FurAffinity updates Code of Conduct, backlash by hate groups promoted by 2 Gryphon

by Patch O'Furr

IN THIS ARTICLE: FurAffinity bans hate groups – click through the Twitter threads to see many screenshots of what they were promoting. 

The true story of FurAffinity account bans

Furry art is full of cute, cuddly cartoons. Many FurAffinity users wanted to know – why was the site being used for hate imagery? If the art has to be edgy, couldn’t they just stick to good old-fashioned Hyper Diaper Pokemon Porn or whatever? At least sex is positive and life-affirming.

On the site and on Twitter, protest rose against activity that seemed to violate the Code of Conduct, while complaints were being dismissed by site staff. The CoC looked toothless because promotion of hate groups was excused with an exception for “fictional” activity.

What furry stuff ISN’T fictional? And depicting hate imagery in a positive light IS promotion. That’s part of the history of propaganda. And making excuses that it’s just historical interest reminds me of when I used to sell rare books at an antique mall; let’s be honest here, that chicken-necked skinhead with a swastika on his elbow wasn’t visiting that creepy dealer down the lane just for memorabilia. (His money was no good to me.)

During the protesting, FurAffinity users openly claiming to be alt-right trolls were gloating about driving traffic from the site and taunting those who left. That’s like getting acquitted for a hate crime and then mooning the judge. Sometimes nazis dress to impress, but nobody ever accuses them of being smart.

The dumpster fire kept burning until the complaints started tagging FurAffinity’s corporate owner IMVU. Perhaps they got worried about their anime-eyed avatars being the lesser evil on the site.

Soon the Code of Conduct was updated, and dozens of accounts went dark. It seemed to follow a precedent set a few months earlier when Discord Inc. flushed many of the same assholes and their alt-right servers down the drain.

Reactions included anger about indiscriminate punishment. But trolls never take their medicine, and evidence was less than compelling in some cases. I was asked to help a user who posted screenshots of accounts that they claimed were unfairly banned, but I recognized one as a troll for the Furry Raiders who may have been an admin for a group page that was also taken down. Bans for linked IP’s or plain bad behavior are nonpolitical too. Since appeals go through a closed process (which isn’t surprising for security concerns,) a handful of exceptions is hard to call a trend.

Bans of known assholes won community support with thousands of likes. Each like was a richly deserved spanking for the trolls who earned it.

They sure are Not Mad at me for reporting this! 

Regular readers know that I’ve been outspoken for a long time about hate groups trying to invade fandom.  It started before Rocky Mountain Fur Con closed in 2017, because the Furry Raiders exploited favor with the CEO to abuse hospitality, and the con wouldn’t listen to community protest.  Threatening a critic is how they made more people speak up louder.

But if Furaffinity was just throwing a bone to a few yappy dogs, that would have happened ages ago. The community spoke and they didn’t ignore it this time.

Alt-furry backlash (by less than 1% of the fandom)

Never ones to quit while they’re ahead, alt-furries have been trying to inflate their small following into a sham “half the fandom” backlash. (I’m not kinkshaming inflation, just the genocide and stupidity.) Why it’s a sham: 1) Fandom population is probably a million and growing, but alt-furries hit a ceiling of a few hundred. 2) They can’t hide the hate.

One tactic they’re now using is distancing themselves from the racist “alt-right” label, to rebrand as regular conservatives, sham centrists or “diverse”. Of course if you’re a regular conservative, or have enough intelligence to tie your own shoes, you probably don’t want that kind of stink near your fursona.

Another tactic is to turn up the volume, and ride the tails of “popufurs”. Only one was that desperate for attention: a has-been comedian whose shock routine went stale long ago. (That’s the unbiased truth because 2 Gryphon’s disgraced career was already reported that way long before he had the brilliant idea to join a hate group, instead of working on better jokes to get ahead.)

2 Gryphon tries to raise his fallen star

Couldn’t he have just turned into a Juggalo or something? He could have hung out with Vanilla Ice and recuperated his career for a whole new fandom. Of course, the Juggalos’ underground energy made them the second most surprising subculture beside furries to rise against racism. Imagine him getting run off the stage in a cartoon whirlwind of Faygo-powered clown rage. But more likely he’d just get shot out of a cannon for being too boring, flaming out like a racist comet with a tail of broken dreams and inadequacy.

