) was officially cancelled. The con ended its decade long run in a bizarre set of circumstances involving a faction of Nazi Furries, the Sovereign Citizen movement, and a staff member on the sex offender registry.
Strap in. It’s going to be quite the ride.
Problems in Rocky Mountain Fur Con’s management aren’t anything new. Kendal Ray Emery stepped down as Convention Chair in 2008 after it became publicly known that he was a registered sex offender. We don’t know a lot of details about Emery’s offense, though searching the Colorado Sex Offender Registry tells us that he was convicted of sexual contact with a minor in 1993.
He was thirty at the time of the incident.
While Emery hasn’t re-offended or been accused of anything in the decades since, it wasn’t exactly good PR for a Furry convention trying to promote a safe image to have a registered sex offender in charge. Emery would also later sign over ownership of Mid America Anthropomorphic and Art Corporation (which operates Rocky Mountain Fur Con) to Zachary “Sorin” Brooks in 2011. This was most likely due to the same pressures that caused him to step down as chair.
Kendal Ray Emery’s Photo From the Colorado Sex Offender Registry
Furry news website Flayrah also discovered that in 2011 MAAAC and Rocky Mountain Fur Con had lost their non-profit and tax exempt status, even though the event continued to advertise themselves as such on their about page and official Twitter account’s bio. The Flayrah article also alleges that organizers have not paid the necessary taxes since this happened, though when talking to the Denver Post Brooks denied this. Brooks stated that while the con did lose their 501(c)(3) status in 2011, the organization had started properly filing taxes after that occurred.
Regardless of whether or not MAAAC is compliant with what the IRS requires, claiming to be a 501(c)(3) when you’re not is fairly sketchy.
The amazing thing is, all of this is just a small factor in the failure of Rocky Mountain Fur Con. The larger issue (and what’s referred to in the statements actually released by the convention) have to do with backlash associated with a group called the “Furry Raiders.” For those of you outside of furry fandom, the “Furry Raiders” are a Colorado based group of furries founded by “Foxler Nightfire” who are, effectively, Nazis.
Yes, there are Nazi furries out there, and no it doesn’t make a damn lick of sense to me either.
Foxler
Now, in all fairness, if you asked the Furry Raiders if they were Nazis, they’d say no. I mean, sure — they wear arm bands based around the design of the Nazi party, replacing the swastika with a paw. And yes, their Fur Affinity page used to list their birthday as Adolph Hitler’s. And yes, the Nazi imagery is just plain everywhere with their stuff. And yes, their founder has said some pretty racist things. And yes, Foxler has… oh god, I could go on for hours.
So yeah, they say they’re not Nazis, but they’re totally Nazis.
The group doesn’t always get the warmest reception at events (due to the whole pseudo-Nazi paraphernalia thing), but one place they’ve found a home at is Rocky Mountain Fur Con. This doesn’t always sit well with the rest of the community needless to say. As the Dog Patch reports, one furry who wasn’t too fond of them goes by the name Deo. Deo made a joke on Twitter about punching Nazis (regarding the Furry Raiders), and that’s when the following exchange happened:
We had to include that as a screenshot since some of the tweets have been deleted. If you’re wondering why a random Twitter conversation is important, it’s because this (at least as far was we can tell) is the main reason the convention was cancelled.
If your brain has started hurting, I’m sorry.
Deo reported the incident to Rocky Mountain Fur Con. I mean, this “Olivia” person had said it would be entertaining to see Deo get shot and talked about bringing a gun to the con. The convention eventually responded, but not in a way Deo expected. You see, Deo received a very bizarre “cease and desist” letter in the mail:
The letter, signed by Emery (who bizarrely identifies himself as “Chief Executive Contract Law Officer”) is full of legal sounding yet completely nonsensical text. They accuse Deo of “encouraging” the person who said it would be nice to see her get shot (which is a special kind of irony), and say that Deo has made “threats of violence against a class of people through a wire service across national boarders.”
I mean, besides the fact that Nazis aren’t a “class of people,” Deo (at least according to Dogpatch Press) is located in the United States. The word Emery was looking for is “borders” too (assuming he isn’t talking about people making threats over folks just trying to rent a room), and it’s kind of my favorite sentence of all time. He ends the letter saying that if there are any objections, Deo must respond to the letter or else she’s agreeing to its contents — which isn’t how cease and desist letters work even remotely.
You’ll also notice that Emery signed the letter in red with a red fingerprint. This is indicative of a whole other bit of weirdness – the Sovereign Citizen movement. Sovereign Citizens believe that they are not subject to the government or laws of the United States, and the FBI considers them a growing domestic threat. One of the more harmless things they’re known to do is insist on signing in red ink instead of blue or black (as they think red represents the blood of the people) and insist that a red fingerprint is the highest form of ID. If you don’t know how insane this stuff can get, here’s a hilarious example.
As Sovereign Citizens believe the States are meant to be separate nations, this may explain the bizarre “national boarders [sic]” line in the letter. As it’s also not uncommon for them to ignore tax law, it adds an interesting context to Flayrah’s allegations and Brooks’s subsequent denial. One of the favorite weapons of Sovereign Citizens is to try and send fake documents and make frivolous legal filings against those they believe to be their enemies.
Which Emery clearly sees Deo as here.
So, while taking the side of a bunch of Furry Nazis, the con decided that the only way they could keep operating was to increase security. You know, to stop the person who joked about punching people and not, say, the person who talked about people getting shot and implied they might bring a gun to the con. This cost must have been too much, because they then announced they were cancelling the con over these concerns.
I’ve embedded the official message from the con above, and you should click through and read the whole thing. Honestly, the irony is amazingly thick – as the “hate and intolerance” they refer to is hatred of Nazis. I mean, the con is saying that it’s wrong to hate a literal hate group. I cannot even begin to fathom the cognitive dissonance of this statement. The con has said they will refund as many people as they can, but that they may not have the money to do so.
I honestly wouldn’t hold my breath if you’re expecting your money back.
In the end, the con’s actual cancellation makes very little sense. Any real “security” threats really seem like they’d come from the people the con is actually defending, and I can’t see the financials suddenly going in the red because of it. Something else is happening here, but I’m not exactly sure what it is.
If I ever find out, I’m sure it will be depressingly hilarious.
Via Dogpatch Press, Flayrah, Denver Post, Reddit
http://www.nerdandtie.com/2017/04/12/the-bizarre-fall-of-rocky-mountain-fur-con/
April 12, 2017 Trae Dorn
When most conventions end their run, it’s usually for pretty simple reasons. Either the con has run out of money, the organizers’ personal lives have gotten in the way, there isn’t enough staff to keep going, or they have unsolvable venue issues. For good or bad, it’s usually straightforward.
Well, this time it’s not.
Earlier this week, Rocky Mountain Fur Con (originally scheduled for this August) was officially cancelled. The con ended its decade long run in a bizarre set of circumstances involving a faction of Nazi Furries, the Sovereign Citizen movement, and a staff member on the sex offender registry.
Strap in. It’s going to be quite the ride.
Problems in Rocky Mountain Fur Con’s management aren’t anything new. Kendal Ray Emery stepped down as Convention Chair in 2008 after it became publicly known that he was a registered sex offender. We don’t know a lot of details about Emery’s offense, though searching the Colorado Sex Offender Registry tells us that he was convicted of sexual contact with a minor in 1993.
He was thirty at the time of the incident.
