Dogpatch Press

Fluff Pieces Every Week

Tag: LGBT

August 13, 2015

Praise from Cracked, Mattress company winks at us, nazi teddybears – NEWSDUMP (8/13/15)

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. 

projectq-pride-parade-cp-180__largeCORRECTION: Fangcon was NOT the first con to sponsor a float in a Pride parade – FWA was earlier.

Tip from Slickkat: “FWA has had a float in the Atlanta Pride parade for the last two years.” It corrects this week’s headline calling Fangcon the first. Queer media outlet Project Q wrote about the FWA sponsorship:  Furries cuddle up and show their Atlanta Pride. The active Georgiafurs site organizes the Pride float since 2013.

Florida Times-Union: Meet the Furries.

Nothing new here, but nicely written.

Guess who’s #5 on the CRACKED list of “6 Groups Who Shouldn’t Be Sexual Punchlines.” 

This article gets a Hallelujah.  It has comedy and sexy furries, but they aren’t the target.  Instead, it makes fun of judgemental assholes.  That’s refreshing, after a tendency for media to be sadistic to innocent people, who happen to have richer than usual fantasy lives.

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August 11, 2015

Silicon Valley Pride invites furs – Fangcon makes history with Pride parade sponsorship.

by Patch O'Furr

“Furry Pride” is redundant when you’re a talking animal.  There’s no way you can’t strut your stuff, turn heads and light up a crowd with smiles.  But when furries AT Pride join other groups with a bigger mission, it puts the magic where it most belongs – in a fabulous show – and makes a good cause better.

Furries invited for August 30, 2015:

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Tip from Neonbunny, builder of influential events like Frolic:

“Silicon Valley Pride has reached out to me as they would love to have fursuiters at the pride festival, August 30th.  They will have a changing tent available, and can offer free admission for suiters that RSVP in advance.

The other person who they reached out to, who’s coordinating things right now, is Lani B.  She’s pretty active in the South Bay cosplay scene, and they’ve reached out to her to get cosplayers to go as well. (Anime/comic type costuming stuff).  Her email is dynamiccosplaycouple@gmail.com and she’s on facebook here.

This is the link for the pride event, and Lani has also created a facebook page to get cosplayers motivated to go (and hopefully fursuiters as well.) If anyone is interested in coordinating fursuiters for this, please get in touch!” – NeonBunny

The San Francisco Pride parade may be the premiere event for LGBT culture.  It’s popular among the SF Bay Area Furries, so in 2015, their show-stealing presence in front of a million viewers made a standout event for the whole furry subculture. But it was far from the only one.  (Expect a chat soon with Uncle Kage, about Anthrocon’s awesome accomplishments in 2015.)  In fact, theirs wasn’t even the only Furry statement at Pride events around the world.  Competition came from an unexpected place – Knoxville, Tennessee. Read the rest of this entry »

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July 6, 2015

San Francisco Pride, gay marriage, and historic happenings in Furry Mecca.

by Patch O'Furr

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Billet Sheltie – pic by Eric Campbell.

Gay marriage just became legal across the USA.  Even if you have no plan to get one, it’s a big deal.  People of a few generations ago thought we’d have flying cars before this happened.  The writer of “Furry Force” says:

In San Francisco, the news hit right at “gay christmas”.  The city was getting ready for Pride, “the largest gathering of LGBT people and allies in the nation.”

It was already going to be one whopper of a party. But with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry fresh off the presses, Sunday’s Pride Parade in San Francisco became a rainbow-colored, joyous celebration for the ages.

The whole country was involved. The Chief of Police called it “the largest Pride celebration ever.”  Being mainstream was a big topic. On a subcultural level, the excitement spread among “the world’s greatest concentration of furries per square mile.” Furries were in the parade in 2005, returning in 2014 and 2015.

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Pic by Vincent

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June 26, 2015

Animation Show of Shows – Yiff vs. Murr – History of faux fur – Newsdump (6/25/15)

by Patch O'Furr

Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag.  Tips are always welcome. 

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Media and Fandom News

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The Animation Show of Shows: There’s no better source for artistic animation, and they need support.Screen Shot 2015-06-25 at 3.33.32 PM

This touring show presents the best of the best in the world of short films, by the most talented directors.  It’s ordinarily only seen by invite at top movie studios (your Pixars and so forth), and at colleges, with special public access to those who hear through word of mouth.  You may not have heard of it, because it’s been a personal project funded by one amazing guy, Ron.  (He also runs Acme Filmworks, who directed a good couch gag for The Simpsons.)

Now, The Animation Show of Shows is appealing for support for their amazing art cause.

I don’t ordinarily post crowd funding (too much to cover!)  Leave that to awesome Furry journalist Corbeau at Furstarter.  (We need more “furry news” specialists.) This is just an exceptional cause. If you like animation, don’t miss it.

Through this show, I discovered the hilarious short, Flamingo Pride.  It shows what happens to the only heterosexual flamingo at the birds celebration.  It’s almost as fabulous as the San Francisco Bay Furries will be this weekend, in the SF Pride parade.

Knoxville, TN has furries in their Pride parade.  Draconis, Chair of Fangcon, reports: Read the rest of this entry »

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June 22, 2015

Pride in Furry Mecca – Viral views for Zootopia – Crushing on foxes – Newsdump (6/22/15)

by Patch O'Furr

Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag.  Tips are always welcome. 

