“Mature” stuff isn’t built in to a fandom for talking animal art, but it sure makes everyone hot under the collar – whether they love it, or just giggle about how weird it is. Keep that in mind for the below topics: The Latest Hype – The Weird Factor – Why Marketers Care – “Furry Chic” – and Making Buzz With PR Control.
Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag. Guest posts welcome. Tips: patch.ofurr@gmail.com.
Zootopia marketing inspires visions of a feature length Orangina commercial. This short article shares a new image and says the movie is having “aggressive marketing”. And Reddit furries discuss hot tigers:
- “There’s no denying that they know who they’re marketing to.”
- “Big, beefy, sparkly tigers. They know what they’re doing with stuff like these, and nobody’s gonna tell me otherwise.”
- “And people still claim they’re not marketing to us. ha. ha. ha.”
Marketing meets Rule 34. “How Esurance Lost Its Mascot to the Internet.” Not furry, but this will ring some bells.
Puzzle Cheetah in Subway ad (via Greenreaper.) Puzzle is a UK fursuiter. Put this on the list of mainstream marketing featuring furries.
Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag. Guest posts welcome. Tips: patch.ofurr@gmail.com.
Fred Patten’s birthday was December 11 – Happy 75th, Fred!
Read an interview with Fred about the founding of Furry fandom, by esteemed novelist Phil Geusz. Thanks Fred for bringing so much content that helps Dogpatch Press to put out Furry News every week day. Sorry that this went out too late to share Furplanet’s weekend birthday discount sale for Fred’s titles. But check them out:
“Accidental Guests of the Midwest Fur Fest” – outsider appreciation gets viral views.
This personal blog post got lots of love. The Healthy Not Nuts blog covers a husband and wife’s thoughts on recipes, diet, health and photography. It’s lovely when Furries add spice to the mundane! “…how can you not love these creatures that look so cute, cuddly and happy all of the time?” The post earned 267 comments. The writer shared an appreciation letter for the post, where he mentioned getting over 20,000 views.
Furries in Buzzfeed’s “The 50 Worst Things On The Internet In 2015.” (NSFW)
Use this archive link (so they get no incentive to publish unforgivable crap). Furries are in items 14, 20, 31, and 46. There’s also bonus bronies, puppy and pony players. Whether it’s love or hate, at least things are never boring…
Goodbye to Furnation.
Furnation was one of the first visible Web presences for Furry fandom. It helped many to discover their fursonas in the 1990’s. Reddit calls it “the end of an era.” Flayrah gave it a feature under it’s tag for collected coverage. Social network Furrtrax made a generous offer of free hosting to keep it online. I tried helping, but got the feeling that Furnation’s admin was too burnt out with health problems to devote an ounce of effort for community moderation. I also assume the build of the site might be antiquated and burdensome (perhaps technical, or with copyright for content built by individuals.) It’s influence lives on in places like FurPlanet (formed from Furnation Magazine), one of the 3 main Furry publishers.
Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag. Guest posts welcome. Tips: patch.ofurr@gmail.com.
Friend of the community lost in mass shooting in San Bernardino CA. (Tip: Bosn Otter.)
The tragedy on December 2 is described as terrorism-related, and left 14 dead and 21 injured.
Bosn said Dan Kaufman was “a friend to the furry community… a friend to pretty much everybody he ever met.”
His Facebook account gave the impression that he had lots of friends through cons and the Ren Faires. It was hard to find direct Furry connections, although some of his last pics were from a comic con I went to 1 month ago (Comikaze Expo) where he cosplayed as a wolf.
Nugget, fursuit of Salem Wolf
Response to the articles:
There were a lot of great comments! It does seem like the feeling of high anticipation is true.
There was one piece of confusion for some readers. Going to the movies in costume doesn’t mean wearing it during a movie. Parts will come off to watch it, and theater rentals may include change space. Members of local meets are interested in a social experience before and after, like a “crawl” around town.
Costuming and security is a much wider issue. I’ve heard rumors about cons encountering problems with organizing, while making hotel deals and then being surprised by rules against masks in their public space. Biggest Little Fur Con has to carefully manage no-mask rules on the casino floor of their hotel. FurTheMore convention moved to Tyson’s Corner, Virginia, in May 2015, where there’s a statewide anti-mask law. A staff member told me they had to work with police to get a special weekend festival exemption. The con put out official instructions not to go off hotel grounds in fursuit, or risk arrest. Costumers will have to deal with the issue in the future.
Interested in organizing your own movie meet – to get trust, and permission for costumes?
You can get a good start by collecting RSVP’s from friends and local members. If you’re able to get several dozen, a whole theater rental may be in your range. Scout around and see if there are local ones that support community events. Once you’ve proposed and negotiated rates and times, the next steps would be signing a commitment, or collecting ticket/deposit money in advance (depending on how payment is supposed to happen).
In March, Zootopia is going to bring all the furries!
Everywhere furries are, they’re talking about meets for Zootopia’s opening week. My area has a proposed meet (without even a location) and already 44 are signed up. At this rate, they’ll pack a whole theater of their own (and it’s being arranged.) Mention the idea, and without fail everyone loves it. Many want to go in fursuit. I won’t be surprised if furmeets makes headlines. I feel like this movie will bring Furry Fever like no other. Is this happening in your area, too?
Why go to the movies in costume? You’re just sitting in the dark. Well, for some it’s just a great excuse to celebrate a shared experience with fandom. (NOTE: There has been a lot of confusion about this. It doesn’t mean to wear a costume DURING the movie.)
Here’s a sign of the hype. In June, maker Crafty Critters went outside furry preference for all-original characters by making a Nick Wilde Cosplay fursuit. It appeared astonishingly early after Disney’s June 11 release of the Zootopia trailer – just in time for Anthrocon.
