1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:07,000 Downloaded from YTS.MX 2 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:13,000 Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX 3 00:00:08,884 --> 00:00:11,553 ♪ 4 00:00:11,845 --> 00:00:14,473 (eerie whistling) 5 00:00:18,435 --> 00:00:21,522 - [Rod] There's this weird thing that humans do. 6 00:00:22,898 --> 00:00:27,694 We take animals and we put our words into their mouths 7 00:00:29,488 --> 00:00:33,492 to talk back to us, usually about us. 8 00:00:34,868 --> 00:00:36,036 It's a very strange thing, 9 00:00:36,328 --> 00:00:37,955 but we've done it for centuries. 10 00:00:43,335 --> 00:00:45,671 We learned to read from anthropomorphic animals. 11 00:00:45,963 --> 00:00:48,882 We learn right from wrong from anthropomorphic animals. 12 00:00:49,174 --> 00:00:50,676 But most people don't notice it. 13 00:00:57,558 --> 00:01:01,603 Furry fans are the people who notice that we do this, 14 00:01:02,646 --> 00:01:03,926 and think that there's something 15 00:01:04,064 --> 00:01:05,691 really special about that. 16 00:01:12,614 --> 00:01:14,384 - Well, like the dictionary definition you get 17 00:01:14,408 --> 00:01:16,451 is furry is a community of people 18 00:01:16,743 --> 00:01:19,413 that enjoy anthropomorphic art, right? 19 00:01:19,705 --> 00:01:21,705 - [Nonstoppup] I feel like it's way more than that. 20 00:01:22,666 --> 00:01:27,504 It's a social space that is largely queer, 21 00:01:28,589 --> 00:01:33,468 and gravitates around, using art as the vehicle 22 00:01:33,760 --> 00:01:35,345 to explore identity. 23 00:01:39,766 --> 00:01:41,435 - I sucked at drawing people, 24 00:01:41,727 --> 00:01:43,437 so I would draw animals and everything. 25 00:01:43,729 --> 00:01:46,481 - I sort of anthropomorphized my own dog 26 00:01:46,773 --> 00:01:48,413 in a lot of my drawings, stuff like that. 27 00:01:48,692 --> 00:01:52,863 - I was a part of a Lion King archive online, 28 00:01:53,155 --> 00:01:56,450 and everybody role plays as lions. 29 00:01:56,742 --> 00:01:59,161 And I remember just thinking, guys, the lions are great, 30 00:01:59,453 --> 00:02:01,455 but what if we were wolves? 31 00:02:01,747 --> 00:02:02,867 And they're like, ew, furry. 32 00:02:02,998 --> 00:02:05,792 And I was like, furry? (laughs) 33 00:02:06,084 --> 00:02:09,921 - I had my first word to get to this feeling that I had. 34 00:02:11,298 --> 00:02:13,050 - Yes, yeah, I did your shirt. 35 00:02:14,009 --> 00:02:15,844 I was initially into cosplay. 36 00:02:16,136 --> 00:02:18,013 I cosplayed a lot of anime characters. 37 00:02:18,305 --> 00:02:19,305 - I'm not alone. 38 00:02:19,514 --> 00:02:21,933 There are other people out there that are into this. 39 00:02:23,769 --> 00:02:28,106 I didn't come out fully, 'cause furry was taboo back then. 40 00:02:28,398 --> 00:02:30,067 It's something weird, something odd. 41 00:02:30,359 --> 00:02:32,361 It doesn't help that media never really had 42 00:02:32,653 --> 00:02:35,197 a positive point of view to begin with. 43 00:02:36,490 --> 00:02:37,824 - But I'm always grateful 44 00:02:38,116 --> 00:02:39,316 for the friends that I've made 45 00:02:39,368 --> 00:02:41,370 and the people that I've met along the way. 46 00:02:41,662 --> 00:02:44,206 It's just a fundamental part of who I am. 47 00:02:44,498 --> 00:02:47,584 - So I'm not super familiar 48 00:02:47,876 --> 00:02:49,020 with the history of the fandom. 