Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag.  Tips are always welcome. 

Zootopia: Disney goes full furry, and this stuff is going to explode in 2016.  

How excited are you for the next furriest movie ever? “Anthropomorphic” isn’t quite an everyday household word, and it’s use in this trailer spells out an open secret.  Before they made this, they did market research up the wazoo about us. Of course, it’s still a regular Disney movie, but they KNOW.

I watched the trailer when it had less than 300 views – while I write it’s over 1,300,000. The first comments on it said “furries”, and a lot of the top comments on it still say “furries”. There’s no way they didn’t anticipate that.

My reaction: Furry is the opposite of exclusive to me, but this cool thing makes me fear a deluge of commercially shallow influence.  I’m scared, hold me! … NAHH, it will be awesome. I can’t wait for the day this movie comes out, with all the fursuit meets there will be to see it. Fan participation is a big deal. I’ll bet we’ll see tons of actual furries on the news because of this.

Queerty‘s article about sex at Califur has important message between the lines. (Via Greenreaper:)

The LGBT news investigates a hook up app. Here’s What Grindr Looked Like At Southern California’s Premiere Furry Convention.   And this shows the antimatter to commercial power that can dominate all other fandoms.  They just can’t put Disney in the same room as Furry, in an official sense.  I have written at length about “The Power of WTF”.  It’s both a liability (to some), and the core independence that can’t be digested.

Cuteness from Elbi.

It’s another Furry documentary, but this one might stand out. (Via Troj:)

‘Elbi’ Ortiz will be filming part of a documentary at AC this year. She will be focusing on couples, youths, and greymuzzles especially. Looks interesting!

Furry: A Fandom, A Lifestyle – The Documentary.  A comment pointed out a fursuit focus that not everyone likes.  It made me want to see more of the dancer furs (all the appeal!).  I appreciate the generational approach more than other furry docs, but wonder if another “selfie in movie form” can say much we don’t know. Troj answers: “When your complaint is that the world doesn’t get you … create your own media.”

Andrew WK pizza party OK’s fursuiters in San Francisco.

Another sign of the oncoming commercial-furpocalypse (sorry).  Andrew WK is the party god who sold a bunch of albums a while ago.  Last year, he got to be #1 on the Celebrifur bandwagon after announcing he got furry.  I think he loves everything, so the more friends the better. Courtesy of Zantal (who got his scaly suit featured inside a Dandy Warhols album, because they’re that cool too:) “We got signoff from the venue to wear our fursuits to this!” It’s July 3.

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All The Drama

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Babyfurs and Eurofurence: Pick Your Battles.

(A Weasylr gives the poop on what the stink was about – “Eurofurence Clustercuss”.)  A reader asks:

“Might we see an article from you about EF’s banning of babyfur stuff? They had a couple of staff members be openly very hateful towards babyfurs. The furry community has always been *the* place where people can be themselves and express themselves without the public coming after them with pitchforks… I would argue that this erodes the very thing that makes the fandom what it is.”

Answer –

I saw that the rule has been in place for 5 years but only just got noticed, and not for any apparent incident to cause a conflict, but just because someone took offense to it.  Wide discretion is sometimes written into rules so they can use them if they feel they have to, but they usually don’t… it’s a con not a court, and discretion may not be a reason for alarm by itself.

Honestly… with the job organizers have to mitigate public image, I’d recommend to think long and hard about the productivity of in-fighting over this, among every challenge in the world.  Eurofurence made a public statement.

A good idea about “Furries: The Movie”, from Troj.

Last Newsdump shared a tip about this movie.  The poor, naive maker unthinkingly asked Furries what they thought of it (while admitting to doing no research about furries.)  It earned nearly 500 comments of drama.  I posted that it “does not impress.”  Troj felt like mitigating the failure with treatment similar to The Room,“the Citizen Kane of bad movies” that gained a cult following for it’s badness:

Basically, I can see how creating a furry rifftrack—in which a panel of funny, witty furries comment on and joke about the film, a la Mystery Science Theatre 3000—could possibly increase the film’s visibility and popularity in a way that could benefit both the filmmakers and the furry community. The filmmakers could attract a broader, larger audience looking to enjoy the film “ironically,” and having a furry rifftrack would signal to the audience that the film wasn’t entirely furry-approved, while allowing furries to showcase their humor, wit, creativity, geek cred, and in the end, their basic humanity. Just a thought, though. It occurs to me that movies like these are going to be made whether furries approve of them or not, so when life gives you lemons, you make lemon bars and you throw a party! …and certainly, we furries come off much better when we show that we’re able to respond creatively, light-heartedly, or humorously to our critics and haters, I’d say.

More: Furries discuss “Fursploitation” like this on FurAffinity.

Followup to protest of Facebook policy that kills Furry accounts.

Facebook is slapping everyone who doesn’t want to give a government-issued name.  The “real name” policy has harmed a lot of furries.  They’re a subsection that seems to have no notice among those harmed.  Losing anonymous or performing names has affected Drag personalities and abuse victims alike.

A previous newsdump passed on a call for protest at their Silicon Valley headquarters.  I didn’t hear who showed up, but the followup is worth reading anyways: “Protesters want Facebook to remove ‘fake name’ reporting tool.”  An attendee shared their personal on-the-scene report to a local Furry list.

Their TOS locks users into contract rules.  Furry list discussion points out that this is for court rooms.  Outside of court, it doesn’t mean the rules should be considered fair or unchangeable.  Companies care about public image, and pressure and a call for fairness can make change.

Mascot news: California Racial Mascots Act outlaws “Redskins”.

The bill affects four schools in the state, telling them to stop using a derogatory name. I had to check the bill to see where it drew the line. Who defines “racism”? If colors are suspect, could the Cleveland Browns get in trouble?  What if someone took offense to innocent “coon” names in Furry fandom?  I found that the bill is specifically aimed at the “Redskins” name by itself, and that seems like good restraint instead of overbroadness.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+SpottacusCheetahsLair/posts/GEGsWchGakU

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Further Fun

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New Research Suggests Friendship Between Man And Dogs Is Older Than Dirt.

From CBS San Francisco. 

Just exactly when dogs became ‘man’s best friend’ is uncertain but new research suggests it happened a lot longer ago than scientists previously believed… genetic comparisons have forced them to recalibrate the wolf-dog split, or divergence that gave rise to ‘man’s best friend’ from 11,000 to 16,000 years ago, to sometime between 27,000 and 40,000 years ago… “Dogs were fundamentally important to humans in a way that other animals weren’t.”

Huffington Post: “Rescuing and returning animals – all the fuzzy feels.”