While Emery hasn’t re-offended or been accused of anything in the decades since, it wasn’t exactly good PR for a Furry convention trying to promote a safe image to have a registered sex offender in charge. Emery would also later sign over ownership of Mid America Anthropomorphic and Art Corporation (which operates Rocky Mountain Fur Con) to Zachary “Sorin” Brooks in 2011. This was most likely due to the same pressures that caused him to step down as chair.
Kendal Ray Emery’s Photo From the Colorado Sex Offender Registry
Furry news website Flayrah also discovered that in 2011 MAAAC and Rocky Mountain Fur Con had lost their non-profit and tax exempt status, even though the event continued to advertise themselves as such on their about page and official Twitter account’s bio. The Flayrah article also alleges that organizers have not paid the necessary taxes since this happened, though when talking to the Denver Post Brooks denied this. Brooks stated that while the con did lose their 501(c)(3) status in 2011, the organization had started properly filing taxes after that occurred.
Regardless of whether or not MAAAC is compliant with what the IRS requires, claiming to be a 501(c)(3) when you’re not is fairly sketchy.
The amazing thing is, all of this is just a small factor in the failure of Rocky Mountain Fur Con. The larger issue (and what’s referred to in the statements actually released by the convention) have to do with backlash associated with a group called the “Furry Raiders.” For those of you outside of furry fandom, the “Furry Raiders” are a Colorado based group of furries founded by “Foxler Nightfire” who are, effectively, Nazis.
Yes, there are Nazi furries out there, and no it doesn’t make a damn lick of sense to me either.
Foxler
Now, in all fairness, if you asked the Furry Raiders if they were Nazis, they’d say no. I mean, sure — they wear arm bands based around the design of the Nazi party, replacing the swastika with a paw. And yes, their Fur Affinity page used to list their birthday as Adolph Hitler’s. And yes, the Nazi imagery is just plain everywhere with their stuff. And yes, their founder has said some pretty racist things. And yes, Foxler has… oh god, I could go on for hours.
So yeah, they say they’re not Nazis, but they’re totally Nazis.
The group doesn’t always get the warmest reception at events (due to the whole pseudo-Nazi paraphernalia thing), but one place they’ve found a home at is Rocky Mountain Fur Con. This doesn’t always sit well with the rest of the community needless to say. As the Dog Patch reports, one furry who wasn’t too fond of them goes by the name Deo. Deo made a joke on Twitter about punching Nazis (regarding the Furry Raiders), and that’s when the following exchange happened:
We had to include that as a screenshot since some of the tweets have been deleted. If you’re wondering why a random Twitter conversation is important, it’s because this (at least as far was we can tell) is the main reason the convention was cancelled.
If your brain has started hurting, I’m sorry.
Deo reported the incident to Rocky Mountain Fur Con. I mean, this “Olivia” person had said it would be entertaining to see Deo get shot and talked about bringing a gun to the con. The convention eventually responded, but not in a way Deo expected. You see, Deo received a very bizarre “cease and desist” letter in the mail:
The letter, signed by Emery (who bizarrely identifies himself as “Chief Executive Contract Law Officer”) is full of legal sounding yet completely nonsensical text. They accuse Deo of “encouraging” the person who said it would be nice to see her get shot (which is a special kind of irony), and say that Deo has made “threats of violence against a class of people through a wire service across national boarders.”
I mean, besides the fact that Nazis aren’t a “class of people,” Deo (at least according to Dogpatch Press) is located in the United States. The word Emery was looking for is “borders” too (assuming he isn’t talking about people making threats over folks just trying to rent a room), and it’s kind of my favorite sentence of all time. He ends the letter saying that if there are any objections, Deo must respond to the letter or else she’s agreeing to its contents — which isn’t how cease and desist letters work even remotely.
You’ll also notice that Emery signed the letter in red with a red fingerprint. This is indicative of a whole other bit of weirdness – the Sovereign Citizen movement. Sovereign Citizens believe that they are not subject to the government or laws of the United States, and the FBI considers them a growing domestic threat. One of the more harmless things they’re known to do is insist on signing in red ink instead of blue or black (as they think red represents the blood of the people) and insist that a red fingerprint is the highest form of ID. If you don’t know how insane this stuff can get, here’s a hilarious example.
As Sovereign Citizens believe the States are meant to be separate nations, this may explain the bizarre “national boarders [sic]” line in the letter. As it’s also not uncommon for them to ignore tax law, it adds an interesting context to Flayrah’s allegations and Brooks’s subsequent denial. One of the favorite weapons of Sovereign Citizens is to try and send fake documents and make frivolous legal filings against those they believe to be their enemies.
Which Emery clearly sees Deo as here.
So, while taking the side of a bunch of Furry Nazis, the con decided that the only way they could keep operating was to increase security. You know, to stop the person who joked about punching people and not, say, the person who talked about people getting shot and implied they might bring a gun to the con. This cost must have been too much, because they then announced they were cancelling the con over these concerns.
I’ve embedded the official message from the con above, and you should click through and read the whole thing. Honestly, the irony is amazingly thick – as the “hate and intolerance” they refer to is hatred of Nazis. I mean, the con is saying that it’s wrong to hate a literal hate group. I cannot even begin to fathom the cognitive dissonance of this statement. The con has said they will refund as many people as they can, but that they may not have the money to do so.
I honestly wouldn’t hold my breath if you’re expecting your money back.
In the end, the con’s actual cancellation makes very little sense. Any real “security” threats really seem like they’d come from the people the con is actually defending, and I can’t see the financials suddenly going in the red because of it. Something else is happening here, but I’m not exactly sure what it is.
If I ever find out, I’m sure it will be depressingly hilarious.
Via Dogpatch Press, Flayrah, Denver Post, Reddit
Categories: News
The Bizarre Fall of Rocky Mountain Fur Con
I find this very disturbing. Please read the original:
http://www.nerdandtie.com/2017/04/12/the-bizarre-fall-of-rocky-mountain-fur-con/
April 12, 2017 Trae Dorn
When most conventions end their run, it’s usually for pretty simple reasons. Either the con has run out of money, the organizers’ personal lives have gotten in the way, there isn’t enough staff to keep going, or they have unsolvable venue issues. For good or bad, it’s usually straightforward.
Well, this time it’s not.
Earlier this week, Rocky Mountain Fur Con (originally scheduled for this August) was officially cancelled. The con ended its decade long run in a bizarre set of circumstances involving a faction of Nazi Furries, the Sovereign Citizen movement, and a staff member on the sex offender registry.
Strap in. It’s going to be quite the ride.
Problems in Rocky Mountain Fur Con’s management aren’t anything new. Kendal Ray Emery stepped down as Convention Chair in 2008 after it became publicly known that he was a registered sex offender. We don’t know a lot of details about Emery’s offense, though searching the Colorado Sex Offender Registry tells us that he was convicted of sexual contact with a minor in 1993.
He was thirty at the time of the incident.
While Emery hasn’t re-offended or been accused of anything in the decades since, it wasn’t exactly good PR for a Furry convention trying to promote a safe image to have a registered sex offender in charge. Emery would also later sign over ownership of Mid America Anthropomorphic and Art Corporation (which operates Rocky Mountain Fur Con) to Zachary “Sorin” Brooks in 2011. This was most likely due to the same pressures that caused him to step down as chair.
