9/26/19: In 2018 an article was published because of a request for help by tippers. A year and a half later, the issue is in the past and no further requests about it have been received, except patient requests for removal to leave negativity behind. Parts (1) (2) (3) are now archived with a note that it isn’t current info and should only be judged by current responses, for progress and goodwill.
Rune’s Furry Blog showcases “people within the Furry Community… their characters, life, thoughts, and beliefs”. It also covers furry issues and media. Welcome Rune! – Patch
“We’re all mad here…”
This year at Texas Furry Fiesta, 3866 fuzzbutts fell asleep and found themselves in Wonderland! This number bumped up the convention to being on the top 5 conventions list, falling just under Furry Weekend Atlanta (FWA).
This was my 2nd time going to TFF and it has always held a special place in my heart for being my first-ever con. This year was an adventure as the convention had grown so much that it was in a new venue for a brand-new experience! Because it was so fresh and so new, I decided that a type of review was in order. So, taking from my personal experiences and the comments from others, I compiled a list of things that set the convention apart, and maybe the not-so favorable things about the convention that can hopefully be fixed in the future.
So buckle up and take this trip down the rabbit-hole with me as we explore the brand-new Texas Furry Fiesta (Lonestar Wonderland)!
This started with a guest submission by Rama the Golden Liger, a fur in Honduras. I collaborated with a lot of editing to smooth out the language and add extra info and another point of view. Fred Patten helped connect with even more furries who sent info at his request. Thanks Rama and Fred! – Patch
The Diversity of the Latin American Furry Fandom
We know how furry fandom started in the U.S. As it grew there, the mainstream media, the internet, its memes and popular YouTubers, and other influences put the fandom within a stone’s throw for many young people. Now across borders, different cultures are experiencing a growth of furry fandom among many international influences they already have.
Latin American furries are a result of all this exposure. The internet helped many young people get interested in the art, behavior, and culture of the furry creatures they see on the screen. Many Hispanic furry fans are males mostly from around age 15 to their 20’s. They came across fandom through friends, memes, anime, manga, and fan art. There are popular YouTubers like Khazoo, who spread the term “furry” through his videos. Of course, there was also Zootopia spreading popularity of anthropomorphic animals around the world.
(Patch): International reach reminds me of studying animation under an “old master” who in 1989, helped lead a nonprofit mission to Latin American countries to reduce AIDs among street children. They traveled around to test screen educational cartoons on the side of a van. The audience was poor kids who were vulnerable to exploitation and had low access to schools. The films they were shown were life saving, and most importantly to this story, the language of cartoons was universal across borders to all levels of literacy. Of course internet users in 2018 are the main topic here.
Khazoo is an example of how furryness spreads now. This teenage Spanish-language Youtuber from Mexico may not be known to English speakers. He was born in 1999 and only uploaded his first video in 2016, but soared to 31.5K followers on Twitter and nearly 600,000 youtube subscribers so far – much more than any specifically furry internet celebrity! How did he start? According to a wiki about him (use Chrome/Google Translate), Khazoo started with general teen audience content like gaming and cartoons. While he joked about being in love with Judy Hopps, fans called him “furry” but he denied it, until finally admitting it to everyone – a story I’m sure we can all laugh about in any language!
Rune’s Furry Blog showcases “people within the Furry Community… their characters, life, thoughts, and beliefs”. It also covers furry issues and media. Welcome Rune! – Patch
This week I will be attending Texas Furry Fiesta 2018. This is my 3rd convention that I have been to, and while I wrote about going to the conventions, fursuiting, and things to do at a convention (etc), I never got around to talking about the ‘prepping’.
Going to a convention takes a lot of planning and preparation. It’s crazy how much time gets dedicated to planning what panels you want to attend, figuring out the stuff you need to bring, and how much money you will need to survive for 4 days. And because I have found myself in several situations that were not exactly ‘ideal’, I figured this is the best time to reflect on the things I have learned so that others might better prepare for their Furry Conventions.
I hate that this is something that needs to be said, but it’s best to get it out of the way first. A Furry Convention is a fun break from our day-to-day lives where we can feel free to express ourselves. It’s full of hugs, fun, friends, and fur (literally everywhere), but it’s not a necessity. Things like food, a water bill, a car payment… all of those things come before a Furry Convention. So please be responsible! Do not let the ‘want’ of going to a Furry Convention hurt other areas of your life. We all need to be adults sometimes and that can mean missing out on something fun. But remember… there is another Furry Convention the next year (and maybe another local one later the same year). Save your money, budget, and go to one that you can comfortably afford later. You will have a lot more fun if you don’t have to worry about the consequences of bad spending the minute you get home!
