Dogpatch Press

Fluff Pieces Every Week

Category: Media

August 22, 2022

FURALITY: Fandom founder Sy Sable looks at the virtual convention with 15,000 furries.

by Dogpatch Press Staff

F.Y.N.N. The Hologram Fox – Furality mascot by @Spainimation

1980’s furry fans first gathered with room parties at science fiction conventions, until Sylys Sable helped co-found the first convention for furries in 1989. Sy was there from the birth of a worldwide subculture to a new kind of experience with virtual furry conventions today. These offer many of the features of live cons, while accommodating more members across geographic and social isolation. The premiere virtual con, Furality, started in 2020 and soon beat the live furry con attendance record. Sy is the guy to tell us why!

Editor note: Sy submitted his story after the latest Furality event in June 2022, but it was delayed. Since then, a situation with VR as a community (of several platforms) could use explaining. In late July, VRchat implemented a security update that seriously upset their users, causing massive backlash and review-bombing. A statement from the company addressed the situation: cheating and Griefing by malicious users was out of control, and their solution was removal of game modding. But many good-faith users depended on mods, including for accessibility (like for disabilities) and felt their creative work was sabotaged by the update.  

Meanwhile, furries talked about jumping ship to other platforms. A friend of Sy (another old school furry fan and VR user) said that Second Life isn’t officially supporting VR, NeosVR is having a tragic fall from “crypto BS” (a feud between owners, would-be investor control and creators), and ChilloutVR is in “very early days… They are in that scrambling to scale stage.” This makes a cloudy future, but Sy’s story highlights what stands out as the best of the community. 

Furality in the eyes of Sylys Sable.

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July 11, 2022

DEBUNKING: The Asheville bomb arrest, Confederate Fursuiter, and Midwest Furfest attack

by Patch O'Furr

Robert “Magnus Diridian” Sojkowski

The 2014 Midwest Furfest chemical attack is one of the biggest unsolved crimes in furry fandom. It has a main suspect who was raided by the FBI, and they found physical evidence (read below). His name is Robert “Magnus Diridian” Sojkowski, also known as the Confederate Fursuiter.

In separate news from July 2022, two men in Asheville, North Carolina face terror charges in a bomb incident. One is a furry and subject of online rumors. His name is Chioke “Tech Coyote” Fugate.

That’s two separate crimes, with two separate suspects… but when the news about Fugate came out, rumors named him as the Confederate Fursuiter. This is critically misleading. Sojkowski made the suit in 2015 and stayed the ongoing owner and wearer, so the identity belongs to him. The mixup came from a meeting in 2017 where Fugate took photos with the suit and possibly wore it once. Why is it a big deal? It led to falsely naming Fugate for the Midwest Furfest attack he had nothing to do with (he was 14 in 2014).

Huge Twitter accounts fueled rumors that Fugate “was the one behind the MFF Chlorine bombing years back” (1) (2) (3), causing many deletions and corrections (4) (5) (6). It’s critical to untangle the two suspects. Remember, the mixup would help both to deny and mislead — and both have records of doing exactly that — so let’s set the record straight.

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July 5, 2022

Fearless Furries Celebrate 20 Years at San Francisco Pride

by Patch O'Furr

Photo by AniMajor

Sunday, June 26 marked 20 years of furries at San Francisco Pride. (See the 2019 event and history or the Pride tag for more.) The Norcal Furries made a welcome return after no official parade marching for 2 years of a pandemic. They brought their own float, and it all came together so smoothly, it made an incredibly positive memory.

The biggest change from past years was no longer using rental trucks or Burning Man art cars. This year, Norcal Furries built their own float on a trailer. It was a wonderful asset. Using other people’s was always less than ideal (constrained by costs, time and logistics for loading/unloading, and even height with streetcar wires). All of that was easier under self management.

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June 21, 2022

Rhythm Bastard and his music: Support your local swole punk rock furry!

by Patch O'Furr

What is Rhythm Bastard? Hardcore Nerdcore Punk Rock. Alternative Laptop Punk. A DIY one-man-band with a furry Florida Man.

“Rhythm Bastard takes the stage armed only with his voice, his guitar and his bandmate, a laptop, playing a mix of punk and garage rock, with music inspired by every thing from video games, anime, comics and everything in between.” – Bio

His newest music is coming on July 1, so let’s hear about it from the Bastard.

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June 10, 2022

Cassidy Civet was the furry On Canada’s Got Talent

by Patch O'Furr

A singing furry was on a TV reality show! First the story, then some questions…

The Got Talent franchise started with America’s Got Talent in 2006, which spun off over 69 versions in other countries. Nice. Canada’s Got Talent first aired in 2012. It only just came back with a 2nd season for 2022 featuring Cassidy Civet, the first furry in any of the franchises. The show format has been used for more than singing, including dance, comedy, acrobats, novelty acts, and animal acts. Now I’m confused about Cassidy’s category… let’s just call her awesome.

You can browse some of Cassidy’s talents below, and look out for her upcoming video about appearing on Eurovision.

Here’s the video, and then Cassidy tells more.