49 00:02:49,044 --> 00:02:51,546 I know, I think it originated 50 00:02:51,838 --> 00:02:54,675 out of a sci-fi convention in the 80s, 51 00:02:54,966 --> 00:02:57,803 and I want to say probably California. 52 00:03:11,233 --> 00:03:13,985 (cups clattering) 53 00:03:19,074 --> 00:03:22,536 (wind chime clinks) 54 00:03:22,828 --> 00:03:25,914 - I was already known as the science fiction geek 55 00:03:26,206 --> 00:03:27,624 of the family. 56 00:03:27,916 --> 00:03:31,086 The movie geek and the Disney geek. 57 00:03:31,378 --> 00:03:33,797 I've been all of these things since I was a kid. 58 00:03:44,057 --> 00:03:47,310 - I've been interested IN science fiction fandom 59 00:03:47,602 --> 00:03:49,187 since the 1970s, when I went to 60 00:03:49,479 --> 00:03:50,856 my first Star Trek convention. 61 00:03:52,899 --> 00:03:53,984 I was a Navy brat. 62 00:03:57,237 --> 00:03:59,656 Our family would go to the movie theater 63 00:03:59,948 --> 00:04:04,453 at the Air Navy base in St. Louis and watch films. 64 00:04:04,745 --> 00:04:07,065 - [Rod] One of the first times I've ever been to a theater, 65 00:04:07,205 --> 00:04:08,290 my dad hated them. 66 00:04:08,582 --> 00:04:10,000 He much preferred drive-ins, 67 00:04:10,292 --> 00:04:11,644 but somehow we talked him into going 68 00:04:11,668 --> 00:04:14,713 to a sit down theater to see "Robin Hood." 69 00:04:16,506 --> 00:04:20,927 - [Mark] And I would fuss and cry and squirm always, 70 00:04:21,219 --> 00:04:23,972 except in the movie "Bambi." 71 00:04:27,434 --> 00:04:30,270 - [Rod] I was immediately hooked. 72 00:04:30,562 --> 00:04:33,607 I was into that cartoon. 73 00:04:40,906 --> 00:04:42,574 - [Mark] I just loved animation. 74 00:04:42,866 --> 00:04:45,118 What it looked like and also how it was done. 75 00:04:46,745 --> 00:04:49,790 - [Rod] I'm into it in a way that my school friends aren't. 76 00:04:50,081 --> 00:04:52,334 I'm into it in a way that my parents aren't. 77 00:04:52,626 --> 00:04:53,835 So what do I do? 78 00:04:55,253 --> 00:04:58,799 I was looking for fandom. 79 00:04:59,090 --> 00:05:00,450 A bunch of people getting together 80 00:05:00,592 --> 00:05:03,220 and geeking out with each other about media. 81 00:05:07,224 --> 00:05:08,975 - [Mark] We traveled across the country 82 00:05:09,267 --> 00:05:12,562 and ended up moving to California in 1958. 83 00:05:14,564 --> 00:05:17,442 - [Rod] I live in Southern California, close to Hollywood, 84 00:05:17,734 --> 00:05:18,753 the media capital of the world, 85 00:05:18,777 --> 00:05:20,195 or at least it was at the time. 86 00:05:20,487 --> 00:05:22,489 - [Director] Background places, please. 87 00:05:22,781 --> 00:05:25,784 - This is lovely. - Oh, it's lovely. 88 00:05:26,076 --> 00:05:28,620 - [Man] Turn around, let's see your back. 89 00:05:28,912 --> 00:05:31,748 - [Camerawoman] You had a nice pose, want to try it again? 90 00:05:32,040 --> 00:05:33,583 - [Rod] LosCon 1980. 91 00:05:33,875 --> 00:05:36,878 The local Southern California science fiction convention. 92 00:05:37,170 --> 00:05:39,172 That was the first convention that I'd ever been to 93 00:05:39,464 --> 00:05:40,507 that had an art show. 94 00:05:40,799 --> 00:05:42,968 And it was beautiful. 95 00:05:43,260 --> 00:05:46,471 A lot of it was princesses in flowing gowns, 96 00:05:46,763 --> 00:05:50,350 star fields that you'd see on the side of someone's van. 97 00:05:50,642 --> 00:05:52,362 And a lot of it was just absolutely amazing. 