Where does the love of anthropomorphics come from? How far back can we dig in history and mass media to really get to the bottom of it? Why does every culture across the face of the earth have a fascination with animal-people?
Now, host Arrkay shares the latest episode plus a sneak preview made EXCLUSIVELY for dogpatch.press:
Hey DogPatch readers! Arrkay here with a special announcement from Culturally F’d.
Firstly, we have a new video all about Fursuiting and Drag Queens. The episode features footage from Howl Toronto in July when some friends and I took over the stage in full drag. In the episode we compare the kind of performances put on by Fursuiters and by Drag Queens to find how much they have in common.
(Note: This week’s video features copyright content due to the drag performances. Because of this, the video may not play in all countries or on all devices.)
In the 90’s, ConFurence was THE convention for all furries worldwide. 26 years after ConFurence 0 broke ground, the subculture has gained enough steam for some local populations to get multiple cons. It’s a sign of a healthy community. Areas or cities like that make great examples to learn from. Do they succeed? What does it say about fan support, and competition or cooperation to grow our awesome fandom?
Five places came to mind:
San Jose, CA (Further Confusion and PAWcon, since 2014)
Columbus, OH (Morphicon and Furlaxation, in 2012-2014)
Toronto (Camp Feral! and Furnal Equinox, since 2010)
Boston, MA (Maltese Fur Con and Anthro New England, in 2014)
Pittsburgh, PA (Anthrocon and Western Pennsylvania Furry Weekend)
Healthy growth can bring a downside. Cons are growing large and well-attended enough to have critical security concerns. This month, Oklacon and Rainfurrest both announced dramatic cancelations due to misbehavior. Bad faith can get between organizers and their venues, and that gets bigger than internal fandom drama. However, it’s also natural for problems to grow when a population does. Be optimistic with a con every week, some place in the world.
Consider the hard work it takes to organize a con, and draw people to fly in from far away. Organizing could be a paid profession. Furries are lucky and loveable because theirs come from volunteering. This brings a risk of burnout and decline. It’s important to understand how and why. The decline of ConFurence coincided with the start of Further Confusion, which may have unintentionally divided the pool of supporters. 16 years after ConFurence 10 ended, multi-con locations can show examples for how to sustain what we love.
There’s much more than conventions in the hard-to-measure Furry subculture. They can only draw some members. But they can be considered to lead it’s growth. Con-goers, fursuiters, and fursuiting con-goers may be the most committed members of furry social life. They spend the tourist dollars that float Furry’s best public profile. Anthrocon’s $7 million tourism draw has earned more and more enthusiastic coverage. In 2015, it achieved a new benchmark, with their first public parade that was cheered on by 5,000 regular people of Pittsburgh. This is what the public sees.
Let’s look for insight from organizers. Dogpatch Press sent questions to ten cons in five locations:
“Furries For Kids” comes from the German/Austrian community. It has a goal to set up a legitimate charity with fursuiters, like “Clown Care” (a program to bring the healing power of laughter to hospitals). Here’s the website for their philanthropic organization.
My translation of their mission:
“Many people in the world experience sadness, anger or pain every day. It’s especially dramatic, though, when it hits defenseless children. That’s why Furries For Kids has taken on the task to raise their spirits.
Who laughs, does not cry. This is the motto for Europe’s first, unique anthropomorphic “Kuschelzoo” (petting zoo?) for visiting care centers and homes for kids and needy people. The affected people, especially kids in institutions, should be supported by costume performances with joy and laughter to get rid of negative feelings. Laughter is therapeutic and promotes positive energy, and a sense of hope that’s important to process emotional wounds. Our appearances are voluntary and unpaid, to benefit individuals as well as the institutions. Our organization funds its work largely through annual member dues, donations, sponsorships and small hired engagements. Of course, our cuddly characters can also sometimes be found in public places like parks, museums, plazas, and anywhere they can make people happy and put smiles on your face.”
“I’d like to give you some further directions about “Furries For Kids”. First of all, there has been an article about the organization inside the “Eurofurence Daily”… a newspaper that is handed out to all attendees at the con.
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 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.
Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag. Guest posts welcome. Tips: patch.ofurr@gmail.com.
Food Network’s The Great Food Truck Race features Fursuiters.
I’m told that a minute of air time was recorded during a “furry scurry” in Chicago. (I’m pretty sure I have heard of such an event, but can’t find it at Lake Area Furry Friends.) I hope one day that term replaces “furmeet” for meets that get you out of the house, and maybe involve Street Fursuiting (my favorite thing.)
Cosplay celebrity Jessica Nigri wants to join the Furry side.
Nigri is known as a model/promoter for video games, and interviewer/correspondent at cons. It’s amazing when a subculture grows large enough to have it’s own hired sub-services… when is it no longer “sub” culture? (Imagine if “popufur” actually meant anything to anyone besides furries?) Popularity-wise, I suspect she’s famous-for-being-famous, but I don’t know enough to judge. I just hope this involves interest in what furries actually do. It’s a new item for the next “Celebrifurry” list:
OKAY REAL TALK. WHO DOES FURSUITS. Like really adorable well made ones..... I go down this path willingly.... I won't turn back.
