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Tag: pride

Get furry at San Francisco Pride 2019 — Here’s the info you need to dance and join the parade.

by Patch O'Furr

Paws for thought.

The Popdust blog asks: Do Furries Have a Home in the LGBTQ+ Community? Well, I can say a lot about it from organizing for Pride since 2012. (Read to the bottom for past news, or try this 2017 San Francisco Furry Pride story by Smash.) The 2018 parade had the best furry turnout ever — I estimated over 100 came. They won the Absolutely Fabulous award. Whether or not that represents The Gay Agenda at large, SF’s “largest gathering of LGBT people and allies in the nation” opens a home (or a kennel) for us.

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The 2018 San Francisco Pride parade, furries and parties – what’s happening and how to join!

by Patch O'Furr

Before you read about fun with the SF Bay Area Furries, remember why Pride matters. A local furry posted about being a target of an unprovoked homophobic attack this week with a photo of a black eye. He got a lot of support and hundreds of comments, but preferred to keep the post friends-only. And while there was one bad thing, expect hundreds of good things for everyone involved.

Now, here’s how to join us animals for one of our biggest events of the year. Let’s prowl and howl for an all-weekend rager!

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Bay Area Furries, here’s the info you need to attend San Francisco Pride.

by Patch O'Furr

In front of millions at San Francisco Pride 2015! (Thanks: Chrisastro.com)

Bay Area Furries are marching in the 2017 San Francisco Pride Parade on Sunday, June 25.  It’s one of the largest and most colorful events in San Francisco and will be on TV.  There have been better and better responses each time, and 70 or more are signed up.  Get ready for the best parade ever!  (See previous announcement about how to join, and the Meetup page for RSVP and discussion.)

Here’s what you need to know:

Pic by Vincent.

Marchers: Arrive at 100-150 Main Street. Be no earlier than 9:30am and no later than 11:40.

Volunteers: Arrive at 100-150 Main Street. Be no earlier than 9:30am and no later than 11.

To arrive from BART, exit at Embarcadero Station. Go up on the Main St. / Beale St. side.

Watchers: Be anywhere along the Market Street parade route, and the parade starts at 10:30.

Parade start: 12:30pm-1pm. (Last time we were in the parade, starting was delayed by hours due to being way more busy than they planned.  Do be patient, but don’t be late. The parade doesn’t wait for latecomers.)

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The Bay Area Furries return to San Francisco Pride with an amazing spectacle.

by Patch O'Furr

A Burning Man art car will carry furries in the SF Pride parade… If a few furs step up to volunteer as safety monitors.

Just a few more are needed to qualify. Time is short to make it happen on 6/25/17.  See info below and ACT NOW!  

Here’s some cool art cars at Burning Man, and even more here. (Those are NOT FOR THE PARADE, the car will be a surprise.)

Furries are ready for a better parade than ever before.  They got involved around 2002-2004, and returned with a float in 2014-2015, but relaxed with just a booth in 2016.  The time is right for a big comeback. Before now they used plain rental trucks, but even modest effort got amazing feedback for putting 50+ members in front of crowds and media.  (Take a look back at fursuiting in 2012, a float in 2015, and much more on the Pride tag.)

Capri, a fabulous transgender dragon, sent this memory:

In the last year we did the parade, I met a great friend who helped me to start transition.  I managed to walk the entire way in fursuit, a feat I am quite proud of. I still use that video to show off my suit.  I also really enjoyed passing by the judges and having one of them say awesome words of kindness to me.  We went to a Korean barbeque place afterwords and mistakenly thought it was all you can eat. (Patch): sorry, I confused it with a different place I was at once before… (Capri): It was fine, I should be the sorry one, you took care of it and the bill was pretty staggering.

That’s the positive vibe that furries bring to Pride.  But there’s an important ingredient they need to make it happen.

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NEWSDUMP – Fandom News – catchup list part 2 (7-22-16)

by Patch O'Furr

Here’s headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag.  Tips: patch.ofurr@gmail.com.

There hasn’t been a Newsdump in a long time, so have three updates packed with two months of stuff: 

1. Furries in the Media. 2. Fandom News. 3. Fur-friendly Culture.

Furscience.com releases ebook of furry research.