98 00:05:52,561 --> 00:05:54,229 But then here are these pictures 99 00:05:55,397 --> 00:06:00,318 of these semi-anthropomorphic weasel characters 100 00:06:00,652 --> 00:06:02,904 with antennas like bugs. 101 00:06:05,115 --> 00:06:07,701 A friend of mine said, Rodney, you gotta see these, 102 00:06:07,993 --> 00:06:10,203 'cause they knew I wouldn't shut up 103 00:06:10,495 --> 00:06:13,790 about my enjoyment of mustelid characters. 104 00:06:14,082 --> 00:06:16,251 In school, I was considered very weird for that. 105 00:06:17,919 --> 00:06:21,756 So I asked them at the art show, who does this art? 106 00:06:23,508 --> 00:06:26,678 - [Mark] I had a video room at LosCon seven 107 00:06:28,096 --> 00:06:32,851 showing some anime, some science fiction TV shows. 108 00:06:35,979 --> 00:06:38,940 And this tall guy comes up and goes... 109 00:06:39,232 --> 00:06:42,485 - Why do your pine martens have antennas? 110 00:06:43,653 --> 00:06:47,157 - Oh my, this person recognizes 111 00:06:47,449 --> 00:06:49,409 the kind of animals I'm drawing. 112 00:06:49,701 --> 00:06:51,745 Most people thought they were cats. 113 00:06:52,037 --> 00:06:55,081 And I said, well, sit down and I'll explain it to you. 114 00:07:03,256 --> 00:07:04,674 We loved Japanese animation 115 00:07:04,966 --> 00:07:08,845 and nobody knew about it except for the few shows 116 00:07:32,410 --> 00:07:35,705 By 1977, myself and four other people, 117 00:07:35,997 --> 00:07:38,249 some of whom were animators in the business, 118 00:07:38,541 --> 00:07:39,793 actually TV animators. 119 00:07:40,085 --> 00:07:42,212 We decided more people should see this stuff 120 00:07:42,504 --> 00:07:43,504 and started a club. 121 00:07:44,255 --> 00:07:45,757 And it was the first anime club. 122 00:07:46,800 --> 00:07:50,679 - The very first anime fan club in America. 123 00:07:53,515 --> 00:07:55,809 - A lot of the people that came to the meetings 124 00:07:56,101 --> 00:07:58,853 were also into animal characters. 125 00:08:01,690 --> 00:08:04,651 Which is why the mascot of the club 126 00:08:04,943 --> 00:08:06,528 became one of my Skiltaire, 127 00:08:07,529 --> 00:08:11,408 which are sort of an alien mammal based on weasels. 128 00:08:24,963 --> 00:08:26,881 Rodney would come to the screenings 129 00:08:27,173 --> 00:08:28,758 and we'd hang out and talk. 130 00:08:29,050 --> 00:08:31,886 And we saw each other more and more and more after that. 131 00:08:37,350 --> 00:08:38,351 Here were two people 132 00:08:38,643 --> 00:08:41,229 who came from very different backgrounds, 133 00:08:41,521 --> 00:08:43,273 but we were paralleling each other 134 00:08:43,565 --> 00:08:48,361 amazingly on interests and passions. 135 00:08:48,653 --> 00:08:53,324 Movies, animation, novels, comics. 136 00:08:53,658 --> 00:08:58,204 And a few years later, we decided to become a couple. 137 00:09:03,752 --> 00:09:05,628 - Rod and Mark are effectively, 138 00:09:05,920 --> 00:09:07,547 the grandparents in the furry fandom. 139 00:09:08,715 --> 00:09:10,595 I consider them the parents of the furry fandom, 140 00:09:10,759 --> 00:09:12,279 but I've also been in the furry fandom 141 00:09:12,385 --> 00:09:13,762 for 20 years at this point. 142 00:09:17,932 --> 00:09:21,144 The Prancing Skiltaire household is like a museum 143 00:09:21,436 --> 00:09:25,732 and library of furry things. 144 00:09:26,024 --> 00:09:27,817 They had figurines all over the place. 145 00:09:31,529 --> 00:09:34,741 They have bookcases and bookshelves of furry comics, 146 00:09:35,033 --> 00:09:36,826 of anime comics, of sci-fi. 147 00:09:39,788 --> 00:09:42,749 - [Rod] So this is San Diego Comic Con one year. 148 00:09:43,041 --> 00:09:46,294 This is Don Bluth and Douglas Adams. 