Dogpatch Press

2017 is officially halfway over, and boy has it been one hell of a year for the fandom. We’ve covered the official demise of Rainfurrest, 2’s fall from grace and subsequent cancellation at Anthrocon, and more than one fake bomb threat being called into a convention… and we still have six months left to go! Fret not, because while we’ve collected four more of the top stories in the fandom to present to you today most of them aren’t that soul crushing. Most.

BIGGEST LITTLE SH*T SHOW

Furries in Reno rejoiced last month as Biggest Little Fur Con (“BLFC”) took place to the tune of approximately 5,100 attendees. This was a jump of more than 1,500 people compared to 2016’s turnout making 2017’s convention the largest on record. This rapid growth could not have come at a worse time however, because BLFC took place hot on the heels of — and around the same geographic location as — the smoldering remains of Rocky Mountain Fur Con which crashed and burned in a mess of fascist/anti-fascist drama, threats of violence, and some bizarre sovereign citizen lawsuit thing that ended up propelling law blogger The Boozy Barrister into fandom stardom. To this day none of this makes any sense to the What’s Yiffin’ news team, but the important takeaway is that there was plenty of lingering animosity that bled over into BLFC.

BLFC had your standard “big convention” issues with things like spills and accidents and “The Floor 21 Incident“, but there were bigger problems publicly in the form of certain furs electing to use the convention as a platform for political demonstrations. Pictures began circulating of furs taking the convention’s theme of “kaiju” and twisting it onto its head by emblazoning prop buildings with “FASCISM” before stomping on them or kicking them over. Issues of a Communist zine titled “The Cultural Barxist” began cropping up in communal places at the convention with articles meant to incite politically-charged violence against others.

These are the growing pains of a convention stretching very large very quickly, and BLFC would be wise to nip this in the bud and completely put a stop to dissemination of political materials at their con altogether; people do not attend furry conventions to be lectured to politically no matter which side or argument is being presented. No arm bands, no flags, no leaflets; none of that — and punch some holes in the badges of people who willingly disobey the rules. For the sake and future of BLFC, the con organizers have some important choices and decisions to make regarding how they should carry onward for 2018’s convention, the dates of which are already announced. We wish them the best of luck in coming to an agreeable situation that puts the best interests of their general attendees front and center.

GOOD ENOUGH TO EAT!

You ever accidentally wander into that section of YouTube devoted to weird fetish videos? Things like videos of women in stilettos stepping on watermelons, or people changing pudding-filled diapers on baby dolls? It’s pretty obvious what purpose videos such as these serve but banning them from the service has always been a sort of gray area because technically it’s “not” porn. Reptile Channel (not to be confused with HerpersTV’s “The Reptile Channel”) is one of the many YouTube accounts that occupies this No Man’s Land of strange and cringey fetish material.

In a story originally cracked by Dogpatch Press it was determined that Reptile Channel may potentially be owned and operated by JonahVore, a voreaphile whose antagonistic and potentially illegal content has resulted in multiple bans and suspensions all over the Internet. You see, reptiles often swallow their food whole. Hopefully that’s something you’ve already been aware of, however Reptile Channel takes pleasure in showcasing these animals feeding with just a little too much gusto and borderlines on straight up animal cruelty. Hiding behind the veneer of “this is for herpetological/educational purposes” the channel has thus far gotten away with showcasing some rather brutal content.

The link to JonahVore came about by a tip from FurAffinity user Tanookicatoon who compared historical post information with crossposts on websites such as YouTube, Patreon, and a vore forum called “Big Gulp”. Additionally, Big Gulp had been running advertisements for the forum using lingo like “some [videos] you might remember” which raised a red flag to Tanookicatoon. The aforementioned forum ads disappeared once this was pointed out, and Big Gulp’s primary administrator Strega has declined to comment on the person(s) behind the channel.

Currently, Reptile Channel is still online and uploading content.

ANTHROCON’S NEW CHAIR

Pittsburgh’s Anthrocon is “THE” furry convention; it’s among the longest running conventions in the United States and for quite some time has been the barometer against which all other conventions are measured against. Anthrocon has the biggest turnouts, the most media exposure, and the biggest guests. You name it, they’ve got it — and now if “mobility scooters” is something you’re going to try and name Anthrocon’s got those as well. Prior to the convention the organizers announced via Twitter that they were partnering up with Scootaround to provide powerchairs to the physically impaired at Anthrocon this year.

Some responses to the Tweet took lighthearted jabs at con chair Uncle Kage, who’s getting up there in years, but here at What’s Yiffin’ we elected to take the low-hanging fruit and make some good ol’ fashioned fat fur jokes. That’s gotta be the case, because if there’s an attendee with a chronic condition or injury chances are they already own a chair and have brought it with them; the only people likely to use Anthrocon’s chairs would be the same people who use the ones at Walmart. But hey, jokes aside increasing the accessibility of their convention is certainly a step in the right direction if this is what Anthrocon needs to maintain its edge in the fandom.

Besides, what else are you going to do with a powerchair at a fur con? Bad Dragon jousting?

CRACKED CASHES IN

Former comedy-website-turned-“hey-we-can-complain-about-politics-too” rag Cracked Magazine recently published another article about the furry fandom titled “5 Things I Learned Attending a Furry Convention“. Unlike the last time we took some cheap pot shots at Cracked, this time around the article was written by Mark “Firebird” Hill. No, just because his nickname is Firebird doesn’t make him one of us; chances are this normie is just a fan of the Pontiac car and named himself after that.

A quick look through Mark’s work reveals that he’s previously written Pulitzer Prize winning articles such as “7 Secret (And Stupid) Rules For Working For President Trump” and “5 Movie Plots That No Longer Make Sense Post-Trump”. Like we said this is what Cracked has become in this day and age so we can’t say we’re not at least a little bit apprehensive about what this dude has to say about the fandom. (Full disclosure, we just cherry-picked some antagonistic article titles. Mark has also written about normal things that doesn’t involve the current President like movies and video games.)

Mark chose Fur-Eh! in Edmonton as his convention du jour and that’s a good thing too because had he come to the United States and gone to something like Biggest Little Fur Con he probably would’ve written a totally different article. Despite this, throughout his piece Mark kept hitting on this point that fur cons are allegedly a good place to score drugs which is a pretty crummy punchline to harp on when #4 on his list is literally “The Media Hasn’t Been Kind to Furries”. You don’t get to have your cake and eat it too, and we’re assuming this isn’t a joke in and of itself because A) that kind of humor is a bit too out of Cracked’s reach these days and B) he keeps up the gag for the entire article.

Spoiler alert: After all this, Mark’s #1 is “wow you guys totally won’t believe this but furries are normal people too!” Gee, that ending wasn’t hamfisted at all!

That’s a wrap on last month’s top fandom stories. That’s all we’ve got, hope you enjoyed it! Because we’ve been asked about it, the Ursa Major Award winners were not included in this month’s edition because they were announced on July 1st. Since this happened right at the start of the month we’ll be covering them in August’s edition of the show. Make sure you’ve subscribed to Gatorbox on YouTube and Twitch so you’ll catch it!

– André “Dracokon” Kon & Rob “Roastmaster” Maestro

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