Buzzfeed’s worst of 2015, Furry Chic in 2016, and Fred’s birthday. NEWSDUMP (12/18/15)
by Patch O'Furr
Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag. Guest posts welcome. Tips: patch.ofurr@gmail.com.
Fred Patten’s birthday was December 11 – Happy 75th, Fred!
Read an interview with Fred about the founding of Furry fandom, by esteemed novelist Phil Geusz. Thanks Fred for bringing so much content that helps Dogpatch Press to put out Furry News every week day. Sorry that this went out too late to share Furplanet’s weekend birthday discount sale for Fred’s titles. But check them out:
- The Ursa Major Awards Anthology
- What Happens Next (anthology)
- Five Fortunes (anthology)
- Anthropomorphic Aliens (anthology)
- The Furry Future (anthology)
- An Anthropomorphic Century (anthology)
“Accidental Guests of the Midwest Fur Fest” – outsider appreciation gets viral views.
This personal blog post got lots of love. The Healthy Not Nuts blog covers a husband and wife’s thoughts on recipes, diet, health and photography. It’s lovely when Furries add spice to the mundane! “…how can you not love these creatures that look so cute, cuddly and happy all of the time?” The post earned 267 comments. The writer shared an appreciation letter for the post, where he mentioned getting over 20,000 views.
Furries in Buzzfeed’s “The 50 Worst Things On The Internet In 2015.” (NSFW)
Use this archive link (so they get no incentive to publish unforgivable crap). Furries are in items 14, 20, 31, and 46. There’s also bonus bronies, puppy and pony players. Whether it’s love or hate, at least things are never boring…
Goodbye to Furnation.
Furnation was one of the first visible Web presences for Furry fandom. It helped many to discover their fursonas in the 1990’s. Reddit calls it “the end of an era.” Flayrah gave it a feature under it’s tag for collected coverage. Social network Furrtrax made a generous offer of free hosting to keep it online. I tried helping, but got the feeling that Furnation’s admin was too burnt out with health problems to devote an ounce of effort for community moderation. I also assume the build of the site might be antiquated and burdensome (perhaps technical, or with copyright for content built by individuals.) It’s influence lives on in places like FurPlanet (formed from Furnation Magazine), one of the 3 main Furry publishers.
Literary Agent has a message for her followers. They must be sending mountains of this…
Here are some other things I can't sell right now: Vikings. Anthropomorphic animals. SF with cute humanoid aliens. Vampires.
— Hannah Bowman (@hannahnpbowman) December 14, 2015
Zootopia news – the heat is rising for the 2016 Fursplosion. Will it open a new era of “Furry Chic?”
For promotion straight from Disney, here’s new anthro parody movie posters, and a delightfully busy Zootopia poster. And this is very interesting…
Disney Prepares to Cash In on the Furry Demographic with “Zootopia”. Inverse.com notices what a lot of us have been speculating about. Few outsiders have commented until now (although there was this minor piece last year: “Marvel Looking To Capture The Furry Market?“) Keep in mind, market size doesn’t necessarily matter, if buzz spreads from niche to niche with outsized influence. Like bunnies don’t have to be big to be… productive.
The author felt like my reddit comment was worth quoting. “patch_ofurr writes “don’t ever think a giant corporation doesn’t know EXACTLY what they’re doing…” But after the article came out, furry Redditors were underwhelmed. They complained about the article’s lack of talking to an actual furry, and linking Vanity Fair’s outdated, always-shitty 2001 hit piece against furries. That’s #1 on the Journalist No-No List.
“Furry Chic” is my way of harkening back (tastefully or not) to 1970’s “Porno Chic”. Movies like Deep Throat earned unprecedented mainstream notice and box office success. Film critics and academics love that topic. It came with the sexual revolution and the phenomenon of exploitation movies tackling topics that Hollywood wouldn’t touch. (Like lurid, but socially pointed funky Blaxploitation). It’s possible to find roots of Furry fandom in that milieu… with the first X-rated animated movie, Fritz The Cat.
