Dogpatch Press

Fluff Pieces Every Week

Category: On the scene

October 23, 2025

Who runs your community? Five stories about predators with powerful friends in fandom

by Patch O'Furr

Sick of bad news? Want some good news? Here’s how to make it. Get armed with knowledge to demand better for your community. When there is injustice, getting justice starts with reporting it. Bad media likes to linger on gross details of crime, but helpful media investigates and criticizes patterns, issues, impact, policy and leadership. This public service is often requested by people who need help — especially when leaders and police don’t help — like when there’s internet activity outside their reach, or news has to reach sources they need to come forward. It’s a job for independent reporting, so it can’t be suppressed when leaders are corrupt or protecting friends. This is news by us, for us, because outsiders and bad people don’t run your community… you do.

Five stories get their own headline posts. Here’s the short versions.

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October 23, 2025

Mare Fair enabled shady crypto nazis and a zoophile organizer who preyed on horse rescues

by Patch O'Furr

SERIES: Who runs your community? Five stories about predators with powerful friends in fandom.

Corruption behind the record-breaking charity 

Florida’s Mare Fair is an adults-only My Little Pony convention. It crosses fandom for a kid’s show with the edgy chanboard culture seen in news reporting about the MLP fandom’s Nazi problem. The con is organized by and for 4chan users, and bounced between 3 venues in 3 years while gaining a reputation for hateful behavior. It keeps raising criticism about swastika displays and racist dogwhistles, while critics face backlash for protesting. One critic tells Dogpatch Press: “Nazis and racists used Mare Fair as a hate safe space, because they couldn’t spread it at reputable cons… it became clear that management did not care.” Defenders have pushed back with denial and apologism about the con raising charity for horses.

Mare Fair is run by Snowpity Inc, headed by Joshua “Corpulent Brony” Hope, who founded it by milking fandom with silver coin sales and his own cryptocurrency. This allegedly ties con finances to shady donors with crypto-wealth, who donate so much that it breaks charity records set by other cons — conveniently buying a PR front. Behind the front of helping horses, Hope and the con management teamed up with Kyle “Lightsolver” Foster to help run Mare Fair. Foster is a zoophile who abuses horses, according to horse rescuers who claim Foster manipulated power over their operations, after keeping a crippled horse alive in pain and using a baby horse for years of sex abuse. On top of that, Hope runs his own website that hosts bestiality videos (evidence below).

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October 23, 2025

UK furry event founder and outed zoosadist ring member is still running events 7 years later.

by Patch O'Furr

SERIES: Who runs your community? Five stories about predators with powerful friends in fandom.

No consequences for participating in the worst crime ring to ever emerge in fandom.

A series of international furry events under the name Club Animalz (and other names) has been held in Manchester and Berlin since 2017. The founder, Foxb/Foxberance, AKA Ben Mills, was exposed as an animal rapist in the 2018 zoosadist leaks. Mills raped animals on video, in a fursuit made for him, that he used for years. In 2025, his events are still popular and partnered with large cons in the mainstream of furry like Confuzzled.

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October 23, 2025

Mephit Furmeet put one of the world’s most infamous zoophiles on stage to represent the fandom

by Patch O'Furr

SERIES: Who runs your community? Five stories about predators with powerful friends in fandom.

Charles Alexander Berry (Toggle Rat) runs NAMBLA for zoophiles

For years, furry conventions have hosted Charles Alexander Berry, AKA Toggle Rat. He runs a podcast that launders animal molesting as identity, like NAMBLA for zoophiles, while hiding their victims offstage. In 2021 he was outed as a zoophile with his husband running a furry group in Tennessee. Many people’s effort to protect the fandom went unheard in August 2025, when despite protest, Berry was given a platform on stage at Mephit Furmeet, the furry con running since the 1990’s in Memphis, TN.

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October 23, 2025

Tennessee furry group leaders corrupted with predators and drug death: two evidence documents

by Patch O'Furr

SERIES: Who runs your community? Five stories about predators with powerful friends in fandom.

“We need justice”

MurfreesFurs, a furry group in Tennessee with around 1000 members, was the subject of an evidence document with 30 sources alleging that organizers covered up nazis and zoophiles in their inner circle, and failed to protect the community from predators. Sources face retaliation, and Dogpatch Press was pressured for suppression before even reporting. The shocking thing is, it was only part of the problem. A second evidence document came out independently from the first, alleging more serious complicity by MurfreesFurs organizers in CSAM, drug dealing and a fentanyl death. Sources include police reports and prison records.

The first and followup documents:

Reading almost 600 pages is a challenge, so it was boiled down by a two hour phone call with authors of the second doc, who are known but being protected from backlash here. The goal:

“If they’re responsible for a death, we firmly hope that justice is served for the family, and if kids and animals were harmed, we need justice for that too. It’s not enough to get them temporarily out of one hobby group and trust that they won’t just rebrand and come back.”

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August 23, 2025

Phoenix Bark is New York’s biggest Furry Bar event yet

by Dogpatch Press Staff

Guest post by Kameno -O.