Furscience-FurbookThe International Anthropomorphic Research Project has a shiny new website since earlier this year.  Here’s a good reason to check it out – a 174-page ebook full of 5 years of data about furry fandom, for the low price of free.  Download it here.

Fred Patten interviewed by Yiffytimes.com.

“My interview with Fred Patten” by Ahmar Wolf and Greyflank. With Fred’s history as a founder of Furry (and anime) fandom, it’s really interesting to hear this:

“Q: Where do you see the Furry Fandom headed?

A: Furry fandom is already a lot different than it was in the 1980s. There is much more emphasis on wearing fursuits, adopting fursonas, and embracing and publicly exhibiting a furry identity. There is also a furry literary community now, which is what I’m active in. A few furry fans who are publishers or fursuit makers or artists are able to make their living in furry fandom instead of it only being a hobby for them.”

Furries at San Francisco Pride.

New furry Whup stepped up in a big way to organize a booth.  (He’s yellow dog in the first pic).  Apart from a big “Bay Area Furries” banner, it was a very informal base for breaks from the sun.  There was a huge crowd to prowl around with on a hot day.  Street Fursuiting is my favorite thing, and street fairs are my favorite place for it, and Pride in SF is one of the most fun and accepting times. (It’s far from the only one – a furry in Edmonton talks about their float full of furries in “A big thanks to the furries out in pride festivals this month!“)

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Frameline Film Fest features two furry documentaries – furs invited to a red carpet event.

by Patch O'Furr

Frameline-1-212x300Wear YOUR best carpet!

  • FURSONAS – Sunday, June 19, 9:15 PM (86 min.)  Victoria Theatre, 2961 16th St, San Francisco.  “Through a furry fray of intimate dramas and dilemmas, the fascinating individuals and universal longings of furries—or folks who don anthropomorphic body suits for role-play—come into snuggly view.” Tickets here.
  • FURRIES – Monday, June 20, 9:15 PM (33 min.) Victoria Theatre, 2961 16th St, San Francisco. Info here: “Furries looks beyond the fur to discover the importance of identity, creativity, and the community’s people.”  Tickets here for the ONLY IN SAN FRANCISCO shorts program: “From dancing leather daddies and celebrated drag kings and queens to the imaginatively sexy and romantic and a trip to a Furry convention, this batch of shorts truly embodies the “only in San Francisco” spirit.”

Screen Shot 2016-05-17 at 12.24.39 AM“I can’t believe it – we’re right next to Michael Moore’s latest on Google Play,” said Fursonas director Dominic Rodriguez.  “It finally got real for me when I realized you could watch it on planes.”

I checked the “documentary” category, and there it was, the second most popular movie. Since mid-May, it’s still on the front page.  That’s quite a step up from all the years when Dominic was working on just another student project made for passion.  He said the crew still felt like students even when they were accepted to the Slamdance fest, where a distributor picked up the movie.

There’s more greatness to come.  And the public is loving it as much as furries who praise it. (Not all, since it is polarizing in some ways – but man, it is special to read outsider opinions like this.)

“…a tender and nuanced meditation on a community that’s still trying to find itself… a noteworthy achievement for having the skill and will to let the narrative breathe.” – Criterioncast.com

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Furries at Burning Man, Pride parade, and Mascots movie – NEWSDUMP (9/21/15)

by Patch O'Furr

Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag.  Guest posts welcome. Tips: patch.ofurr@gmail.com

Furries at Burning Man – Amazing fursuit programmed to light up with movement!  Don’t miss the suit at 1:10. (Vid by Vox Fox).  

German news article:  “EUROFURENCE In Video – The Furries conquer Neukölln.”

The coming 2016 Furpocalypse is getting ridiculous: Netflix announces “Mascots” movie, from famed mockumentary maker Christopher Guest. 