Funny how a Zootopia director was quoted as saying this movie will have Disney’s first ‘nude scene.’
Clunk Mag: an interview with a furry.
A conversation with Lilka. “Of all the subcultures that the internet exposed in the new millennium, from all the hundreds of varieties that all rampantly fractured into thousands of niches, there is one that still has the ability to shock: The Furries.” The writer goes out of his way to highlight sexual comments that are not-so-shocking. (And why is he so interested?)
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AMAZING FURRY NEWS COMING SOON – You Won’t Believe How The Con Got Embarrassed In #7!
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Fursuit 'Doggy Bathtime' Voted Hottest Fantasy That Adult Movies Are Afraid To Do
— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) September 21, 2015
Pittsburgh Says Fuck It And Changes Name To Anthroburgh
— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) September 22, 2015
Huge Drop In Suicides When Police Bring Fursuiters To Hug People On The Edge
— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) September 22, 2015
Fur Con Reminds Guests That Febreze Is Not As Good As A Shower
— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) September 22, 2015
Hotel Guest Trapped In Elevator With Furries Comes Out With Huge Grin, New Fursona
— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) September 22, 2015
Study Reveals Furry Yiffing Can Generate Enough Static Electricity To Solve World Energy Crisis
— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) September 23, 2015
If Fred managed to live that long, that can only mean one thing.
He didn’t eat anything really bad. Good job keeping your dietary discipline, Freddie!
Well, avoiding bad food, and public health is so much better today. When I was a little boy, both my parents had jobs and I was raised by my grandmother; my mother’s mother. She came from New Orleans, and she had long stories about our family there and about general New Orleans history, or at least her version, which I later found out wasn’t very accurate. She said that New Orleans used to not have any schools, because everybody in New Orleans sent their children to Paris to school. EVERYBODY in New Orleans? Yes, EVERYBODY! But she meant all the boys. The girls stayed home and were privately tutored to play the pianoforte, or do needlepoint sewing, because girls had to be protected against education.
Anyhow, according to her, over 50% of the people in New Orleans died every year, from malaria and yellow fever in alternating years.
In family history, my Ducatel ancestors were convinced that America would eventually give New Orleans back to France. (My grandmother said that everyone in her home spoke French until she was 7 or 8 years old. Then the old head of the family died, and the new head convinced the family that America just wasn’t going to give up New Orleans, so they might as well learn English like everyone else.) When the Yankees invaded the South, the Ducatels held a big family debate on whether they should support the Confederacy or remain waiting for the French to return. They decided to support the Confederacy, so whoever was the young Ducatel heir at the time, apparently in his late teens or early 20s, joined the Confederate Army. But he caught malaria in boot camp, and was sent home where he remained bedridden throughout the war, finally dying of it shortly after the war ended.
One of my grandmother’s complaints was, “Everyone in New Orleans used to be SO POLITE, until the Union Army occupied the city and started ENFORCING the laws against dueling!” Apparently dueling and family feuds were an accepted social honor/obligation in the South before the Civil War. She didn’t have any specific stories, but “everybody knew” that family menfolk would uphold the family honor by pistol duels. If you want to know how to comport yourself in a formal duel, striding off at ten paces and so on, I can give you my grandmother’s details.
A couple of my personal memories from World War II were that my mother complained that sliced bread was unavailable during the War because of Wartime Rationing (neither she nor I ever found out why sliced bread became part of the war effort); and that I got to mix the yellow coloring into white margarine, which was fun. In the early 1940s colored margarine was illegal. You had to buy uncolored margarine and add the yellow color so it would impersonate butter separately. That wasn’t part of the war effort; the butter lobby in Congress was trying to suppress margarine which was “full of chemicals” and “evil”. World War II was what made margarine acceptable, because butter was unavailable due to rationing and all that was left for the public was margarine; and the public found out that margarine wasn’t so bad after all despite being sickly white. Eventually, shortly after the war, it became legal for the margarine manufacturers to add the yellow coloring before it went to the stores. These didn’t have to do with health, I don’t think.
Great minds think alike! Wait until you see Culturally F’ed Furries In the News.