At Anthrocon. Nobody knows who the owner is.
Buzz kill – Theaters are getting paranoid about security and banning masks. (NOTE: the entire article was completed prior to tragedies in France.)
Read the rest of this entry »
Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag. Guest posts welcome. Tips: patch.ofurr@gmail.com.
NPR interviews Tempe O’Kun, furry favorite author (again.)
Hear the interview on the radio site. Talk to Tempe on his FA post about it.
About a year ago, NPR station Prairie Public’s “Main Street” show interviewed Tempe about cuddly Furry romance writing. Lucky dog! It was 23 minutes of super respectful attention. My notice about it brought Tempe here, to share an exclusive peek at his novel Windfall and work for the Nordguard card game. Thanks Tempe, and keep it coming.
A Zootopia animator “publicly and positively acknowledged furries.” (Tip: Crossaffliction on Flayrah.)
Disney animator of the film #Zootopia, @stodoe, welcomes furries! See parent tweet. You heard it here "fur"st! https://t.co/4kIrge2YYn
— 🐾 SeiRruf Wilde (@SeiRruf) November 6, 2015
The tweet is taken down. VERY CURIOUS. I wonder if Disney is controlling marketing strategy for something they want strictly behind the scenes, to tease but not come right out about it. This subculture is tiny, but buzz can be mighty.
I sent an interview request to the animator, and told him: “You may be aware that we’re all going NUTS about this movie. Some active areas already have meets organized to wear costumes out to the theater (and I think that’s going to happen everywhere.)”
Some furries have always known that Tony the Tiger is a stud. Trashy news blogs discovered our crush and went nuts. (They’re late to the party.)
Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag. Guest posts welcome. Tips: patch.ofurr@gmail.com.
Halloween treats: Popularity for Rocket Raccoon, and some looks at the culture of costuming.
Mom’s costume creation goes viral, ‘wins’ Halloween 2015. A very lucky kid in Michigan got to be an accurately-diminutive Rocket Raccoon, complete with moving jaw. It got shared on Facebook by the director of Guardians of The Galaxy. This isn’t claimed to be overtly “furry”, but when Mom makes cosplay outfits for Comic Con… it makes you wonder what research helped to build it from scratch.
UPDATE: The maker confirmed to me that Furry tutorials helped build it. I asked her opinion of furries, and she says:
It’s some tough work everyone does and all of you should be proud. I made so many mistakes because there aren’t a lot of tutorials for doing stuff like this. I honestly didn’t know too much about furries until I was trying to research how to make a movable mouth for my son.
In Huntsville Alabama, inside the business of Fig Leaf Costumes: “it looks like a dressing room for furries in here.” Read between the lines, and the article might involve us, maybe indirectly. There’s this thoughtful tidbit:
So why does he still enjoy playing dress up at age 35? “I love how people react. If you dressed up as a character they love they come over and give you a hug. It’s just a good feeling,” says Harrison, who along with his girlfriend plans to dress up in a couples costume for Halloween this year: “Lady and The Tramp.” Burkholder thinks the trend of adults continuing to dress in costumes, for Halloween and otherwise, is due to “Gen X feels a little bit lost so what we’re doing is claiming a little bit of a community for ourselves, especially with cosplay. And also with modernity people move away from so they want to form a sense of community, so whether it’s videogames or cosplay it’s people coming together. And I like that.
“Milford Schools Criticized Nationally Over ‘Halloween Ban’.” A smaller city in Connecticut planned to stop costuming at some public schools. That quickly changed after everyone growled about political correctness. It reminds me of a similar-sized city in Vermont banning fursuiters. Are they just too uptight in New England? Are some people afraid of self-expression?
16 year sentence for McGruff the Crime Dog.
“The actor who played the crime-fighting cartoon character McGruff the Crime Dog, was sentenced to 16 years in prison stemming from a 2011 arrest in which police seized 1,000 marijuana plants, 27 weapons – including a grenade launcher – and 9,000 rounds of ammunition from his home…”
Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag. Guest posts welcome. Tips: patch.ofurr@gmail.com.
“Bonnie Hunt provides the voice of Bonnie Hopps. Judy’s mother. Don Lake voices Judy’s father, Stu Hopps, a carrot farmer from Bunnyburrow. (Disney)”
USA Today shares a lot of new Zootopia images and story hints.
Are you excited for Disney’s new furriest movie? Mrs. Otterton’s missing husband spurs the action on. There’s “Duke Weaselton, a small-time weasel crook with a big-time mouth”. Judy Hopps is “a ground-breaking rabbit trying to make it as a cop” – it sounds like bunnies usually aren’t cops, so we get a nice hint about what species means in the Zootopia world. Enjoy more from USA Today’s exclusive Facebook gallery.
You know furries everywhere are getting ready for the 2016 Furmageddon*… in the SF Bay area, dozens are already signed up to go fursuiting to the opening in March. (*I’ve been reminded that Furpocalypse is a convention happening this weekend.)
Furries on NCIS Los Angeles.
Last week there was a CSI-style bad furry stereotype on iZombie. This week, two NCIS characters revealed furriness.
Go to 18:00 in the link. The important part starts at around 19:00. It goes for about a minute, with one more remark before the scene cuts at 21:00. It’s lightly humorous, maybe flirty banter between the two characters. They joke about how furry conventions can “go off the rails”, but that’s the worst judgement. They discuss fursonas and share appreciation, making a nice, innocuous minute in the pop culture spotlight. Isn’t that a relief?
"Yeah, I've been to Califur a few times."
— CaliFur Wild West 🐴 (@Califur) October 20, 2015
Check out the episode for yourself:https://t.co/ZfJ3cgzm8F pic.twitter.com/fFhMP6rOuE
Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag. Tips are always welcome.
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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.