Kendal Ray Emery’s Photo From the Colorado Sex Offender Registry
Furry news website Flayrah also discovered that in 2011 MAAAC and Rocky Mountain Fur Con had lost their non-profit and tax exempt status, even though the event continued to advertise themselves as such on their about page and official Twitter account’s bio. The Flayrah article also alleges that organizers have not paid the necessary taxes since this happened, though when talking to the Denver Post Brooks denied this. Brooks stated that while the con did lose their 501(c)(3) status in 2011, the organization had started properly filing taxes after that occurred.
Regardless of whether or not MAAAC is compliant with what the IRS requires, claiming to be a 501(c)(3) when you’re not is fairly sketchy.
The amazing thing is, all of this is just a small factor in the failure of Rocky Mountain Fur Con. The larger issue (and what’s referred to in the statements actually released by the convention) have to do with backlash associated with a group called the “Furry Raiders.” For those of you outside of furry fandom, the “Furry Raiders” are a Colorado based group of furries founded by “Foxler Nightfire” who are, effectively, Nazis.
Yes, there are Nazi furries out there, and no it doesn’t make a damn lick of sense to me either.
Foxler
Now, in all fairness, if you asked the Furry Raiders if they were Nazis, they’d say no. I mean, sure — they wear arm bands based around the design of the Nazi party, replacing the swastika with a paw. And yes, their Fur Affinity page used to list their birthday as Adolph Hitler’s. And yes, the Nazi imagery is just plain everywhere with their stuff. And yes, their founder has said some pretty racist things. And yes, Foxler has… oh god, I could go on for hours.
So yeah, they say they’re not Nazis, but they’re totally Nazis.
The group doesn’t always get the warmest reception at events (due to the whole pseudo-Nazi paraphernalia thing), but one place they’ve found a home at is Rocky Mountain Fur Con. This doesn’t always sit well with the rest of the community needless to say. As the Dog Patch reports, one furry who wasn’t too fond of them goes by the name Deo. Deo made a joke on Twitter about punching Nazis (regarding the Furry Raiders), and that’s when the following exchange happened:
We had to include that as a screenshot since some of the tweets have been deleted. If you’re wondering why a random Twitter conversation is important, it’s because this (at least as far was we can tell) is the main reason the convention was cancelled.
If your brain has started hurting, I’m sorry.
Deo reported the incident to Rocky Mountain Fur Con. I mean, this “Olivia” person had said it would be entertaining to see Deo get shot and talked about bringing a gun to the con. The convention eventually responded, but not in a way Deo expected. You see, Deo received a very bizarre “cease and desist” letter in the mail:
The letter, signed by Emery (who bizarrely identifies himself as “Chief Executive Contract Law Officer”) is full of legal sounding yet completely nonsensical text. They accuse Deo of “encouraging” the person who said it would be nice to see her get shot (which is a special kind of irony), and say that Deo has made “threats of violence against a class of people through a wire service across national boarders.”
I mean, besides the fact that Nazis aren’t a “class of people,” Deo (at least according to Dogpatch Press) is located in the United States. The word Emery was looking for is “borders” too (assuming he isn’t talking about people making threats over folks just trying to rent a room), and it’s kind of my favorite sentence of all time. He ends the letter saying that if there are any objections, Deo must respond to the letter or else she’s agreeing to its contents — which isn’t how cease and desist letters work even remotely.
You’ll also notice that Emery signed the letter in red with a red fingerprint. This is indicative of a whole other bit of weirdness – the Sovereign Citizen movement. Sovereign Citizens believe that they are not subject to the government or laws of the United States, and the FBI considers them a growing domestic threat. One of the more harmless things they’re known to do is insist on signing in red ink instead of blue or black (as they think red represents the blood of the people) and insist that a red fingerprint is the highest form of ID. If you don’t know how insane this stuff can get, here’s a hilarious example.
As Sovereign Citizens believe the States are meant to be separate nations, this may explain the bizarre “national boarders [sic]” line in the letter. As it’s also not uncommon for them to ignore tax law, it adds an interesting context to Flayrah’s allegations and Brooks’s subsequent denial. One of the favorite weapons of Sovereign Citizens is to try and send fake documents and make frivolous legal filings against those they believe to be their enemies.
Which Emery clearly sees Deo as here.
So, while taking the side of a bunch of Furry Nazis, the con decided that the only way they could keep operating was to increase security. You know, to stop the person who joked about punching people and not, say, the person who talked about people getting shot and implied they might bring a gun to the con. This cost must have been too much, because they then announced they were cancelling the con over these concerns.
I’ve embedded the official message from the con above, and you should click through and read the whole thing. Honestly, the irony is amazingly thick – as the “hate and intolerance” they refer to is hatred of Nazis. I mean, the con is saying that it’s wrong to hate a literal hate group. I cannot even begin to fathom the cognitive dissonance of this statement. The con has said they will refund as many people as they can, but that they may not have the money to do so.
I honestly wouldn’t hold my breath if you’re expecting your money back.
In the end, the con’s actual cancellation makes very little sense. Any real “security” threats really seem like they’d come from the people the con is actually defending, and I can’t see the financials suddenly going in the red because of it. Something else is happening here, but I’m not exactly sure what it is.
If I ever find out, I’m sure it will be depressingly hilarious.
Via Dogpatch Press, Flayrah, Denver Post, Reddit
http://www.nerdandtie.com/2017/04/12/the-bizarre-fall-of-rocky-mountain-fur-con/
April 12, 2017 Trae Dorn
When most conventions end their run, it’s usually for pretty simple reasons. Either the con has run out of money, the organizers’ personal lives have gotten in the way, there isn’t enough staff to keep going, or they have unsolvable venue issues. For good or bad, it’s usually straightforward.
Well, this time it’s not.
Earlier this week, Rocky Mountain Fur Con (originally scheduled for this August) was officially cancelled. The con ended its decade long run in a bizarre set of circumstances involving a faction of Nazi Furries, the Sovereign Citizen movement, and a staff member on the sex offender registry.
Strap in. It’s going to be quite the ride.
Problems in Rocky Mountain Fur Con’s management aren’t anything new. Kendal Ray Emery stepped down as Convention Chair in 2008 after it became publicly known that he was a registered sex offender. We don’t know a lot of details about Emery’s offense, though searching the Colorado Sex Offender Registry tells us that he was convicted of sexual contact with a minor in 1993.
He was thirty at the time of the incident.
While Emery hasn’t re-offended or been accused of anything in the decades since, it wasn’t exactly good PR for a Furry convention trying to promote a safe image to have a registered sex offender in charge. Emery would also later sign over ownership of Mid America Anthropomorphic and Art Corporation (which operates Rocky Mountain Fur Con) to Zachary “Sorin” Brooks in 2011. This was most likely due to the same pressures that caused him to step down as chair.
Kendal Ray Emery’s Photo From the Colorado Sex Offender Registry
Furry news website Flayrah also discovered that in 2011 MAAAC and Rocky Mountain Fur Con had lost their non-profit and tax exempt status, even though the event continued to advertise themselves as such on their about page and official Twitter account’s bio. The Flayrah article also alleges that organizers have not paid the necessary taxes since this happened, though when talking to the Denver Post Brooks denied this. Brooks stated that while the con did lose their 501(c)(3) status in 2011, the organization had started properly filing taxes after that occurred.
Regardless of whether or not MAAAC is compliant with what the IRS requires, claiming to be a 501(c)(3) when you’re not is fairly sketchy.