Brace yourselves, Disney’s Zootopia is coming. Now this: a grade-A Hollywood director is tackling “fursploitation”, my catch-all genre that has many mediocre failures and just a few sparkling hits (like CollegeHumor’s Furry Force.) Chris Guest is famous for popularizing “mockumentary” with movies like This Is Spinal Tap and Best In Show. His “Mascots” will be on Netflix in 2016. There’s little info about it yet except a very short summary:

Welcome to all the drama, intrigue and occasional excitement of the 8th World Mascot Association Championships, where a group of ‘unusual’ men and women, with big heads and furry suits, compete to win the prestigious Gold Fluffy Award and be crowned best mascot in the world.

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Praise from Cracked, Mattress company winks at us, nazi teddybears – NEWSDUMP (8/13/15)

by Patch O'Furr

Tips: patch.ofurr@gmail.com

Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag.  Guest posts welcome. “Local correspondents” wanted to talk about your local networks. 

projectq-pride-parade-cp-180__largeCORRECTION: Fangcon was NOT the first con to sponsor a float in a Pride parade – FWA was earlier.

Tip from Slickkat: “FWA has had a float in the Atlanta Pride parade for the last two years.” It corrects this week’s headline calling Fangcon the first. Queer media outlet Project Q wrote about the FWA sponsorship:  Furries cuddle up and show their Atlanta Pride. The active Georgiafurs site organizes the Pride float since 2013.

Florida Times-Union: Meet the Furries.

Nothing new here, but nicely written.

Guess who’s #5 on the CRACKED list of “6 Groups Who Shouldn’t Be Sexual Punchlines.” 

This article gets a Hallelujah.  It has comedy and sexy furries, but they aren’t the target.  Instead, it makes fun of judgemental assholes.  That’s refreshing, after a tendency for media to be sadistic to innocent people, who happen to have richer than usual fantasy lives.

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Silicon Valley Pride invites furs – Fangcon makes history with Pride parade sponsorship.

by Patch O'Furr

“Furry Pride” is redundant when you’re a talking animal.  There’s no way you can’t strut your stuff, turn heads and light up a crowd with smiles.  But when furries AT Pride join other groups with a bigger mission, it puts the magic where it most belongs – in a fabulous show – and makes a good cause better.

Furries invited for August 30, 2015:

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Tip from Neonbunny, builder of influential events like Frolic:

“Silicon Valley Pride has reached out to me as they would love to have fursuiters at the pride festival, August 30th.  They will have a changing tent available, and can offer free admission for suiters that RSVP in advance.

The other person who they reached out to, who’s coordinating things right now, is Lani B.  She’s pretty active in the South Bay cosplay scene, and they’ve reached out to her to get cosplayers to go as well. (Anime/comic type costuming stuff).  Her email is dynamiccosplaycouple@gmail.com and she’s on facebook here.

This is the link for the pride event, and Lani has also created a facebook page to get cosplayers motivated to go (and hopefully fursuiters as well.) If anyone is interested in coordinating fursuiters for this, please get in touch!” – NeonBunny

The San Francisco Pride parade may be the premiere event for LGBT culture.  It’s popular among the SF Bay Area Furries, so in 2015, their show-stealing presence in front of a million viewers made a standout event for the whole furry subculture. But it was far from the only one.  (Expect a chat soon with Uncle Kage, about Anthrocon’s awesome accomplishments in 2015.)  In fact, theirs wasn’t even the only Furry statement at Pride events around the world.  Competition came from an unexpected place – Knoxville, Tennessee. Read the rest of this entry »

San Francisco Pride, gay marriage, and historic happenings in Furry Mecca.

by Patch O'Furr

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Billet Sheltie – pic by Eric Campbell.

Gay marriage just became legal across the USA.  Even if you have no plan to get one, it’s a big deal.  People of a few generations ago thought we’d have flying cars before this happened.  The writer of “Furry Force” says:

In San Francisco, the news hit right at “gay christmas”.  The city was getting ready for Pride, “the largest gathering of LGBT people and allies in the nation.”

It was already going to be one whopper of a party. But with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry fresh off the presses, Sunday’s Pride Parade in San Francisco became a rainbow-colored, joyous celebration for the ages.

The whole country was involved. The Chief of Police called it “the largest Pride celebration ever.”  Being mainstream was a big topic. On a subcultural level, the excitement spread among “the world’s greatest concentration of furries per square mile.” Furries were in the parade in 2005, returning in 2014 and 2015.

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Pic by Vincent

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