Dogpatch Press

Fluff Pieces Every Week

Category: Journalism

February 3, 2016

National Hugging Day, #tonytigergate, #FC2016, cool furs and hot news. NEWSDUMP (2/3/16)

by Patch O'Furr

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

Site goes down with high traffic for #tonytigergate – and the hits keep coming.

The Twitter joke of #tonytigergate drew enough mainstream curiosity to overload this site. (An upgrade may hopefully prevent that next time.)  After the story about it was posted here, it kept getting mainstream traction – highlighting a cheeky dichotomy. On one hand, there’s reputation concern – on the other hand, tickling an audience is kind of validating. It’s two sides to the coin of furry subculture and I don’t think that will ever change.

It reminded Fred Patten of something else:

Dear Patch; I vaguely remember that during all the news and publicity in 1987 for  Who Framed Roger Rabbit, there was a report that Charles Fleischer, the voice actor for Roger, got many NSFW erotic invitations from women, addressed specifically to Roger, not to him.

For National Hugging Day, the new episode of Culturally F’d is based on a Dogpatch Press article.

National Hugging Day is every January 21 for normal people.  (It’s every day for furries.)  I propose making a special occasion of it next year. And it was like a big fuzzy hug to get surprised with an entire video based on my article – “Hugs are the handshake of furries.” Wow thanks Arrkay and crew, nice to see you used it!  Anyone can freely use any content on this site that way.

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January 18, 2016

Big Beefy Sparkly Tigers, and tributes to furs we have lost – NEWSDUMP (1/18/16)

by Patch O'Furr

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

Zootopia marketing inspires visions of a feature length Orangina commercial. This short article shares a new image and says the movie is having “aggressive marketing”. And Reddit furries discuss hot tigers:

  • “There’s no denying that they know who they’re marketing to.”
  • “Big, beefy, sparkly tigers. They know what they’re doing with stuff like these, and nobody’s gonna tell me otherwise.”
  • “And people still claim they’re not marketing to us. ha. ha. ha.”

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Marketing meets Rule 34.  “How Esurance Lost Its Mascot to the Internet.” Not furry, but this will ring some bells.

Puzzle Cheetah in Subway ad (via Greenreaper.) Puzzle is a UK fursuiter. Put this on the list of mainstream marketing featuring furries.

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December 18, 2015

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!

300px-Fred_PattenRead 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:

“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.

FurnationFurnation 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.

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November 17, 2015

Wombats pooping cubes – and a chunky blast of furry news! NEWSDUMP (11/17/15)

by Patch O'Furr

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

Atlas Obscura – The Fursuit of Happiness Begins With Customized Dog Abs.  It’s a nicely written curiosity piece about what fursuit makers do.  There needs to be a Tip Sheet for Journalists Who Want To Write About Furries.  It would say “quit using that title.”

Austrian “Furry News” site Furry Stammtische shares a long TV feature of fursuiters. Google translate can give you a rough understanding of the story.

Fangcon gets a little slice-of-life mention in Knoxville news.  Writer bumps into fursuiters at an outdoor concert, and gets charmed.

Courting Comedy blog reviews a live talk show in San Francisco, with a special Furry guest speaker. “They defanged prejudices or assumptions about the Furry community, and was cautious to not speak for the entirety of his tribe.” Really happy to see this.

Furry Site Content Statistics – and a possible game changing new art site.  [Adjective][Species] presents comparison of 5 established sites – and Flayrah’s Sonious writes up Furry Network with some details that could be highly worth your attention.

VICE is digging on DeviantArt for unusual furry fetishes.  This fellow fan enjoys expressing “objectophilia”. He has a rewarding relationship with his car.  Thanks for visiting our garden, Vice – lots of special varieties grow here, but don’t poop in it.

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October 7, 2015

“Fursuits are furry couture – high art furry fashion”. A great fashion news article from Racked.

by Patch O'Furr

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It’s a belief demonstrated with skill by Jill, the highly demanded maker at Jillcostumes.  Her quote appears in The Fursuit of Happiness: High Fashion in Furry Fandom – an article from July 2015 at Racked (a style and beauty industry news site owned by Vox Media).

The author is Sydney Parker, a journalist who previously wrote about furries for Splitsider, a news site about the comedy industry.  Her previous piece was about CollegeHumor’s Furry Force and my interview with it’s writer.  I loved helping to put Furry feedback in the story to show a good relationship.

When Fred Patten told me that Sydney was doing the fashion article, it made me want to send feedback again.  (I’m just a suiter, not a maker, but Street Fursuiting is my favorite thing.)  I was happy to hear that some info on Dogpatch Press made helpful reference, like the record top fursuit price.  Most of what I sent didn’t make it in because the finished piece was so long and well researched.  So, here’s the full thing as a bonus.

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October 5, 2015

Patreon hack blamed on furries, news from Culturally F’ed – NEWSDUMP (10/8/15)

by Patch O'Furr

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

Patreon Hacked, Furries blamed, journalist downloads porn for “work”.

Patreon user info was compromised by a security breach.  A Twitter user claiming responsibility offered an online-politics grudge motive, and shared claims that Patreon account data was being misused by the “Yiff.party” website.  The prankish claim seems really far fetched to me up front, and the site itself denies any responsibility.  But the prank was successful enough to convince the journalist (for a big digital media brand) to download from the site, and seriously report finding nothing but sexy animals.  

UT club encourages students to find ‘fursonas’

Whines, from FurAffinity.

Whines, from FA.

A standard introduction article from the University of Texas at Austin student newspaper. It adds nothing unexpected, but reads nicely.  Congrats to the Longhorn Furs social club.