Attendees gather together to hug in Phoenix Bark. Photo Credit: Eberrawolf

NYFurs hosted the first ever Phoenix Bark at the Phoenix Bar

NYC’s furry community continues to grow this year as it hosted its first ever Phoenix Bark event on August 16th.

Hosted by NYFurs, the event was made with the goal to bring furry culture and community in New York City, a city that, compared to other parts of the United States, hasn’t had an established furry scene until this year. To cater to the growing community, Phoenix Bark marketed itself on NYFurs website by claiming “Phoenix Bark isn’t just a bar night, it’s New York City’s furry takeover.”

Phoenix Bark was different from usual furry events hosted in New York City, as this event took place in Phoenix Bar in Manhattan’s East Village, known for its LGBTQ nightlife. Other events they have held such as NYCFurwalks or Round1 furs were for all ages and took place earlier, but Phoenix Bark was a 21+ event that took place late into the evening.

For many in New York City’s furry community, this was a different experience from what they are used to. This rang true for NYFurs’ founder Gamboiuwu, who was in charge of coordinating the event with the bar.

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July 5, 2025

Newsdump: Room Party art show during Anthrocon, furries on NPR, public image in the media

by Patch O'Furr

Happening now: Anthrocon and Room Party show at Bunker Projects, 5106 Penn Ave, Pittsburgh

Anthrocon has competitors for the world’s biggest furry convention, but is unsurpassed in other ways. Their street parade is a wonder of the furry world, uniquely partnered with Pittsburgh and swarmed by cheering residents on a blocked off city street.

Fursuiters make public image by flaunting millions in art at such events, but it’s also about the artists. They’re enjoying how Pittsburgh welcomes furries like nowhere else, with their own art show at a gallery apart from the con.

SEE ROOM PARTY: http://room-party.com. The show has a 6-week run with film screenings, workshops, and informal art-making gatherings. Curators include Brett Hanover (previously in furry news with his movie Rukus.) Brett sent info:

Room Party is the first-ever large-scale group exhibition of contemporary and experimental furry art, featuring over 50 artists working in drawing and painting, comics, photography, installation, video, and new media. Curated by furry artists Lane Lincecum, Brett Hanover, Cass Dickenson, and Paul Peng, Room Party takes its name from the unofficial hotel room parties held during conventions—embodied virtual realities where furries try on unimagined identities, invent new sexualities and artistic expressions, and discover alternative ways of being known. Room Party brings the love and creativity of these events to Pittsburgh’s Bunker Projects, putting furry artists in conversation with the fine art world, the broader queer community, and the contemporary moment.

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May 28, 2025

Zeldstarro’s furry event maps – A tool for travel planning and learning about history

by Dogpatch Press Staff

A need for better info about geography and accessibility

Good day (or night) everyone, I am Zeldstarro, a semi-furred dragon that really likes geography and travel. I have made a map of furry conventions which can be found here, and a map of other large furry events which can be found here. You can also follow my project on Bluesky, Fur Con Watch.

I made these maps not just to help other furries find conventions, but also because I had a special interest in transit accessibility. I believe that a good public transit system is an incredibly beneficial thing for any city it’s in, and for the world as a whole. So, I wanted to find one place to compare the locations of furry convention venues with their current transit accessibility (and walkability).

The most easily accessible source I found was a map on Wikifur. Disappointingly, this map was (and is) unreliable. It sometimes lists out-of-date venues and other inaccurate information, and includes events that aren’t conventions and don’t fit my purpose. This led to starting my own solution.

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May 16, 2025

Furgeddaboutit 2025 con report: “Controlled burn” cooks up unprecedented results in New Jersey

by Dogpatch Press Staff

GUEST POST: Eberra Wolf (sounds like “a-BEAR-uh”) is an independent reporter from New York City, and focuses on the northeastern United States. He has been a furry since December 2022. Eberra is using community access to submit news as an on-the-scene correspondent – you can submit news here.

Furries playing outside in the courtyard of the Mount Laurel, N.J., DoubleTree on Saturday. (Eberra Wolf for Dogpatch Press.)

Furgeddaboutit had its inaugural convention over the weekend of May 2-4 in Mount Laurel, New Jersey. Created in reaction to Garden State Fur the Weekend, another New Jersey convention, it was held on the same weekend 47 miles southwest, about 50 minutes away by car.

By the end of both cons, comparison of the respective results would make an example for the global fandom to remember.

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April 14, 2025

Furgeddaboutit is New Jersey’s new furry con after the disgrace of Garden State Fur The Weekend

by Patch O'Furr

Furgeddaboutit is coming to New Jersey on May 2-4, 2025. Info: Furgeddaboutit.org. There’s also The Big One furmeet. More about this shortly…

Many New Jersey furries have been demanding more honest events while protesting Garden State Fur the Weekend, the corrupt convention with a history of favoring nazi-furries. This has new developments.

  • How often does a community create not one, but two alternative events to make up for a toxic one?
  • Ever seen a con struggle to deny a toxic reputation — while officially operating on a pro-nazi site?

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