149 00:09:46,586 --> 00:09:47,921 Me. 150 00:09:48,213 --> 00:09:49,213 - [Rod] Remember they had 151 00:09:50,131 --> 00:09:52,251 the live action muppet? - The live action muppet show. 152 00:10:00,391 --> 00:10:01,991 - [Rod] There was lots and lots and lots 153 00:10:02,060 --> 00:10:03,561 of science fiction conventions. 154 00:10:04,813 --> 00:10:06,481 - [Attendee] Ah yeah! 155 00:10:07,649 --> 00:10:10,443 - We saw the birth of the comic book shop. 156 00:10:11,861 --> 00:10:13,696 - In the 70s, it was a time when 157 00:10:13,988 --> 00:10:16,366 the Comics Code was still heavily enforced, 158 00:10:16,658 --> 00:10:19,327 and so comic books all had to be black and white, 159 00:10:19,619 --> 00:10:22,455 good and evil, superhero comics basically. 160 00:10:22,747 --> 00:10:24,267 But there were these groups of artists 161 00:10:24,374 --> 00:10:26,734 who were just chomping at the bit to do something different, 162 00:10:26,876 --> 00:10:28,503 to do something, not superheroes, 163 00:10:28,795 --> 00:10:30,964 to do something Funny Animal. 164 00:10:36,594 --> 00:10:39,472 - [Rod] Funny Animal does not mean animals that are funny. 165 00:10:39,764 --> 00:10:42,892 It means animals that are in the funnies. 166 00:10:43,184 --> 00:10:44,769 - A lot of people think Funny Animal 167 00:10:45,061 --> 00:10:46,980 and think that it all has to go to kids, 168 00:10:47,272 --> 00:10:50,024 but a lot of it was being consumed by adults as well, 169 00:10:50,316 --> 00:10:52,360 especially in the underground comic scene. 170 00:10:54,320 --> 00:10:58,741 - Their sense of mischief, their sense of uninhibitedness. 171 00:10:59,033 --> 00:11:00,326 I was sort of in a family where 172 00:11:00,618 --> 00:11:02,298 I don't think there was a lot of elbow room 173 00:11:02,495 --> 00:11:04,956 for my exuberance, my imagination. 174 00:11:05,248 --> 00:11:08,042 And I think I projected a lot of that into these stories, 175 00:11:08,334 --> 00:11:09,377 into these characters. 176 00:11:09,669 --> 00:11:11,838 And I think a good deal of identification 177 00:11:12,130 --> 00:11:13,130 developed from that. 178 00:11:14,090 --> 00:11:16,301 - [Mark] Funny Animal comics used to be very popular 179 00:11:16,593 --> 00:11:19,345 before superheroes took off. 180 00:11:19,637 --> 00:11:21,014 - And they had their own fandom. 181 00:11:21,306 --> 00:11:24,017 It was very spread and had a lot of difficulty 182 00:11:24,309 --> 00:11:27,854 talking to each other in the old pre-internet days. 183 00:11:28,897 --> 00:11:31,774 - [Mark] Now they've been lost to obscurity. 184 00:11:42,035 --> 00:11:45,914 - The fandom started... pretty much- 185 00:11:46,873 --> 00:11:47,999 Old folk tend to disagree 186 00:11:48,291 --> 00:11:50,084 on where exactly it began, 187 00:11:50,376 --> 00:11:54,214 but the commonly accepted starting point 188 00:11:54,505 --> 00:11:57,258 was a painting done by the artist Steve Gallacci. 189 00:11:57,550 --> 00:12:00,803 He had created a character, a furry character, 190 00:12:01,095 --> 00:12:03,723 a pilot in a futuristic spaceship. 191 00:12:04,015 --> 00:12:06,643 This piece was hanging up in an art show 192 00:12:06,935 --> 00:12:09,145 at an east coast science fiction convention. 193 00:12:09,437 --> 00:12:10,706 Now what you have to understand is 194 00:12:10,730 --> 00:12:13,274 that hadn't been done before. 