The amazing thing is, all of this is just a small factor in the failure of Rocky Mountain Fur Con. The larger issue (and what’s referred to in the statements actually released by the convention) have to do with backlash associated with a group called the “Furry Raiders.” For those of you outside of furry fandom, the “Furry Raiders” are a Colorado based group of furries founded by “Foxler Nightfire” who are, effectively, Nazis.
Yes, there are Nazi furries out there, and no it doesn’t make a damn lick of sense to me either.
Foxler
Now, in all fairness, if you asked the Furry Raiders if they were Nazis, they’d say no. I mean, sure — they wear arm bands based around the design of the Nazi party, replacing the swastika with a paw. And yes, their Fur Affinity page used to list their birthday as Adolph Hitler’s. And yes, the Nazi imagery is just plain everywhere with their stuff. And yes, their founder has said some pretty racist things. And yes, Foxler has… oh god, I could go on for hours.
So yeah, they say they’re not Nazis, but they’re totally Nazis.
The group doesn’t always get the warmest reception at events (due to the whole pseudo-Nazi paraphernalia thing), but one place they’ve found a home at is Rocky Mountain Fur Con. This doesn’t always sit well with the rest of the community needless to say. As the Dog Patch reports, one furry who wasn’t too fond of them goes by the name Deo. Deo made a joke on Twitter about punching Nazis (regarding the Furry Raiders), and that’s when the following exchange happened:
We had to include that as a screenshot since some of the tweets have been deleted. If you’re wondering why a random Twitter conversation is important, it’s because this (at least as far was we can tell) is the main reason the convention was cancelled.
If your brain has started hurting, I’m sorry.
Deo reported the incident to Rocky Mountain Fur Con. I mean, this “Olivia” person had said it would be entertaining to see Deo get shot and talked about bringing a gun to the con. The convention eventually responded, but not in a way Deo expected. You see, Deo received a very bizarre “cease and desist” letter in the mail:
The letter, signed by Emery (who bizarrely identifies himself as “Chief Executive Contract Law Officer”) is full of legal sounding yet completely nonsensical text. They accuse Deo of “encouraging” the person who said it would be nice to see her get shot (which is a special kind of irony), and say that Deo has made “threats of violence against a class of people through a wire service across national boarders.”
I mean, besides the fact that Nazis aren’t a “class of people,” Deo (at least according to Dogpatch Press) is located in the United States. The word Emery was looking for is “borders” too (assuming he isn’t talking about people making threats over folks just trying to rent a room), and it’s kind of my favorite sentence of all time. He ends the letter saying that if there are any objections, Deo must respond to the letter or else she’s agreeing to its contents — which isn’t how cease and desist letters work even remotely.
You’ll also notice that Emery signed the letter in red with a red fingerprint. This is indicative of a whole other bit of weirdness – the Sovereign Citizen movement. Sovereign Citizens believe that they are not subject to the government or laws of the United States, and the FBI considers them a growing domestic threat. One of the more harmless things they’re known to do is insist on signing in red ink instead of blue or black (as they think red represents the blood of the people) and insist that a red fingerprint is the highest form of ID. If you don’t know how insane this stuff can get, here’s a hilarious example.
As Sovereign Citizens believe the States are meant to be separate nations, this may explain the bizarre “national boarders [sic]” line in the letter. As it’s also not uncommon for them to ignore tax law, it adds an interesting context to Flayrah’s allegations and Brooks’s subsequent denial. One of the favorite weapons of Sovereign Citizens is to try and send fake documents and make frivolous legal filings against those they believe to be their enemies.
Which Emery clearly sees Deo as here.
So, while taking the side of a bunch of Furry Nazis, the con decided that the only way they could keep operating was to increase security. You know, to stop the person who joked about punching people and not, say, the person who talked about people getting shot and implied they might bring a gun to the con. This cost must have been too much, because they then announced they were cancelling the con over these concerns.
I’ve embedded the official message from the con above, and you should click through and read the whole thing. Honestly, the irony is amazingly thick – as the “hate and intolerance” they refer to is hatred of Nazis. I mean, the con is saying that it’s wrong to hate a literal hate group. I cannot even begin to fathom the cognitive dissonance of this statement. The con has said they will refund as many people as they can, but that they may not have the money to do so.
I honestly wouldn’t hold my breath if you’re expecting your money back.
In the end, the con’s actual cancellation makes very little sense. Any real “security” threats really seem like they’d come from the people the con is actually defending, and I can’t see the financials suddenly going in the red because of it. Something else is happening here, but I’m not exactly sure what it is.
If I ever find out, I’m sure it will be depressingly hilarious.
Via Dogpatch Press, Flayrah, Denver Post, Reddit
Categories: News
Unsuspecting Woman Brings Therapy Dog to Local Furry Convention
http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/04/woman-brings-therapy-dog-to-furry-convention.html
Unsuspecting Woman Brings Therapy Dog to Local Furry Convention
By Madison Malone Kircher
Link the therapy dog and some of his new furry friends.
Before last weekend, Cheryl Wassus had no idea what a “furry” was. So naturally, when the Motor City Furry Convention chose Pets for Vets (a nonprofit that pairs dogs with military veterans) as its charity of choice, she assumed that she and Link, her one-year-old Bernese mountain dog, would be spending the day at an animal event. She wasn’t wrong, necessarily — it’s just that the animals were maybe slightly more anthropomorphized than she had envisioned.
Today, Cheryl Wassus — whose son, Kenny, is a senior producer here at New York Media — definitely knows what a furry is. This is her story.
So what did you think you were walking into on Saturday?
You know, I have been affiliated with Pets for Vets for a while, and what I try to do is promote the program. I’ve got a really nice dog who has been trained with the benchmarks [for being a certified therapy dog] … so it’s nice to take Link and get him out there and have him exposed — because he is a young dog — to lots of different things. I really had no idea what to expect going in on Saturday. This organization had chosen us as their charity. They actually solicited us, and adopted us more or less, as their go-to charity for this big function. This is just a whole subculture I wasn’t even aware existed. When we set up tables and do promos and educate the public and do outreach, I had no idea the outreach was going to be other human … furry people. I guess you’re never too old to learn.
Did you get the chance to talk to many of the furries?
Yes. I learned so much about this whole new culture of people who get together and dress up in furry costumes. I didn’t know that there was this progression — like first, they choose a name, and start off with just a tail and ears. But from there, some of these costumes are amazing, and so elaborate. I was asking a lot of questions. Where do you get these? Where do you come up with something like this? A lot of people design their own, I guess. They decide what character they want to be, and then they spend lots of money having these costumes made. And then, they all get together for these events. Similar people. Similar interests. And they come together [at cons].
Right. Like the one you and Link attended.
Yeah, I had no idea I was walking into Furry Con. It was a little embarrassing at first because Link was just a little curious why people were wearing tails, so he was doing some serious tail-sniffing and checking out people. They weren’t offended, though, they just embraced him. It was all good. Just a real interested community.
So you had never heard of furries before this weekend, I take it?
Never. No. I didn’t know there were furries. The only furry I’d ever seen was at Easter, when somebody might put on one of those gigantic Easter-bunny costumes at a local egg hunt. That was my whole background with furries. That was it for me.
The photos your son tweeted are so funny; Link’s eyes seem to bug out of his head more and more with every new furry he meets.