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May 23, 2022

“Furries in Schools” Hoax Map documents a moral panic to attack LGBT people by proxy.

by Patch O'Furr

False reports about students “identifying as animals” and demanding unusual accommodations are like a resurrection of the 1980’s Satanic Panic. The public is being targeted with a wave of misinformation and greedy grabbing for views, at the expense of furry fans, public education, and LGBTQ people in general.

What better way to face bullying than to document it, and connect debunkers outside the community to watchdogs inside? Responsible journalists, take note!

Here’s a new resource from Troj, a furry fan, psychologist and researcher from Colorado: “I started making a map of school boards and regions that have courted the “litter box” myth and related urban legends about furries.” (They’re mainly American myths, but even reach Australia.)

Each point on the map has a note with details (check them for links to sources), and date of media coverage or earliest mention of a given urban legend. Similar myths are roughly grouped by color. They keep coming: at date of writing, one in North Carolina is too fresh to appear yet.

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April 28, 2022

1980’s furry fandom was on Star Trek: The Next Generation and spun off Netflix’s Usagi Yojimbo

by Patch O'Furr

There have been many fan-made furry/Star Trek crossovers. Some early editions of Dana Simpson’s Ozy and Millie comic were republished in Klingon language. Ever hear about Furries Vs. Klingons, a bowling tournament between Atlanta fursuiters and a Klingon cosplay group?

Astonishingly, there was OFFICIAL show crossover that’s not yet included on Wikifur’s Star Trek list, and it came before most of them. It was a complete surprise to me, so here’s a headline story for you, even if it’s a few dilithium crystals short of warp speed.

Star Trek: The Next Generation made sneaky references to early furry fandom! A tip came in from Alex:

“Hello! As I was looking at various Star Trek trivia, some of the names suddenly seemed very familiar. Apparently in one episode of Season One of ST:TNG, all the way back in 1988, someone working on the show decided to sneak in references to the Albedo Anthropomorphics furry comics! Here are some links to the furry references on the show:

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March 15, 2022

The 2021 Ursa Major Awards are open now and need your vote.

by Patch O'Furr

Furry fandom’s Ursa Major awards honor the best, most loved anthropomorphic creations of the past year (2021.) Vote now to help the community choose their favorite movies, art, books, news magazines, and more. You can vote until March 31.

The nominations in 14 categories have links to the content here, and you can also find it linked on their Twitter feed.

If you like seeing this collected and open for community feedback, share it on your personal feeds and tell your friends to vote!

This year’s nominees are…

Best Motion Picture
Live-action or animated feature-length movies.

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March 9, 2022

The fascist fringe of furry fans: the Eastern Orthodox connection.

by Dogpatch Press Staff

Here’s a community access guest post with anonymity to protect sources. New readers will benefit from background in the Altfurry tag, which documents a loose fringe of pests who include terrorists like Portland mass shooter Benjamin Smith. The guest author says: “they’re a nasty bunch… this is a great way to get all this info out. There’s so much information most furries don’t know or have context for. I appreciate that you’re willing to go up against these people.” It’s hosted with opinions belonging to the guest. – Editor 

PART 1 / 2 – Notable names and their ties and tells.

This report is meant to shed light on a particular strain of furry fascist that is far more ideological and militant than Altfurry ever was, with most people involved orbiting Reagan Lodge, a die-hard fascist and furry artist who has been in the fandom for 2 decades but was not exposed until 2020. The common pattern between all of them is an obsession for drawing furries and military imagery, often themed around historical conflicts and authoritarian regimes. (Their obscure ideologies/dogwhistles get a look in the second half.)

Reagan Lodge AKA Sulacoyote

The Kevin Bacon of the twitter far-right. Reagan Lodge, aka Sulacoyote, has been in the furry fandom for years, drawing art of furries in Nazi uniforms or the armor from Jin-Roh (an anime beloved by online Nazis). He somehow got quite the following despite drawing like this; (red labeled by editor.)

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March 8, 2022

The illicit allure of Smokey Bear, US Forest Service mascot

by Patch O'Furr

The annual Ursa Major Awards are open — Vote now for the fandom’s favorite creations!

Out in the wild, I saw a human sharing some very furry-adjacent news. Suzyn was on a group for paid Slate podcast subscribers, and this story was her suggestion for one they should do. If they wouldn’t, I thought someone should. Thanks to Suzyn for her parts, and I added comments for furry readers.

There was a related Slate story from December 2020: When Did Smokey Bear Get So Hot?

It shows his buff yiffability predates furries. Don’t blame us! Hot anthropomorphic animal people are just nature’s way of showing imagination is healthy. Proof:

When Smokey was a newly-minted mascot, there was a risk to taking this farther. The 1950’s American government, preoccupied with Red Scares, might have forecasted a subversively thirsty fandom and made their love forbidden.

A law passed in 1952 made it ILLEGAL to misuse the image of Smokey Bear. (Not Smokey THE Bear, the Forest Service gets salty about that). You could be JAILED. Here’s the law: 18 U.S. Code § 711 – “Smokey Bear” character or name.

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