On November 28th, Dragoneer posted a message that Fur Affinity's account received on Twitter. It was from the social media site's advertisement team. In the message they indicated that the adult website would not be able to advertise on Twitter.

A user associated with your account is ineligible to participate in the Twitter Ads program at this time.

This determination is based on the following Twitter Ads Policy:
@furaffinity: Adult sexual products and services.

[...]

We appreciate your interest in Twitter Ads

In Brazil in March 2019, a furry bowling event had gathered under the name Furboliche. In attendance was Crash Azarel, a popular fursuit performer who had been guest of honor at Brasil FurFest the previous year. At the bowling event there was also another group in attendance to take photos of the fursuiters, to show them wearing sneakers for an advertising campaign for Converse (a brand bought by Nike in 2003). These adverts have been recently released on their Argentinian and Australian sites. Crash shared the news of the marketing launch on his Twitter feed.

WELL CONVERSE-ALLSTARS's FURRY COMERCIAL IS OUT.
So far only in Australia and Argentina, but coming soon near you! XD on their site and on their shops! pic.twitter.com/TMdbVWmCkG

— Crash Azarel (@Crash_Azarel) July 13, 2019

Afterwards, some furs began to be critical of the collaboration, concerned about using one's fursona for the profit of another, and fears of corporate culture and marketing infiltrating the fandom. True to its brand name, the shoe being worn by the furs of Brazil were starting a conversation on outside marketing within the fandom.

Update 7/27: Brasil FurFest has announced a sponsorship by Converse since this article was published.

It all started when SpaceX and Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk made a strange tweet that was but one simple word. With that one utterance people started talking in the furry fandom. That word was “fur-curious”. A neologism that indicates that one is interested in fur activities though may not be one themselves. This came up when Elon was discussing a tweet about an article revolving large red squirrels found in India.

The furry fandom’s reaction was as mixed as the backgrounds of people that comprise it.

There are furries who are definitely Tesla fans and would more than likely welcome Musk with open arms: such as the lead administrator of SoFurry and this mouse guy name Twig who proudly shows himself plugging in his Telsa Model 3. However since they’re a Telsa employee, it might make it difficult to use the fandom as an escape from the grind if the boss dives into his hobby.

Those who are not interested in the eccentric billionaire were far more vocal in their concerns. Some of these are furries may have strong misgivings about the CEO’s behaviors surrounding labor unions. Or they may criticize appropriation of government funding for private ventures such as the Tesla solar facility in Buffalo, NY at the tune of 750 million. They also may have been put off by his brazen behaviors regarding a certain Thai rescue mission. Where Elon smeared one of those that rescued kids trapped in a cave as a pedophile when the British man who was able to save the children jibed at Musk who was “overthinking” a rescue solution. Detractors saw Elon’s child rescue plans as a publicity stunt for this company rather than a true act of altruism.

However, far more interesting was the reaction of one individual in the futurist community to Elon Musk’s furry fluff tweets. These communities are very eager to get into space, to plug their brain into the matrix, or maybe just having a world where renewable energy is the norm would be nice. They usually idolize their technology industry gurus. But furries are not space.

So they had one message for Mr. Musk: Get back to work.

2018 has been rough on many of us, so from everyone here at Flayrah, we wish you the best of the holiday season and a Happy New Year!

Here are some cute videos from previous years:

A 2017 ad from Very.co.uk, an online retailer.

A series of TV spots featuring squirrels, made for Russia's Channel One in 2017.

And from 2013, "The Bear and The Hare", an ad from the John Lewis department store.

What started with a well intentioned creative spark by a furry to take a mass produced WalMart animal costume product and teach young ones how to express themselves in designs of their own creation turned into an unfortunate swarm of saltiness and virtue signaling by InfoWar fans.

The doors to this interaction was open when WalMart’s official twitter account responded to a furry expressing their desire to do a video on modding of their Maskimal products. Once the positive interaction of a corporation with the furs was made, the Joneses stepped in to voice their offense at the situation.

An advert for EZ Cooldown cooling vests for suiting peformers was released by EZ Wolf. The scolling shot features many fursuiters performing a wide variety of wacky tasks slowed down dramatically while the accompanying music by Fox Amoore and Pepper Coyote of Look Left encourages the audience to "Stay as You Are".

EZ Wolf is well known for his works in furry cinemtography, including the "infamous" Room 366 video which caused controversy in the fandom when it was leaked back in 2011. If you look hard enough, you may find an Easter egg referencing that particular video towards the end.