You know, you can’t replicate that. I train puppies and do training with Canine Good Citizen and do trip training, and you cannot replicate what that one afternoon of walking him through every imaginable costume and scenario, with all of these different people and being in a new place. I was talking to one of the moms [of a furry], while I was sitting at our [Pets for Vets] booth, and she said a lot of these kids just aren’t understood. Her son got into it, and she said sometimes they don’t have the confidence to move around comfortably — socially, in groups — but they put on these costumes, and they’re transformed.
Did the furries and Link get along?
Yeah! We actually did a panel discussion about our charity and what we do, and these people, these furries, were very taken by what we do. Laurie [another volunteer] did a really nice presentation about the brain, when it comes to PTSD and vets, and they took off their furry costumes, or just the heads. Those things have to get incredibly warm. I can’t fathom wearing one of those all day. But, yes, they were absolutely tuned in … I saw some tears, people were definitely listening and paying attention. I don’t know what the final toll will be, but I imagine Pets for Vets is going to do quite well.
[Editor’s Note: The Motor City Furry Con raised $10,000 for Pets for Vets.]
Did you have a favorite furry costume?
The one, and I thought he might really put off my Link, was the big guy in the black wolf costume. He looked so awesome. He even has a different tint on the eyes, the degree of workmanship is amazing. It’s like Hollywood level. That guy’s costume was probably my favorite, and he seemed to really enjoy Link, too.
After spending the day with them, how do you feel about furries now?
To each his own. This seems pretty harmless. It seemed like there were lots of people around the same age. I saw little pieces of humanity I’d never seen before.
Is it safe to say you won’t be buying yourself a furry costume anytime soon?
No, I don’t think so. No. You know, you get a little older, a little menopausal, and being in that many layers and layers of fur. No need to be overheating. I’m good.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Unsuspecting Woman Brings Therapy Dog to Local Furry Convention
By Madison Malone Kircher
Link the therapy dog and some of his new furry friends.
Before last weekend, Cheryl Wassus had no idea what a “furry” was. So naturally, when the Motor City Furry Convention chose Pets for Vets (a nonprofit that pairs dogs with military veterans) as its charity of choice, she assumed that she and Link, her one-year-old Bernese mountain dog, would be spending the day at an animal event. She wasn’t wrong, necessarily — it’s just that the animals were maybe slightly more anthropomorphized than she had envisioned.
Today, Cheryl Wassus — whose son, Kenny, is a senior producer here at New York Media — definitely knows what a furry is. This is her story.
So what did you think you were walking into on Saturday?
You know, I have been affiliated with Pets for Vets for a while, and what I try to do is promote the program. I’ve got a really nice dog who has been trained with the benchmarks [for being a certified therapy dog] … so it’s nice to take Link and get him out there and have him exposed — because he is a young dog — to lots of different things. I really had no idea what to expect going in on Saturday. This organization had chosen us as their charity. They actually solicited us, and adopted us more or less, as their go-to charity for this big function. This is just a whole subculture I wasn’t even aware existed. When we set up tables and do promos and educate the public and do outreach, I had no idea the outreach was going to be other human … furry people. I guess you’re never too old to learn.
Did you get the chance to talk to many of the furries?
Yes. I learned so much about this whole new culture of people who get together and dress up in furry costumes. I didn’t know that there was this progression — like first, they choose a name, and start off with just a tail and ears. But from there, some of these costumes are amazing, and so elaborate. I was asking a lot of questions. Where do you get these? Where do you come up with something like this? A lot of people design their own, I guess. They decide what character they want to be, and then they spend lots of money having these costumes made. And then, they all get together for these events. Similar people. Similar interests. And they come together [at cons].
Right. Like the one you and Link attended.
Yeah, I had no idea I was walking into Furry Con. It was a little embarrassing at first because Link was just a little curious why people were wearing tails, so he was doing some serious tail-sniffing and checking out people. They weren’t offended, though, they just embraced him. It was all good. Just a real interested community.
So you had never heard of furries before this weekend, I take it?
Never. No. I didn’t know there were furries. The only furry I’d ever seen was at Easter, when somebody might put on one of those gigantic Easter-bunny costumes at a local egg hunt. That was my whole background with furries. That was it for me.
The photos your son tweeted are so funny; Link’s eyes seem to bug out of his head more and more with every new furry he meets.
You know, you can’t replicate that. I train puppies and do training with Canine Good Citizen and do trip training, and you cannot replicate what that one afternoon of walking him through every imaginable costume and scenario, with all of these different people and being in a new place. I was talking to one of the moms [of a furry], while I was sitting at our [Pets for Vets] booth, and she said a lot of these kids just aren’t understood. Her son got into it, and she said sometimes they don’t have the confidence to move around comfortably — socially, in groups — but they put on these costumes, and they’re transformed.
Did the furries and Link get along?
Yeah! We actually did a panel discussion about our charity and what we do, and these people, these furries, were very taken by what we do. Laurie [another volunteer] did a really nice presentation about the brain, when it comes to PTSD and vets, and they took off their furry costumes, or just the heads. Those things have to get incredibly warm. I can’t fathom wearing one of those all day. But, yes, they were absolutely tuned in … I saw some tears, people were definitely listening and paying attention. I don’t know what the final toll will be, but I imagine Pets for Vets is going to do quite well.
[Editor’s Note: The Motor City Furry Con raised $10,000 for Pets for Vets.]
Did you have a favorite furry costume?
The one, and I thought he might really put off my Link, was the big guy in the black wolf costume. He looked so awesome. He even has a different tint on the eyes, the degree of workmanship is amazing. It’s like Hollywood level. That guy’s costume was probably my favorite, and he seemed to really enjoy Link, too.
After spending the day with them, how do you feel about furries now?
To each his own. This seems pretty harmless. It seemed like there were lots of people around the same age. I saw little pieces of humanity I’d never seen before.
Is it safe to say you won’t be buying yourself a furry costume anytime soon?
No, I don’t think so. No. You know, you get a little older, a little menopausal, and being in that many layers and layers of fur. No need to be overheating. I’m good.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Categories: News
Unsuspecting Woman Brings Therapy Dog to Local Furry Convention
http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/04/woman-brings-therapy-dog-to-furry-convention.html
Unsuspecting Woman Brings Therapy Dog to Local Furry Convention
By Madison Malone Kircher
Link the therapy dog and some of his new furry friends.
Before last weekend, Cheryl Wassus had no idea what a “furry” was. So naturally, when the Motor City Furry Convention chose Pets for Vets (a nonprofit that pairs dogs with military veterans) as its charity of choice, she assumed that she and Link, her one-year-old Bernese mountain dog, would be spending the day at an animal event. She wasn’t wrong, necessarily — it’s just that the animals were maybe slightly more anthropomorphized than she had envisioned.
Today, Cheryl Wassus — whose son, Kenny, is a senior producer here at New York Media — definitely knows what a furry is. This is her story.
So what did you think you were walking into on Saturday?
You know, I have been affiliated with Pets for Vets for a while, and what I try to do is promote the program. I’ve got a really nice dog who has been trained with the benchmarks [for being a certified therapy dog] … so it’s nice to take Link and get him out there and have him exposed — because he is a young dog — to lots of different things. I really had no idea what to expect going in on Saturday. This organization had chosen us as their charity. They actually solicited us, and adopted us more or less, as their go-to charity for this big function. This is just a whole subculture I wasn’t even aware existed. When we set up tables and do promos and educate the public and do outreach, I had no idea the outreach was going to be other human … furry people. I guess you’re never too old to learn.
Did you get the chance to talk to many of the furries?