They have involvement with Whines.  It led me to learn the info below, and request a submission for The Furclub Survey of Furry dance parties. Expect more about it soon.

Starting in 2013 and inspired by descriptions of the Frolic in California, Whines started organizing small furry dance events and has held them once every 2-3 months since them. They tend to have an attendance in the 20-40 range with a handful of fursuiters. Most recently the dance was held on UT campus in partership with the University of Texas ‘Longhorn Furs‘ group.

New from Culturally F’ed

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August 24, 2015

Praise for creative expression, and a debate with bomb threats – NEWSDUMP (8/24/15)

by Patch O'Furr

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

img_0782“Anthrocon Convention steps out in full fursuits.”

The New Pittsburgh Courier revisits the con with a few nice photos.

Furry creative expression gets praise from an environmental, travel and style writer.

Why Do We Like To Dress Up Like Animals? This introduces furries with much more insight than the usual coughed-up hairball of stuff we’ve seen a million times.  It’s better because author Starre Vartan puts her voice in it as a “furry sympathiser”.  She gives more than boring “whats” and gets into interesting “whys”. Previously, she wrote about the fabulous trend of Merman Hair – “more proof that guys like flair too.”  A+ for this writer’s sense of culture.

A cure for misunderstanding about Furries, gender and kink. Read the rest of this entry »

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August 17, 2015

President Obama’s fur meet – The “Celebrifurry” List, PART 1: Politicians and VIP’s.

by Patch O'Furr

Mr. President, why are they so sexy?Obama hangs out with furries!  The proof is below.  Mr. President, why are they so sexy? 

This tiny subculture has more influence than many members even realize.  The topic grew from a furry influence article that drew extra high traffic: (Mainstream advertising: “More and more, Furries are being hinted at in marketing media.”)  Advertisers covet “street cred”, and subcultures have it.  Even tiny notices show a subculture on the rise.

Now, many people want to know:  Are there any secret furry celebrities?  Who likes furries in the mainstream?  Here’s a Buzzfeed-esque topic that will fluff your fur, or raise your hackles!

  • PART 1) – Politicians and VIP’s.  
  • PART 2) – Actors, comedians, and media personalities.
  • PART 3) – Musicians.

This is a non-fandom list.  And OK, “celebrifurry” is exaggerating.  Almost none have “come out of the kennel” as BEING furry.  Keep low expectations.  This is “15 seconds of fame” encounters, coincidences, and near-rumors.  Celebrity confessions of cartoon crushes can make the list (because getting hot for Robin Hood is a Thing.)  The list also has some animal costuming that hints about association.  But let’s avoid lazy exploitation (like talk shows or Howard Stern), because they’d exploit any group with little recognition beyond stereotypes – and you’ve seen all that hype before.  Many of these items are overlooked or ambiguous, so it makes a short, incomplete list.  This is as good as it gets so far… but wait until there’s a fursuit political campaign.

Politicians and VIP’s

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July 29, 2015

Furry internet history, tragic accident takes RedSavage and Milofox. NEWSDUMP (7/29/15)

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. 

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Media and Fandom news.

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New from “Culturally F’d”: how the 1990’s internet made a Furry phenomenon.

I highly endorse this Youtube series, which investigates everything this blog is for!  Host blackbird, Arrkay, sent this.

(Arrkay:) “This week we are “Ctrl:F’d.” Culturally F’d looks at furries and the history of the internet.

The episode was later than expected for 2 reasons: 1) I was hosting a Drag Party (Howl Toronto‘s “Fierceness Party”,) where I recorded footage to feature soon where we discuss the commonalities of fursuiting and drag queens. 2) It’s our longest episode so far, and will probably be the longest of the season!

As Michael from VSauce recently pointed out, on the internet, no one know’s if you’re a dog. This meme was originally from the July 5, 1993 edition of the New Yorker. No group on the internet holds this adage more closely than furries.

MUDs, MUCKs, and early chat rooms made Furry visible in the first online communities of the 1980’s and 90’s. That happened before computers were widely accessible, and even before the mega-infrastructure of the internet was built.  This aspect of the fandom grew largely from colleges and universities, equipped with online connections and computers that were still far too expensive for home-use.

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July 20, 2015

Anthrocon Anthrocon Anthrocon! Fluffsplosion of hype. NEWSDUMP (7/20/15)

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.  

This week’s Newsdump: Everything Anthrocon!  There was SO MUCH of this news, and it was such a busy month, that I will be playing catch-up for a while with it… I’m not able to read all of these links.  Good job catching all this attention, AC!  Has there ever been this much?  Some of it is national (the Onion A.V. Club and NPR notice seems particularly cool.) It was quite a coup to parade outside on the Pittsburgh street for the first time.  5,000 regular public watchers came out to see the furries, and they went nuts for it.  I hope the crowd doubles in the future.  I’d love to interview Uncle Kage about the planning and reception. (Official Anthrocon wrapup report.)

Onion A.V. Club: Watch almost 1500 furries strut their stuff at this year’s Anthrocon.

The official count of members in the Anthrocon 2015 Fursuit Parade Group Photo is 1,460.  This reminded me of a neat aspect of the con.  All that show value!  These costumes represent so much investment… we could do a few estimates to figure out how much.  In a previous post, “$3 million sale raises furry auction topic”, I came up with an arbitrary $2,320.51 per fursuit represented in Anthrocon’s parade.  Multiply by the count of 1,460 members this year to reach a (rough guesstimate) value of $3,387,944.60 in fursuits.

NPR: The Furries Have Landed — And Pittsburgh Is Giving Them A Bear Hug.

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