Dogpatch Press

Fluff Pieces Every Week

Tag: radicalizing

Furries in the Epstein Files? Search brings up narratives where we fail to tell the full truth.

by Patch O'Furr

News in a moment: but first, recommended background for the Epstein story.

The Epstein files represent a major coverup of crime by wealthy elites, broken open as an ongoing public scandal. It keeps exposing worse and worse associations with dead financier Jeffrey Epstein. It’s a story of rich pedophiles and their enablers, including Donald Trump. Do you feel lost about where it starts and ends? Try this episode of radio show This Is Hell for an interview with an award-winning journalist who wrote a book about the coverup. It’s packed with fresh, conversational analysis to help you catch up.

Furries in the files?

In 2019, Epstein’s alleged suicide in jail silenced him from having to testify about powerful friends. It couldn’t silence demands for the government to finally release documents of official investigation… partially and controversially so far. With over 3.5 million pages released as of March 2026 (and who knows how much more to come), you can search for any term in them and possibly get results.

What happens if you search for “furry” or “furries”? Dogpatch Press did this on February 14, before a completely separate effort by fellow furry reporter Sonious published on March 8. You should go read Sonious’ article that propels this one.

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The Crying Nazifur: Swatting and career loss makes Casey Hoerth regret his Altfurry hate group.

by Patch O'Furr

UPDATED — Casey Hoerth, AKA “Len Gilbert”, is owner of the Furry TMZ clout-leeching front.

The founder of the Altfurry nazi-furry fringe admits it was for “Radicalizing mentally unstable people” — leading to swatting each other — Video below.

Casey “Len Gilbert” Hoerth lives with his parents in Texas, and used to be a freelance financial blogger for mainstream sites. It was the closest thing he had to a real job or creative outlet, despite trying to publish an embarrassing erotic furry Nazi novel called The Furred Reich (now renamed Out of the Ruins.)

Casey’s fandom for 1940’s Nazi Germany would lead him to fall in love with modern neo-nazis, fueling ambition to use furry fandom as a doormat for alt-right hate politics. While Casey supported friends at the deadly torchlight Unite The Right riot in 2017, he gathered fellow trolls into a fringe of hate groups called Altfurry. New recruits were groomed with redpilling for “revenge based guerilla tactics.”

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Mass shooting shows 6 reasons for furries to worry about the causes.

by Patch O'Furr

Last month, Equestria Daily warned about blowback to fans: The Indianapolis FedEx Mass Shooter Was Apparently A Brony, and Obsessed with Applejack. The 19 year old shooter carried it out after posting online that he hoped to see the cartoon character in the afterlife. “Brony” stands out by the Man Bites Dog rule, but there’s more details. Previously he had a gun seized, and got confined for threats after visiting white supremacist websites. Half of those killed were Sikhs. (I REALLY hate that, because of learning about this at the birthday of a Sikh friend. Every one I’ve met is a sweetheart.)

Rolling Stone asked: “Do Bronies have a Nazi problem?” They say fandom isn’t inherently problematic, but it faces infiltration by problems. Being a fan of cartoons isn’t a threat, but there’s threats coming out of fandom. Maybe giving a heads up about negativity should also say…

1: It’s not the only incident.

  • (2020): In Texas, Daniel Perry killed a protester after tweeting about how to kill protesters. His FurAffinity page got far-right gloating.
  • (2020): Furry in Ohio shot up a school, thankfully just hitting the building and nobody was hurt.
  • (2017): Randy Stair, a Brony who made animated fan videos, did a mass shooting at his workplace that was predicted by his creations.
  • (2016:) 3 killed in Fullerton CA by 3 furries, they all mingled at furry events and might not have met without them.

Maybe this isn’t more frequent than in general society, but do they share context? And isn’t one shooting too many?

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Terror, Teens, and Furaffinity — How a chain of violent hate incidents links to furry fandom.

by Patch O'Furr

The biggest furry art site FurAffinity is hosting promotion for a neo-nazi mass shooter. Brenton Tarrant shot 100 people in Christchurch, New Zealand in March 2019. Tarrant came from internet radicalizing. He used 8chan to broadcast hate, and is now a far-right extremist hero for copycats around the world. FurAffinity has been closing many reports about it, including mine and others that tipped off this story. Furaffinity’s Code of Conduct (2.7) says: “Do not identify with or promote real hate or terrorist organizations and their ideologies.” They refuse to enforce it.

In Furaffinity’s policy, “organizations” may be a weasel-word to dismiss this as an isolated thing. Treating this as “just art” helps the goal of radicalizing — to worm inside with lying that hate isn’t tied to violence, and violence comes from “lone wolves”. (A goal to provoke, but deny it.)

Single data points make a much bigger chain. When insiders refuse to recognize it or do anything to help, they pass off responsibility to outside sources. This story will be one of those sources, along with FBI docs and current mainstream news that link a fringe of furry fandom to violent hate.

From top left: (1) Furaffinity post promoting the New Zealand shooter. (2) Vice explains hate symbols in it. (3) Furaffinity refuses to enforce their policy.

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