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Media and Fandom News

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via chrisastro.com

From 2014, via chrisastro.com

On June 28, San Francisco Pride is going to be awesome for furries!

The Bay Area Furries are all ready to march in the parade.  Pride is the height of street fair season in “Furry Mecca”.  It’s one of the most loved activities for an active section of the community.  2014 was the first Furry appearance in the parade since 2005. They had attendance of 50+, and TV coverage with a million-strong audience.  RSVP’s are 25% stronger than last year, with days left to grow.  Two leaders got the event organized, despite unavailability of an important third from last year.

Califur visited by television naturalist Figgy Dobbs.

An Inside Look at the Furries in Their Natural Habitat!

Buzzfeed podcast covers furries (via earthfurst).

BuzzFeed’s Internet Explorer does “A Deep Dive Into Furries”.  It starts at 6:45.  I missed this in April.  It calls furries “the greatest mystery of the internet”.  As usual, Buzzfeed is a dubious source – it mentions FurryMate but overlooks their bots.  I won’t forgive them for spreading lies about the NJ FurBQ Hoax.

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March 20, 2015

IMVU’s big buy-in. These messages sponsored by hugs and scritches. Newsdump (3/20/15)

by Patch O'Furr

Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag.  Tips are always welcome. 

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Fandom News

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FurAffinity sold to 3D social network IMVU.  

downloadYou heard, right?  FurAffinity is the shaky but most active anchor for furry socializing and art.  Naughty stuff on it can’t go without mention.  That makes it a haven for freedoms that make the community what it is, for good or ill (depending on how prudish you are.)  The sale to IMVU comes as a surprise.  It’s a bold move for a company to partner with a community with stigma attached.  How well will this work?

In January, IMVU reached out to me. They got an article about their appearance at Fur Con.   (It was before today’s news was public, but apparently around when FurAffinity was sold.)  I got back in touch with their rep, and have a confirmation that they’ll answer my questions.  Everyone’s yapping about it – more soon in a followup article.

4 fursuits stolen from Jakedashep. Send hugs.

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September 17, 2014

Facebook’s “real name” controversy, Drag queens, and furries

by Patch O'Furr

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Facebook closed my account. There’s a wave of furry victims of this ill-planned policy. Did it happen to you too?

Behind the fursona, there’s deeper issues, like the way internet trolls enjoy gay-bashing and compromising safety for participants of certain live club events. These names are positive statements. Forcing you not to use yours is a negative statement.

When I organized a “hug-in” coinciding with a protest threat from Westboro Baptist Church (of “God Hates Fags” infamy), it was meant to be a positive thing of it’s own… but also to answer them with positivity.  (They didn’t show- all we did was hug.)  Facebook’s policy jeopardizes people’s safety to speak that way.

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July 29, 2014

Furry news of the week: Pseudo-furries past and future (7-28-14)

by Patch O'Furr

It’s the regular feature of news bites, scoops, and Snausage links. Tips welcome- I’d love to post yours!
Only minor stories got my attention this week, so I threw in a few topic starters.
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– Technology’s Rainbow Connection – Silicon Valley’s Embrace of the Gay and Lesbian Community
The NY Times article relates to a general conflict about keeping subculture “weird” vs. inviting mainstream attention. (For example- A sex educator has trouble understanding why people wear costumes to gay pride parades, especially Furries.) Thanks for the shout out, Tristan!

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May 13, 2014

Furries to march for millions at San Francisco Pride 2014

by Patch O'Furr

San Francisco has a great tradition of LGBT culture. If you dig subculture, there’s a lesser known feature here: the world’s most dense population of Furries. On June 29, 2014, we’re joining forces for a world class parade. This may be the height of the season for furry outings that draw a lot of us to fairs and festivals. On Facebook’s Bay Area Furs, Chris posts:

I have reserved a place… THERE WILL BE A FURRY FLOAT. Yaaaaayy!

SF Pride 2013 drew 1.5 million attendees, and who knows how much media. Many furries went, but only informally for this meetup that I wrote about. It grew in size and interest from our meet at SF Pride 2012. There’s much excitement to keep the energy going, this time with a formal parade contingent. We haven’t done one in years, but in fact, furries have been involved since as far back as 2002:

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June 26, 2012

Fursuiting at San Francisco Pride 2012

by Patch O'Furr

(Flayrah news: 6/26/12)

The 42nd anniversary of San Francisco Pride happened this weekend. People from all over the world filled the city to celebrate. It was too large and fabulous for words, so I can only personally comment about fursuiting at some street parties. There was no organized furry event or mission, just a good opportunity to wear a costume.

The last organized furry participation was a float in the 2005 Pride parade, arranged via BAF and its mailing list. (I heard that there was some negligible drama about connecting furries + LGBT, but it stayed internal, with positive reactions elsewhere.) Due to logistics and cost, it hasn’t reoccurred.

San Francisco Pride parade, 2005

However, one of the organizers posted on Facebook: “The SF Pride committee bugs me every year to bring the Furries back, and that’s just what I am going to do for 2013! That’s right, for the 2013 pride parade there will be a Furry float!” (Yay!)

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