195 00:12:13,566 --> 00:12:16,152 A furry, an anthropomorphic character, 196 00:12:16,444 --> 00:12:19,155 was limited to a coyote hitting the bottom of a cliff, 197 00:12:19,447 --> 00:12:20,949 standing up dusting himself off 198 00:12:21,241 --> 00:12:22,533 and going to the Acme catalog. 199 00:12:23,785 --> 00:12:26,037 - [Summercat] He also published one of the very first 200 00:12:26,329 --> 00:12:28,248 furry anthology comics, "Albedo." 201 00:12:29,791 --> 00:12:31,334 Steve had a whole world 202 00:12:31,626 --> 00:12:34,420 about these anthropomorphic animals in outer space 203 00:12:34,712 --> 00:12:38,466 and their politics, and war between different groups. 204 00:12:38,758 --> 00:12:41,177 It really caught people's imaginations. 205 00:12:44,013 --> 00:12:45,723 - It was from discussion of his work 206 00:12:46,015 --> 00:12:48,017 that led to the very first furry party, 207 00:12:48,309 --> 00:12:50,853 directly led to the very first furry party, actually. 208 00:12:51,145 --> 00:12:52,331 Cause they moved to discussion 209 00:12:52,355 --> 00:12:53,773 from in front of his art panel 210 00:12:54,065 --> 00:12:56,109 to a private room to continue the discussion. 211 00:12:57,735 --> 00:13:00,488 - It started out as gatherings of people 212 00:13:00,780 --> 00:13:03,741 in room parties at science fiction conventions. 213 00:13:04,659 --> 00:13:07,245 (people laughing) 214 00:13:07,537 --> 00:13:09,181 - [Joe] His fans would show up and he discuss 215 00:13:09,205 --> 00:13:11,332 this universe he'd created. 216 00:13:11,624 --> 00:13:12,768 - And that was the beginning. 217 00:13:12,792 --> 00:13:15,169 That was around 1980 or there about. 218 00:13:18,172 --> 00:13:19,632 - [Joe] These room parties somehow 219 00:13:19,924 --> 00:13:22,760 got the name of furry parties. 220 00:13:23,094 --> 00:13:26,431 - The term 'furry' had got around and stuck enough 221 00:13:26,723 --> 00:13:29,517 that when we had another party 222 00:13:29,809 --> 00:13:33,730 at Westercon 1986 in San Diego, 223 00:13:34,022 --> 00:13:36,065 we decided to call it a furry party. 224 00:13:38,151 --> 00:13:40,445 All of these artists were amazed 225 00:13:40,737 --> 00:13:42,256 that there were other people out there 226 00:13:42,280 --> 00:13:44,490 drawing quote, unquote, Funny Animals 227 00:13:44,782 --> 00:13:45,825 in the way that they did. 228 00:13:51,414 --> 00:13:53,416 - Someone would walk into our party, 229 00:13:53,708 --> 00:13:55,376 pull out a sketchbook and say, 230 00:13:55,668 --> 00:13:57,795 I was the only one I thought that was drawing 231 00:13:58,129 --> 00:13:59,129 this kind of stuff. 232 00:14:00,173 --> 00:14:02,342 And that just kept happening again and again. 233 00:14:03,468 --> 00:14:07,013 - They had this same revelation as I did. 234 00:14:07,305 --> 00:14:08,556 I'm not the only one. 235 00:14:08,848 --> 00:14:10,008 I always thought I was weird. 236 00:14:10,266 --> 00:14:12,268 I always thought no one else would understand. 237 00:14:12,560 --> 00:14:15,772 And here are people who are just like me. 238 00:14:19,150 --> 00:14:22,153 - (TV plays cartoon) 239 00:14:23,905 --> 00:14:26,366 - It was like a quest to find more people 240 00:14:26,657 --> 00:14:28,576 who like the same thing we liked. 241 00:14:30,328 --> 00:14:35,249 And it became the most important thing in our lives. 242 00:14:35,875 --> 00:14:37,877 - I wanted to jump up on the Empire State Building 243 00:14:38,169 --> 00:14:39,754 and singing an aria about it. 244 00:14:40,046 --> 00:14:44,509 I thought we had stumbled across something just so cool. 245 00:14:54,435 --> 00:14:56,145 Well, this is a classic Merlino. 