Yes. I learned so much about this whole new culture of people who get together and dress up in furry costumes. I didn’t know that there was this progression — like first, they choose a name, and start off with just a tail and ears. But from there, some of these costumes are amazing, and so elaborate. I was asking a lot of questions. Where do you get these? Where do you come up with something like this? A lot of people design their own, I guess. They decide what character they want to be, and then they spend lots of money having these costumes made. And then, they all get together for these events. Similar people. Similar interests. And they come together [at cons].
Right. Like the one you and Link attended.
Yeah, I had no idea I was walking into Furry Con. It was a little embarrassing at first because Link was just a little curious why people were wearing tails, so he was doing some serious tail-sniffing and checking out people. They weren’t offended, though, they just embraced him. It was all good. Just a real interested community.
So you had never heard of furries before this weekend, I take it?
Never. No. I didn’t know there were furries. The only furry I’d ever seen was at Easter, when somebody might put on one of those gigantic Easter-bunny costumes at a local egg hunt. That was my whole background with furries. That was it for me.
The photos your son tweeted are so funny; Link’s eyes seem to bug out of his head more and more with every new furry he meets.
You know, you can’t replicate that. I train puppies and do training with Canine Good Citizen and do trip training, and you cannot replicate what that one afternoon of walking him through every imaginable costume and scenario, with all of these different people and being in a new place. I was talking to one of the moms [of a furry], while I was sitting at our [Pets for Vets] booth, and she said a lot of these kids just aren’t understood. Her son got into it, and she said sometimes they don’t have the confidence to move around comfortably — socially, in groups — but they put on these costumes, and they’re transformed.
Did the furries and Link get along?
Yeah! We actually did a panel discussion about our charity and what we do, and these people, these furries, were very taken by what we do. Laurie [another volunteer] did a really nice presentation about the brain, when it comes to PTSD and vets, and they took off their furry costumes, or just the heads. Those things have to get incredibly warm. I can’t fathom wearing one of those all day. But, yes, they were absolutely tuned in … I saw some tears, people were definitely listening and paying attention. I don’t know what the final toll will be, but I imagine Pets for Vets is going to do quite well.
[Editor’s Note: The Motor City Furry Con raised $10,000 for Pets for Vets.]
Did you have a favorite furry costume?
The one, and I thought he might really put off my Link, was the big guy in the black wolf costume. He looked so awesome. He even has a different tint on the eyes, the degree of workmanship is amazing. It’s like Hollywood level. That guy’s costume was probably my favorite, and he seemed to really enjoy Link, too.
After spending the day with them, how do you feel about furries now?
To each his own. This seems pretty harmless. It seemed like there were lots of people around the same age. I saw little pieces of humanity I’d never seen before.
Is it safe to say you won’t be buying yourself a furry costume anytime soon?
No, I don’t think so. No. You know, you get a little older, a little menopausal, and being in that many layers and layers of fur. No need to be overheating. I’m good.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Unsuspecting Woman Brings Therapy Dog to Local Furry Convention
By Madison Malone Kircher
Link the therapy dog and some of his new furry friends.
Before last weekend, Cheryl Wassus had no idea what a “furry” was. So naturally, when the Motor City Furry Convention chose Pets for Vets (a nonprofit that pairs dogs with military veterans) as its charity of choice, she assumed that she and Link, her one-year-old Bernese mountain dog, would be spending the day at an animal event. She wasn’t wrong, necessarily — it’s just that the animals were maybe slightly more anthropomorphized than she had envisioned.
Today, Cheryl Wassus — whose son, Kenny, is a senior producer here at New York Media — definitely knows what a furry is. This is her story.
So what did you think you were walking into on Saturday?
You know, I have been affiliated with Pets for Vets for a while, and what I try to do is promote the program. I’ve got a really nice dog who has been trained with the benchmarks [for being a certified therapy dog] … so it’s nice to take Link and get him out there and have him exposed — because he is a young dog — to lots of different things. I really had no idea what to expect going in on Saturday. This organization had chosen us as their charity. They actually solicited us, and adopted us more or less, as their go-to charity for this big function. This is just a whole subculture I wasn’t even aware existed. When we set up tables and do promos and educate the public and do outreach, I had no idea the outreach was going to be other human … furry people. I guess you’re never too old to learn.
Did you get the chance to talk to many of the furries?
Yes. I learned so much about this whole new culture of people who get together and dress up in furry costumes. I didn’t know that there was this progression — like first, they choose a name, and start off with just a tail and ears. But from there, some of these costumes are amazing, and so elaborate. I was asking a lot of questions. Where do you get these? Where do you come up with something like this? A lot of people design their own, I guess. They decide what character they want to be, and then they spend lots of money having these costumes made. And then, they all get together for these events. Similar people. Similar interests. And they come together [at cons].
Right. Like the one you and Link attended.
Yeah, I had no idea I was walking into Furry Con. It was a little embarrassing at first because Link was just a little curious why people were wearing tails, so he was doing some serious tail-sniffing and checking out people. They weren’t offended, though, they just embraced him. It was all good. Just a real interested community.
So you had never heard of furries before this weekend, I take it?
Never. No. I didn’t know there were furries. The only furry I’d ever seen was at Easter, when somebody might put on one of those gigantic Easter-bunny costumes at a local egg hunt. That was my whole background with furries. That was it for me.
The photos your son tweeted are so funny; Link’s eyes seem to bug out of his head more and more with every new furry he meets.
You know, you can’t replicate that. I train puppies and do training with Canine Good Citizen and do trip training, and you cannot replicate what that one afternoon of walking him through every imaginable costume and scenario, with all of these different people and being in a new place. I was talking to one of the moms [of a furry], while I was sitting at our [Pets for Vets] booth, and she said a lot of these kids just aren’t understood. Her son got into it, and she said sometimes they don’t have the confidence to move around comfortably — socially, in groups — but they put on these costumes, and they’re transformed.
Did the furries and Link get along?
Yeah! We actually did a panel discussion about our charity and what we do, and these people, these furries, were very taken by what we do. Laurie [another volunteer] did a really nice presentation about the brain, when it comes to PTSD and vets, and they took off their furry costumes, or just the heads. Those things have to get incredibly warm. I can’t fathom wearing one of those all day. But, yes, they were absolutely tuned in … I saw some tears, people were definitely listening and paying attention. I don’t know what the final toll will be, but I imagine Pets for Vets is going to do quite well.
[Editor’s Note: The Motor City Furry Con raised $10,000 for Pets for Vets.]
Did you have a favorite furry costume?
The one, and I thought he might really put off my Link, was the big guy in the black wolf costume. He looked so awesome. He even has a different tint on the eyes, the degree of workmanship is amazing. It’s like Hollywood level. That guy’s costume was probably my favorite, and he seemed to really enjoy Link, too.
After spending the day with them, how do you feel about furries now?
To each his own. This seems pretty harmless. It seemed like there were lots of people around the same age. I saw little pieces of humanity I’d never seen before.
Is it safe to say you won’t be buying yourself a furry costume anytime soon?
