The Convention: Furlandia
The Place: Sheraton Portland Airport Hotel
The dates: 25-27 May 2018
The Theme: Poodle Skirts and Duck Tails
Furlandia is Portland own Furry convention now in its sixth year. Both Kaiju Kitties and Choccat plushes were my companions.
There once was a joke within Republican circles, that defines a hatemonger as a conservative who is arguing with a liberal and the conservative is winning.
Patch at Dogpatch press made another vision casting proclamation:
“Over the last 2 years with the demise of Vine, many Furries have started to migrate over to YouTube. Many have amassed groups of followers, hold regular livestreams on Twitch, or have Patreons. And some have used this platform as a guise to get away with borderline toxic or outright hateful behavior.”
So what is this toxic or outright hateful behavior? He list Trump Supporters, JonTron, and 2 the Ranting Gryphon as examples. The problem is I cannot I find anything hateful about them. I disagree with Jon Tron and Trump, but that does not make them hateful. Patches’ standard is anything I disagree with is hate speech.
It is not the Fury Youtubers of different political persuasion are toxic but vision casting tyrants like the members of Anthrocon board towards 2, Patch, Deo, and Cultrally F’d. They that feel the need to cast vision for the fandom and drum out any who disagree with their vision. We do not need a leader in the fandom. We not your community to toy with. I do not need a community to be furry. The furry fandom is about the love and interest in anthropomorphic animals in art , literature, and fursuiting.
One can express ideas from Right or Left, sexual orientation, and religion in the fandom. We may disagree and create alternative (i.e LGBT or Christian fur groups). What we must not do is to make one politics standard for the entire fandom. My view borrowed for my view of Christian liberty, is one can speak for themselves but cannot make their scruples the rule for the entire furry fandom. Politics is irrelevant in the Furry fandom. The fandom should be a place and time where a Christian conservative and a Transgendered leftist, who disagree on 90% of anything, can come to at a con and have civilized discussion what they have in common, the love of anthropomorphic characters. If you do not like that then the exit door is to the right. please leave quietly.
I was sad about the bullying that Emma had to face. For those who do not know Emma is a 10 year old furry that was harassed by a at the photo shoot at 2018 Biggest Little Fur Con. It was so bad Emma left in tears not wanting to be a furry again. Yes, it was one of the Wal-Mart fursuit head but this is no reason to go down and torment a kid. I am glad to see how the fandom came together and went above and beyond to resolve the issue. The showered her with art and arranged a private photo shoot with her. Some more popular furuiters like Telephone were present.
There Patch O Fur goes again, hunting imaginary Nazis in the fandom.
Recently Dogpatch Press had release another round logical fallacies dressed as news of news alleging Andrew Anglin, the neo-Nazi shill of the Daily Stormer, accepting and encouraging the Alt Furs. Dogpacth press’ argument on this post and others built shaky foundation of tweets taken out of context and generalizations.
It was a shock for me to read on the Funday Pawpet site; because of the lost of fur stream and the never ending copyright bureaucracy in trying to keep up with licensing and not getting flag, they decided to end the show after almost 18 years.
Now at first I thought the Pwapets show could done a lot to rectify the issues. They could retool tool show to rely less on copyrighted media. The fandom has grown in 18 years; they could find talented furry writers to help with scripts. They could even sell the show or invite others, transition new people, and a different studio as they transition out.
Then it hit me: 18 years is a lot of life to give up. I cannot image personal opportunities and relationships they may have put on hold to bring us a slice of furry zaniness every Sunday. Frankly the deserve retirement and a chance to move on to other interest.
I was a regular watcher of the show most Sundays. However, alas living without a car and long public transportation commutes mean I could not watch all be the last hour. So thank you for 10 years reminding for the fun and creativity that reminds me each Sunday what the Furry fandom is about.
So ’til we, meet again, Adios, Au Revoir, Auf Wiedersehn. Goodnight!!!