2 Gryphon joined the alt-furry chat and promised to promote them, after months of marinating in their hate speech like a duck in water. (A milkshake duck). He excused it as curiosity. Of course the Nazi-Curious Investigative Comedian was already a member of the Nazifurs livejournal for about 15 years. How long could it take to find out what they are? (These ones can’t stay unracist for 15 consecutive posts.)

In his resulting promotion for alt-furry, he lied to the face of the entire fandom about what was in the chat. If it looks like a duck… Just ignore all those quacking noises.

Below are Twitter threads full of screencaps from his goose-stepping pals. You can clearly see everything he denies in them, like over 1,000 hits for the n-word:

Tripling down

More chat screens: (Thread 1) Alt-furries treat themselves to a triple fudge sundae of Gamergate, pedophilia and doxing.

(Thread 2) Complaints about being “dehumanized” – because rejecting people for saying the Holocaust never happened makes YOU the real nazi!

(Thread 3) If someone should challenge one of the most documented events in history like the Holocaust, ask the edgy teens in a fringe chat room, right?

(UPDATE) adding two threads of anti-gay hate and more duplicity from 2 Gryphon, showing that if you can think of something civil people don’t do, they’ll do it. Maybe someone should announce a ban on punching yourself in the face.





Up Shit Creek

There’s a cost to proving that they’ll go any distance to be assholes. After a while, there’s no turning back, because everyone’s seen it and nobody’s buying the excuses. Then they’re stuck in the routine.

That leads them to blame you for making them that way, instead of their own deficit of self-reflection, foresight, vision, panache, or ability to even order a pizza without making it racist somehow. And they want payback, but it only costs them more.

Will they ever get out of this cycle of failure? It’s like they chose that one cart at the grocery store with a wheel jammed up with gummy bears (Jews did it, of course) and they refuse to pick another. Speaking of failure to learn, alt-furries got kicked off of Discord – again!

How about leeching on to other popufurs for help, or getting outside mercenaries? They wanted Dreamkeepers to do trolling for them, and rang Breitbart’s bell:

2 Gryphon’s propaganda video – the joke is that he’s serious

Below is a small sample of lengthy apologism for worthless hate speech. You can look it up for the rest. But do you hate yourself enough to hear more than that quavery Eric Cartman voice at the end? This stuff is to an informed mind like used gum is to a shoe.

Notice how he acts wounded about a totally unexpected disinvitation to Eurofurence. It reminds me of a cartoon character trying to light dynamite and holding it up to his face to see why it didn’t go off. BOOM! Who could have guessed that a mouthpiece for Holocaust deniers might be unwelcome in Germany?

Speaking of worthless hate speech, the truth is that arguing about “free speech” is beside the point. It’s not about can you, it’s about should you. What’s the content? They act like just because their lips are moving, something worthy must be coming out – but when it’s willfully toxic, it’s like saying that since we all need to relieve ourselves sometimes, they can go right in the middle of the floor. Grown-ups can be expected to mind their poo-poo or go elsewhere if they don’t. And that’s not tyranny of a nanny state (which they seem to be thirsty for at this point.)

Karl Popper’s Paradox of Tolerance is about freedom that enables it’s own ruin, whether it’s for a society, a fandom, or just a stage show at Eurofurence. [Insert the “You Played Yourself” meme.] Behold – here’s the living, mouth-breathing, hurf-durfing personification of the paradox:

Stop the hate, spread the love

People claim that this kind of drama is dragging down furry fandom. It’s not. Whenever media presents furries opposing hate, it’s bringing good attention about cleaning house and being a leading example for other fandoms for how to handle their Least Valuable Players.

And despite a few bad apples and the worms who enable them, furries are good-natured to begin with.

Just because you’re noticing drama, that doesn’t mean it’s bad or unproductive. It’s clearly setting forth challenges while fandom gets better and better, with rising con attendance, high profile members winning awards in Esports, increasingly friendly mainstream news and much more.

Don’t just reject haters, support good examples too and welcome nice newcomers who are finding fandom and trying things for the first time.

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