Hotel rooms where the convention is being held go FAST! They are usually sold out within the first week or sooner. So, once you find out about a convention, you need to start researching where you are going to stay. Start planning who you are going with, how many beds you would need… and if the con-hotel is too expensive, then browse hotels within the area. Remember to take into account the distance from the con hotel, the way in which you will get in-between the two, and possible parking costs. Reserve your rooms ASAP!
Remember that some hotels make you pay a small ‘holding’ cost upfront, and also that some hotels do not take out payment until AFTER your stay! So make sure you are budgeting your money accordingly so that you do not get over-drafted. If a friend has reserved the room, make sure that your name gets put somewhere on that room. This way you can not be kicked from the room and/or you avoid any issues if your friend failed to mention more people staying in the room than what is allowed. Telling the person behind the counter that you only have 2 people in your room and then having 2 other people sleeping on an air mattress is a legal issue and an overall safety risk/hazard! So please do not do it.
Furclub: “A repeat/regular nightclub event by furries for furries.” It’s a dance party independent from cons. The concept has been spreading since the late 2000’s. It’s a movement! See the list of parties at The Furclub Survey. Featured here is a new event in Alameda, CA.
Space themed costumes, dancing, DJ’s, fursuiting, craft beer, and waterfront views on San Francisco and the Bay Bridge! This is happening at a massive 1200+ person hangar converted to a brewery. There’s 10,000 sq. feet of indoor fursuit-friendly naturally cooled space, free secure parking, and a huge outdoor patio with food trucks. Space Camp joins Frolic party, Wild Things, and Party Animals as events for SF Bay Area furry night life.
For San Francisco Pride 2017, I organized with the Burning Man art car “Unaverz” to be our furry float in the parade. They’re coming to Space Camp as a mobile sound system with DJ and upper deck hang out space. Not just furries, but Burners and anyone who wants an amazing party should come check this out. Tell your friends!
@NachoHusky (contact on Telegram or Twitter) is the organizer. Roman Otter, the volunteer coordinator, wants to hear from anyone interested in volunteering. (A short shift gets free entry – sign up on the main site). Those interested in doing photos or videos should get in touch.
An unresolved issue
You may know Magnus Diridian (AKA Rob Shokawsky) as “The Confederate fursuiter” who’s banned from furry conventions. What happens after being arrested for trespassing at Midwest FurFest 2017, and featuring in a news article about troll activity? How about a challenge to clear the air and explain things. That is, if a simple case of people being bothered by unwanted behavior needs any further explanation at all.
There don’t seem to be many people asking for it. But long story short, Magnus got in trouble and wanted to explain. I took the opportunity to talk, but not in the way he hoped. Honestly I’m not interested in rehashing what everyone already read about the 2017 arrest. He’ll have his day in court. Something else was an open and bothersome issue, and I focused on that instead. The previous article only hinted about it. Now I’m going to be really direct.
Raiding: A hostile invasion or forcible entry to destroy or steal something; predatory warfare.It’s 2018, and many people have New Years resolutions to accomplish. But a few people are stubbornly against being better. That means the Furry Raiders. This week they gained attention for violent threats meant to silence criticism – (because when they say they want “free speech,” it’s only for them). Their threats followed labeling themselves as “Nazis” – (a look at their member activity in the altfurry chat logs proves it’s really true). Until now their trolling has mostly been inside fandom. But then there was the time when they targeted innocent non-furry outsiders.
We did Nazi that coming!
On Halloween of 2017, a Colorado event space had a “Big Gay Costume Party”. Foxler and Kody, the Furry Raiders founder and partner, went in costume with nazi armbands that replaced swastikas with paws. With nobody else’s help, the staff recognized what the symbolism stood for. The Raiders were kicked out for bringing hate to their space.
Foxler and Kody’s excuses like “it’s just a paw” didn’t work. Anyone can see they’re making a clear reference to nazi iconography. This is good evidence that trolling isn’t just a fandom issue with “both sides” fighting and so-called “SJW’s” inside. Outsiders know these trolls are the source of the problem.
When a business kicks someone out, that’s free market power, freedom of association, and free speech opinion by staff. (A protected social class can claim discrimination, but Nazi isn’t a class.) Reasonable people would move on and drop it. But reasonable people doesn’t include a troll whose name means “Fox Hitler”. Again, when they say they want “free speech,” it’s only for them.