No, I don’t think so. No. You know, you get a little older, a little menopausal, and being in that many layers and layers of fur. No need to be overheating. I’m good.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Categories: News
So Fluffy… And Cute
The creator of 100% Soft describes himself this way: “Truck Torrence lives in Los Angeles and makes kawaii pop art under the moniker 100% Soft. He is the designer of the official emoji for Star Wars and the creator of the Kaiju Kitties. His work has been shown at Gallery 1988, Bottleneck Gallery, Giant Robot, and Spoke Art. His clients have included Lucasfilm, Disney, 20th Century Fox, Fandango, Nickelodeon, and Marvel Studios.” And as you can see on his web site, he’s been busy making emoji, message stickers, plush kaiju kitties, and more for a while now — including an entire set of stickers for Disney’s Zootopia!
image c. 2017 100SOFT.US
Categories: News
One Woman’s Transformation
Jessica Chrysler is an artist who creates mostly fantasy works, with some occasional anthropomorphics. But when she goes anthro, she goes for it in a big way! First there was Cody the Coyote, a Native American folklore re-imagined as an illustrated book for children. It’s still available on-line. More recently she’s been writing and illustrating a science fiction novel called Monolithium. “After surviving torture for treason, Elara wakes to find herself transformed into a creature known as the enemy of the empire. While she must flee her home planet to stay alive, she soon discovers that Queen Varina had not only meant to take her life, but also her uncle’s throne and control of the realm.” That creature in question is the blue feathered reptile you see below. Jessica has been selling an illustrated teaser booklet for Monolithium at conventions, so look for her at one near you. And visit her web site to get updates on her progress.
image c. 2017 by Jessica Chrysler
Categories: News
Grand Méchant Renard
What started as a TV special is now also a feature film. From the Benjamin Renner book Le Grand Méchant Renard that follows the misadventures of a young clumsy fox and a small headstrong red hen. The fox, a little idiot, Tired of these repeated failure the fox will be decides to steal the eggs of the chicken to raise and then eat them. A perfect plan until they hatch. Here is the previous english trailer for the special: https://vimeo.com/163564412 [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [1] https://furry.today/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/C9OAjtkWsAIhU_R.jpg [2] https://furry.today/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/le_grand_mechant_renard6.jpg [3] https://furry.today/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/le_grand_mechant_renard4.jpg [4] https://furry.today/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/tumblr_o3j03hCrAC1rb1rgoo2_500.jpg [5] https://furry.today/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/tumblr_o3j03hCrAC1rb1rgoo3_500.jpg [6] https://furry.today/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/tumblr_o3j03hCrAC1rb1rgoo7_500.jpg [7] https://furry.today/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/tumblr_o3j03hCrAC1rb1rgoo8_500.jpg [8] https://furry.today/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/tumblr_o3j03hCrAC1rb1rgoo10_500.jpg
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Categories: Videos
Editorial: Time to Organize against Derps (updated April 17, 2017)
[Note: I want to thank all those who have offered comments at the end of this article. The information I wrote about some of these cons was brought to me by various furries and online articles. I was not at RMFC or the early ConFurence I mention here, or, indeed, any of these cons. In the end, however, it it not important who, exactly, did what to whom. There are two undeniable facts: 1) several furcons have been cancelled over the last couple years; 2) the fact that they were cancelled is NOT because the mundane community banned furries; it IS because, in one way or another, furries behaved badly. It might be that three conventions being cancelled in three years is just a coincidence, but it seems to me that this is an escalating symptom of a phenomenon I am seeing, and that is that the fandom has grown so large that it is getting out of control. What the solution is, I'm not sure, but I think we need to start addressing this in a serious manner.]
I need to pause here and take a breath. There have been some sad developments in the furry world over the last two years or so, and I am going to state my opinion about it so my readers know where I stand.
As any furry who pays attention knows, three furcons have now shut down due to bad behavior: Rainfurrest, Oklacon, and, very recently, Rocky Mountain Fur Con. In the first case, the con got out of hand when a bunch of furries trashed hotel rooms, costing the hotel a lot of money, and also indulged in bad (sometimes gross) behavior in the lobby and public areas. In the case of the Colorado con, it seems to be a combination of the actions of a group calling itself the "Furry Raiders" (I've also heard the name #AltFurry), an apparently new group that supports right-wing principles and is opposed to what is, really, a rather liberal social group, as well as furcon admins who didn't pay federal taxes. One admin has also been involved in sex with a minor and (not sure if it's the same person) is connected to the Furry Raiders, allowing them to reserve a block of rooms that ended up excluding other furries and that, in turn, resulted in threats of violence.
Here's a good article about what happened at RMFC.
Also, in 2014, Oklacon was menaced by drunk furries who engaged in public sex acts that forced the con to shut its doors the next year.
And then there is the incident at Midwest Furfest during which someone released chlorine gas in a stairwell. You will notice, though, that MFF is still running. Why? Because it is a great example of a well-run furry convention (kudos to the staff). Something happened that was beyond their control, but they quickly managed the situation and the result was that this convention is still around for good furries to enjoy.
While all this saddens Papabear, I'm not really surprised this has happened. The fandom has grown so large and is sans any kind of controls or rules or regulation that unsavory elements have inevitably infiltrated our ranks. Such a lackadaisical approach is the result of a permissive culture that abhors societal restriction (much like the hippie generation). I get that, but there comes a point when being too laid back is a problem.
Like a parent who allows her children to do whatever they want, the result is a bunch of spoiled, self-entitled brats who think they can do whatever they like, even if it is harmful to others.
It is more important than ever for those who run conventions to be vigilant. It is not impossible to run a large con efficiently and well. Anthrocon had 7,310 attendees in 2016 and you saw nothing like what happened at Rainfurrest or Oklacon. This result is directly attributable to those who run the con.
The danger of having badly run furcons is not just that they will close but that they will give all conventions and the fandom a bad name.
[Note: Dogpatch Press published a good article about how false rumors can also spread about cons, however.]
The preventative is vigilance. The Rainfurrest organizers were overly indulgent with attendees (public drunkenness was rampant); the RMFC staff permitted bad behavior on the part of the Furry Raiders and also either didn't do a background check or didn't care that someone in their ranks had a criminal record.
Frankly, these conventions deserved to close. If you can't do it right, then you shouldn't do it.
Convention founders and administrators need to have enough gumption to ban furries or groups of furries from joining in on the fun if they have proven themselves to be a problem. (For example, if a group espouses hate, violence, or prejudice towards others, that should be a clue they are not good furries and should not be permitted into a convention). RMFC had the opportunity to do this with the Furry Raiders group, but they backed off and suffered the consequences. (To be fair here, after talking to more people who were there, bad behavior was also demonstrated by anti-Furry Raiders people, one of whom tried to throw a punch).
No apologies should be necessary when it comes to who you allow into your organized, private function. Furry conventions have a right to ban anyone they wish for the good of the attendees who simply want to have a good time.
We need to seek an answer to this problem now before it escalates any further. My (admittedly, unasked for) advice? I would propose that an organization be created that includes all those who run or wish to run a furry convention (it would be great if this could include furries from all over the world). The purpose of this organization would be to:
The days are past when furcons could operate just fine in isolation from one another.
[NOTE: In light of the comment added by Smash in the comments below, the above is obviously a good idea that is already in existence (never said I was original LOL). Funny that I have not heard about the Furry Convention Leadership Roundtable before, even though it was founded back in 2010! I'm sure the members of that group have been talking about recent events. Would be interesting if they could maybe be a little more public about it. Good for them for organizing the FCLR! Kudos all around, and I wish them success in the future.]