A 7’21” movie? Well, they don’t say “feature”. And it is produced by Ridley Scott, directed by John Stevenson (Kung Fu Panda), and CGI animated by Animal Logic, the Sydney studio that produced the two Happy Feet movies and Legend of the Guardians: The Guardians of Ga’Hoole. This is supposed to reinvigorate the Coca-Cola Polar Bears, but at least it’s free of the commercial message.

IMDb and YouTube say that this was released on December 31, 2012. ADWEEK says that it was commissioned by the Coca-Cola Company through the Creative Artists Agency (adv’t agency) of Los Angeles for an online commercial. So this has been out for over a year, but I haven’t seen it mentioned on Flayrah yet. Let’s rectify the omission.

There have been one-piece pull-over pajama-style “animal costumes” for a while now — but this is the first time we’ve seen them advertised on kids’ TV! That’s just what Janimals did, advertising their “wearable stuffed animals” on the Hub Network. What’s more, they say they have sizes to fit “ages five to one-hundred-and-five!”. Check out the Janimals web site to see their full commercial and all of their available models.  As seen on TV!

image c. 2014 buyjanimals.com

The January 23 issue of India’s Animation Xpress reports that the makers of anti-pimple cream Garnier Pure Active have hired the FoxyMoron digital advertising agency in Mumbai and Gurgaon to create a Hindi Facebook and YouTube advertising campaign for it. FoxyMoron has used “layered animation” to create “illustrated comic strips of iconic Bollywood characters” disfigured by pimples. It’s not anthro, but it is truly you-have-to-see-it weird. [Video 1 - 2]

There is nothing anthropomorphic about this except the name of the creative studio. Are we insulted by the name “FoxyMoron”? Have they ever done anything with cartoon foxes in it? (It probably started out as a play on "oxymoron", but still ...)

Amid Amidi of the Cartoon Brew uses this new GEICO commercial to ask, what is an animated cartoon and what is reality, anyway? – a meaningful question for anthropomorphic fans today.

The Kia hamsters, rodent stars of several commercials for the Kia Motors Corporation, are back in an advertisement to promote the 2014 Soul.

The ad, set to Lady Gaga's "Applause", features the three hamsters jogging, swimming, and working out on various pieces of gym equipment. At the end, emphasising the message that the Soul has been "totally transformed" with a "sleeker, sexier and more sophisticated" look, the hamsters are seen radically slimmed down, wowing the public at a red-carpet event.

The campaign was produced by Kia's long-time ad agency David & Goliath, and directed by its Executive Creative Director, Colin Jeffery. The MTV Video Music Awards (Sunday, August 25) will feature the commercial; it hits 18,000 movie screens across the U.S. on August 30.

Some people have weird hobbies. Video editor Trevor Carmick’s is animating beer labels. The Cartoon Brew’s Chappell Ellison has an article on Carmick and his animated beer labels, including a link to them. Since the labels include anthropomorphic animals, real animals, and fantasy monsters, I am including it here.

Besides, I suspect that most Flayrah readers like beer, whether it is anthropomorphic or not.

Chappell Ellison reports for the Cartoon Brew on a regional Canadian airline's use of a jetsetting raccoon businessman mascot, Mr. Porter.

More importantly, Ellison documents how this goes against the trend of airlines like American Airlines and Qantas replacing their familiar animal mascots with impersonal, stylized mascots, and why this is a big mistake in his opinion. An animated TV commercial featuring Mr. Porter is included.

This 1'16" TV adv’t for the Peugeot 208, parodying Hanna-Barbera’s animated Wacky Races of the 1960s, is barely anthropomorphic due to the last-second appearance of Muttley; but it’s so clever that I’ll take any excuse to include it here. Directed by Antoine Bardou-Jacquet at Partizan/Movie & Art in … well, eight offices around the world from Paris to Los Angeles to Mumbai; commissioned for Peugeot by the Y&R Brasil advertising agency in São Paulo.

Once, Flayrah was the the only place to find information on the Furry fandom. You might see a comment on a board or on IRC, perhaps LiveJournal, but there were not a lot of options. The few conventions out there would make a post here, perhaps some themed newsletter, but that was about it. You knew you could find Flayrah with news on it.

Now, over the years the fandom has developed, but the news mediums really have not. There are more diverse sources out there, but many are self-seeking. I won't go into that. More power to them is all. Yes, you can say Furry News Network, but it never really got going. A year? Maybe two. It copied a lot of the stories here, and occasionally something new would pop up. But that died out soon enough.

The fandom is constantly growing and furries want news, but do they know where to find it? I don't think so. I looked at the visitor stats below. They represent what a meet might have, and are not a good representation of the fandom's numbers.