The Furry Raiders retaliated by trolling the business with bad reviews. The review bombing was spread from their Facebook group by trolls who are active in alt-right hate activity (including their member Vetus, who supported trolling FurAffinity with hate images). The story was twisted by people who had never been there; they lied that there was no hate symbolism and pretended a “Big Gay Costume Party” rejected them for being gay.
Guest post by Nightf0x with a response by Patch.
Flying out to Pittsburgh this past June for Anthrocon was a fantastic experience. I got to spend time with my friends and see this convention for the first time. However there was something that felt a bit off to me.
It took a different experience at Anthro Weekend Utah to make me aware of what exactly I was feeling at Anthrocon. I had never noticed before, but there is a sense of classism in the furry community. (I didn’t experience any of this classism at Anthro Weekend Utah.)
A lot of people in this fandom are successful, and they should be proud of it! However, sometimes this financial success creates an aura of a “holier than thou” attitude that they may not be aware of. By spending copious amounts of money and keeping their social cliques to people in the same financial situation, it creates a feeling of the haves and have nots.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t strive to reach this kind of success. For the most part this fandom is full of people who are intelligent and apply themselves, and they should be happy that they are in their situation. All I’m asking is to just be aware that sometimes, all the extravagance and copious spending creates social rifts. It can be detrimental to a convention’s social experience. This fandom has definitely been through a lot of social change lately, and my hope is that the next change is to be aware that everybody is in a different socio-economic status, and to at least try to be inclusive in that regard. It’s great to see a fandom that is getting more and more inclusive. However I think as a community we could work better on inclusivity across socio-economic barriers.
I’m not saying you’re evil if you own a fursuit or have a lot of money. But I think everybody should be entitled to have a fun time without feeling the socio-economic barriers they may experience outside of the fandom. In the end, no matter your current socio-economic status, we are all fans of anthropomorphic animals and we all share this in common. Let’s go out there and have fun without class elitism!
– Nightf0x
Update: Here’s an in depth interview discussing Magnus being an FBI crime suspect.
Midwest Furfest 2017 broke the attendance record of all furry cons by the margin of a small con itself. It raised an eye-popping $86,000 for an animal charity that was previously in the red and is now funded for years. Twitter was on fire about the smashing success for the fandom. Among many ecstatic posts by attendees, of course there had to be some kind of drama too. It came with a fursuiter being arrested. Here’s the story pieced together by claims on twitter:
Scene: a hotel lobby. A black, red and white wolf fursuiter with a German WW1 style Pickelhaube helmet is parading around. People taking photos are greeted by offensive behavior like saluting with a “Sieg Heil” and shouting racist things. It causes hotel and/or con security to pursue him, and he flees and gets cornered in some bushes until the police come. They make him take off his suit, and he’s taken away in underwear. He was previously banned from the con and hotel, and the charges involve trespassing and assaulting a staff member before his arrest.
Some of those claims may be disputed (especially the nazi part), so let’s look deeper for the truth. Here’s an arrest record. Associates confirm the fursuiter who matches it is Magnus Diridian, AKA Rob Shokawsky (real name Robert Sojkowski). What is Magnus known for in furry fandom?
Crazdude looks like one of those multi-talented artists that are one of the secret weapons of furry subculture – bright and devoted people with a buffet of skills like making art, writing, or performing all at once. For the blog she started in 2016, I got a professional impression from a first glance. (I look out for blogs that seem to vibe with Dogpatch, so I liked finding this.)
The Crazblog bears out a good impression by sharing her selection as Guest of Honor at Fur-Xoticon. It lets you in on a personal detail:“As just a first-year newbie to the Artist Alley and Dealer’s Den experience at furry conventions, this came as quite an exciting surprise!” Highlighting the newbie disclosure and small/local con size isn’t too critical, if you take it for granted that Furry is full of DIY power – it’s just good to keep in mind while reading the below post with an open mind. It mentions 3 years of experience at other cons.
Here is my breakdown of some of the aspects of vending at a furry con AA/DD that do more harm than good (+ possible solutions!) PLUS a bonus section of things that make vendors & artists happy! 💓
— Crazdude ➡️ ANE DD (@Crazdude) November 13, 2017
It's a slog of a read so bring coffee. Feel free to RT!https://t.co/khnquy97XX
Crazdude’s post – “Top 5 ways conventions let their vendors down (+ Cons doing things that artists love!)” – led me to a point/counterpoint peer discussion that I wanted to share in response. I considered breaking down salient points for a formal article, but I liked the natural flow of a casual chat here. The chat is between me (plus a few stray watcher comments) and ScalieStaffer (name redacted to keep opinions apart from their position). They’re a fur with 8 years of con staffing experience in multiple departments, with roles both minor and major.