When I talk to furries and ask them what they like about the fandom, one of the frequent answers is that they enjoy the camaraderie and the fact that furries accept everyone. Indeed, that should be the spirit of furry. You might think that I am against the Furry Raiders' conservative values and that's why I'm ripping on them here. Not at all. If you want to be a conservative furry and vote for Donald Trump, go for it. But don't espouse hatred. Don't threaten violence against other furries. Don't reserve a block of rooms for the purpose of keeping furries you don't like from attending. Such behavior is obviously unacceptable and should be rejected by all good furries everywhere.
The furry fandom is supposed to be a world where people can escape from the nonsense of hatred and prejudice that plagues the rest of society. Yes, of course, furries are humans and subject to human flaws, but that doesn't mean we can't strive to be better than that. It takes work, and the more furries there are in the world the more work it will take.
I think it's worth the effort.
Don't you?
[Thanks for all the comments below. I've gotten a few things incorrect, apparently, but was simply reporting what I had heard from people who said they were there. I'm getting some different stories from other people who also said they were there. Details. Well, let's forego all the details. The point is, that furcons have been and are being taken down by furries who can't behave themselves. This is an important issue that needs to be addressed by the community. A good start would be the Furry Convention Leadership Roundtable.]
I need to pause here and take a breath. There have been some sad developments in the furry world over the last two years or so, and I am going to state my opinion about it so my readers know where I stand.
As any furry who pays attention knows, three furcons have now shut down due to bad behavior: Rainfurrest, Oklacon, and, very recently, Rocky Mountain Fur Con. In the first case, the con got out of hand when a bunch of furries trashed hotel rooms, costing the hotel a lot of money, and also indulged in bad (sometimes gross) behavior in the lobby and public areas. In the case of the Colorado con, it seems to be a combination of the actions of a group calling itself the "Furry Raiders" (I've also heard the name #AltFurry), an apparently new group that supports right-wing principles and is opposed to what is, really, a rather liberal social group, as well as furcon admins who didn't pay federal taxes. One admin has also been involved in sex with a minor and (not sure if it's the same person) is connected to the Furry Raiders, allowing them to reserve a block of rooms that ended up excluding other furries and that, in turn, resulted in threats of violence.
Here's a good article about what happened at RMFC.
Also, in 2014, Oklacon was menaced by drunk furries who engaged in public sex acts that forced the con to shut its doors the next year.
And then there is the incident at Midwest Furfest during which someone released chlorine gas in a stairwell. You will notice, though, that MFF is still running. Why? Because it is a great example of a well-run furry convention (kudos to the staff). Something happened that was beyond their control, but they quickly managed the situation and the result was that this convention is still around for good furries to enjoy.
While all this saddens Papabear, I'm not really surprised this has happened. The fandom has grown so large and is sans any kind of controls or rules or regulation that unsavory elements have inevitably infiltrated our ranks. Such a lackadaisical approach is the result of a permissive culture that abhors societal restriction (much like the hippie generation). I get that, but there comes a point when being too laid back is a problem.
Like a parent who allows her children to do whatever they want, the result is a bunch of spoiled, self-entitled brats who think they can do whatever they like, even if it is harmful to others.
It is more important than ever for those who run conventions to be vigilant. It is not impossible to run a large con efficiently and well. Anthrocon had 7,310 attendees in 2016 and you saw nothing like what happened at Rainfurrest or Oklacon. This result is directly attributable to those who run the con.
The danger of having badly run furcons is not just that they will close but that they will give all conventions and the fandom a bad name.
[Note: Dogpatch Press published a good article about how false rumors can also spread about cons, however.]
The preventative is vigilance. The Rainfurrest organizers were overly indulgent with attendees (public drunkenness was rampant); the RMFC staff permitted bad behavior on the part of the Furry Raiders and also either didn't do a background check or didn't care that someone in their ranks had a criminal record.
Frankly, these conventions deserved to close. If you can't do it right, then you shouldn't do it.
Convention founders and administrators need to have enough gumption to ban furries or groups of furries from joining in on the fun if they have proven themselves to be a problem. (For example, if a group espouses hate, violence, or prejudice towards others, that should be a clue they are not good furries and should not be permitted into a convention). RMFC had the opportunity to do this with the Furry Raiders group, but they backed off and suffered the consequences. (To be fair here, after talking to more people who were there, bad behavior was also demonstrated by anti-Furry Raiders people, one of whom tried to throw a punch).
No apologies should be necessary when it comes to who you allow into your organized, private function. Furry conventions have a right to ban anyone they wish for the good of the attendees who simply want to have a good time.
We need to seek an answer to this problem now before it escalates any further. My (admittedly, unasked for) advice? I would propose that an organization be created that includes all those who run or wish to run a furry convention (it would be great if this could include furries from all over the world). The purpose of this organization would be to:
- Efficiently share information and ideas between conventions on how to improve their events.
- Mentor those who have just taken over an existing convention or wish to start a new convention.
- Create a database of congoers, including incident reports.
- Problem solve (the more heads getting together, the better).
The days are past when furcons could operate just fine in isolation from one another.
[NOTE: In light of the comment added by Smash in the comments below, the above is obviously a good idea that is already in existence (never said I was original LOL). Funny that I have not heard about the Furry Convention Leadership Roundtable before, even though it was founded back in 2010! I'm sure the members of that group have been talking about recent events. Would be interesting if they could maybe be a little more public about it. Good for them for organizing the FCLR! Kudos all around, and I wish them success in the future.]
When I talk to furries and ask them what they like about the fandom, one of the frequent answers is that they enjoy the camaraderie and the fact that furries accept everyone. Indeed, that should be the spirit of furry. You might think that I am against the Furry Raiders' conservative values and that's why I'm ripping on them here. Not at all. If you want to be a conservative furry and vote for Donald Trump, go for it. But don't espouse hatred. Don't threaten violence against other furries. Don't reserve a block of rooms for the purpose of keeping furries you don't like from attending. Such behavior is obviously unacceptable and should be rejected by all good furries everywhere.
The furry fandom is supposed to be a world where people can escape from the nonsense of hatred and prejudice that plagues the rest of society. Yes, of course, furries are humans and subject to human flaws, but that doesn't mean we can't strive to be better than that. It takes work, and the more furries there are in the world the more work it will take.
I think it's worth the effort.
Don't you?
[Thanks for all the comments below. I've gotten a few things incorrect, apparently, but was simply reporting what I had heard from people who said they were there. I'm getting some different stories from other people who also said they were there. Details. Well, let's forego all the details. The point is, that furcons have been and are being taken down by furries who can't behave themselves. This is an important issue that needs to be addressed by the community. A good start would be the Furry Convention Leadership Roundtable.]
A Day of The Dam Keepers
The Dam Keeper is a wonderful short that looks like Tonko House is looking to expand into a full feature film. Here are a selection of very cute character tests they are putting out as they explore this production. https://youtu.be/_8d49TvEPxY https://youtu.be/g8iNGVB2YHU https://youtu.be/E0-7vq5O_ac https://youtu.be/4x-5Vo_d1KY https://youtu.be/JCUeOhpGxQ
View Video
Categories: Videos
All the Pretty Kitties
The artist known only as Dani Cat is a crafter who specializes in cloth animals and cloth hats. Both of which are often themed around cats! She makes the rounds at a lot of conventions in North America so you may well see her near you soon. The Dani Cat Designs Etsy Store is on hiatus at the moment, but her Deviant Art site has a lot of her recent designs on display, and there’s an article over at Craft Hackers that shows even more of her work.
image c. 2017 by Dani Cat Designs
Categories: News