Discussion of the history of furry fandom with Fred Patten, at ConFURence 9.
Fred Patten is the most valued contributor at Dogpatch Press. He came here during editor down time at Flayrah, seeking a stable place for his reviews and history articles. (For those who aren’t acquainted with Fred’s impressive resume as a fan historian and curator, he has spent a lot of the recent decade in a convalescent hospital. Writing is a major benefit to his life and a good cause to support.)
Without Fred’s guest posts, there would be no five day a week schedule here. Assisting and formatting his articles takes a lot of work, and five days a week makes a very demanding pace. But I think the promise of regular content should inspire anyone who contributes. It makes this the most active “Furry News” source. It’s all non-profit, so thank Fred for doing what few people can do without being paid – and volunteer helper Poppa Bookworm – and (ahem) anyone else who helps, reads, shares or comments to make this a community thing.
Fred recently shared a bibliography listing an incredible abundance of his book reviews. It covers years of writing and hundreds of posts. At the very least, it’s worth browsing to get an idea about the variety of Furry published work.
The list doesn’t include Fred’s other amazing articles that aren’t book reviews. Here’s everything else. You don’t want to miss these, if you’re interested in learning about anthropomorphic art, how furries came to be, and what they do and like.
Patch has been urging me to make a list of my furry book reviews for fans who want recommendations of what’s worth reading. Okay — but that’s a constantly changing situation. There are a very few books like Animal Farm by George Orwell and Watership Down by Richard Adams that will always remain classics. Otherwise, what’s a hot title this year will become forgotten in a few years. How many people remember New Coyote by Michael Bergey today? — but it’s still an excellent novel.
I have been reviewing furry fiction since 1962, for fanzines and online sites. On one hand, I don’t want my reviews to become forgotten. On the other, I realize that an info dump of 1,000 or more reviews of furry books will turn off the vast majority of fans and never be read. So here are several sections as a compromise.
First, enjoy my pick of Ten Furry Classics that everyone should read. Okay, one is edited by me, but it’s the first anthology of furry fiction; not just stories written to fill a book, but the best stories from the first fifteen years of all the furry magazines, 1987 to 2002. These ten books are all great reading, and all are important for one reason or another. Sirius was the first serious intelligent animal novel for adults. Watership Down was the first adult talking animal fantasy to present a species having its own language and religion. Tailchaser’s Song was the first adult talking-animal fantasy to feature cats. Jonathan Livingston Seagull — a mainstream cult classic in the 1970s, and still one of the best “Feel Good” furry novels. Fangs of K’aath; arguably the first “furry” novel.
Then enjoy my pick of twenty-five more that are still enjoyable, even if they’re no longer current, for fans who want to read more. These are NOT necessarily better than the “dump” below them. They are guaranteed good reading, but they do not include anything above a PG rating, for readers who do not like fiction of a mature erotic nature. Kyell Gold writes excellent fiction, but he does put R-rated scenes into most of them. Read the rest of this entry »
The coming 2016 Furpocalypse is getting ridiculous: Netflix announces “Mascots” movie, from famed mockumentary maker Christopher Guest.
Brace yourselves, Disney’s Zootopia is coming. Now this: a grade-A Hollywood director is tackling “fursploitation”, my catch-all genre that has many mediocre failures and just a few sparkling hits (like CollegeHumor’s Furry Force.) Chris Guest is famous for popularizing “mockumentary” with movies like This Is Spinal Tap and Best In Show. His “Mascots” will be on Netflix in 2016. There’s little info about it yet except a very short summary:
Welcome to all the drama, intrigue and occasional excitement of the 8th World Mascot Association Championships, where a group of ‘unusual’ men and women, with big heads and furry suits, compete to win the prestigious Gold Fluffy Award and be crowned best mascot in the world.
Furclubbing: “A repeat/regular nightclub event by furries for furries.” It’s a New Thing that’s been spreading since the late 2000’s. This kind of dance party is independent from conventions. This builds on the growth of cons, and takes things farther.
It’s more ambitious than events that happen once, house parties, or informal meets. Those can stay inner-focused for friends who already know each other. This brings partnership with venues that aren’t hotels, and new supportive interest in the kind of events they host. It crosses a line to public space. A stranger may walk in off the street to discover their new favorite thing. It encourages new blood, and crossover to other scenes. It makes subculture thrive. It’s a movement!
See the list of parties atThe Furclub survey. Any party that gives a Q&A will get a featured article. Tail! organizer Desoto shares this awesome new event:
This year, it seems like more great press attention went to Anthrocon than ever before. Take a look! (Here’s everything I could find in July.)
Why was there rising attention? One of the big reasons was the fursuit parade. For the first time in an almost two-decade history, the con took an amazing spectacle seen in private out to a public street. A lot of the locals must wonder what goes on behind the doors of the con. Getting to see it drew an enthusiastic crowd of “normals” almost as large as the convention itself. Apart from the furry/crowd interaction, this was a big deal because of all the logistics and relationship building behind the scenes. It promises great things to come.
Now, host Arrkay shares the latest episode plus a sneak preview made EXCLUSIVELY for dogpatch.press: 