246 00:14:58,481 --> 00:15:00,942 This is the AvantGarden Gallery in downtown Santa Ana. 247 00:15:01,234 --> 00:15:03,194 It's part of their arts district. 248 00:15:03,486 --> 00:15:04,862 Mark and I have been hosting 249 00:15:05,154 --> 00:15:07,281 what we call the art of furry fandom, 250 00:15:07,573 --> 00:15:09,742 where we gather furry artists together 251 00:15:10,034 --> 00:15:11,702 and have them put their stuff on display 252 00:15:11,994 --> 00:15:14,247 along with all of this quote, unquote regular art 253 00:15:26,008 --> 00:15:28,636 - Here was our art show and our sponsor lounge, 254 00:15:28,928 --> 00:15:31,764 couple of panel rooms here, and a mini fursuit lounge. 255 00:15:32,056 --> 00:15:34,559 And then here was our game room. 256 00:15:34,851 --> 00:15:37,895 Hi, I'm Bubbles, I'm 25. 257 00:15:38,229 --> 00:15:39,689 I'm the convention chair for 258 00:15:39,981 --> 00:15:41,399 five different furry conventions, 259 00:15:41,691 --> 00:15:44,652 including DenFur here in Denver, Colorado. 260 00:15:48,698 --> 00:15:50,700 The hotel will give us this whole space 261 00:15:50,992 --> 00:15:52,410 and we choose how we use it. 262 00:15:53,536 --> 00:15:55,663 A little meet-and-greet area. 263 00:15:55,955 --> 00:15:58,958 Some board-gaming and then our big, main events room. 264 00:16:01,627 --> 00:16:04,464 (crowd chattering) 265 00:16:23,649 --> 00:16:24,969 We have had hotels that are like, 266 00:16:25,067 --> 00:16:29,864 so I looked up this stuff and what the heck is this? 267 00:16:30,156 --> 00:16:32,241 I mean, DenFur is like 268 00:16:32,533 --> 00:16:35,036 a celebration of the anthropomorphic arts. 269 00:16:37,580 --> 00:16:40,541 Well, I found furry probably, oh, 270 00:16:40,833 --> 00:16:42,293 probably junior high-ish. 271 00:16:42,585 --> 00:16:44,128 I didn't know what furry was yet. 272 00:16:44,420 --> 00:16:47,715 That was back in the days of Neopets on the internet. 273 00:16:48,007 --> 00:16:49,675 I found all those message boards, 274 00:16:49,967 --> 00:16:51,969 and I'm like, these are my people. 275 00:16:52,261 --> 00:16:53,261 I guess I'm here. 276 00:16:56,432 --> 00:16:57,952 My parents, they always thought it was 277 00:16:58,059 --> 00:16:59,685 some weird kinky thing that like, 278 00:16:59,977 --> 00:17:01,771 what is my daughter doing? 279 00:17:02,063 --> 00:17:04,815 The fandom growing up was kind of a hobby, 280 00:17:05,107 --> 00:17:07,151 especially working as a medic. 281 00:17:07,443 --> 00:17:08,843 It was a side thing that I could do 282 00:17:09,111 --> 00:17:10,404 and enjoy outside of work. 283 00:17:12,615 --> 00:17:15,284 Now I run conventions. 284 00:17:15,576 --> 00:17:17,703 I mean, my life is the fandom, 285 00:17:17,995 --> 00:17:21,332 and I don't know where I would be now without it. 286 00:17:23,584 --> 00:17:26,420 (crowd chattering) 287 00:17:45,773 --> 00:17:49,610 - [Mark] We had the creators, the people that made art. 288 00:17:51,404 --> 00:17:53,447 They were fans of comic strips. 289 00:17:53,739 --> 00:17:55,449 They were fans of comic books 290 00:17:55,741 --> 00:17:59,537 and they were all aiming to be in that business. 291 00:18:10,506 --> 00:18:14,552 - Reed Waller started an APA-zine called "Vootie." 292 00:18:14,844 --> 00:18:15,904 It had Funny Animals in it, 293 00:18:15,928 --> 00:18:18,639 but it was more of an underground influence. 294 00:18:18,931 --> 00:18:22,226 - APA, A-P-A, amateur press association. 295 00:18:22,518 --> 00:18:24,270 - All the members of this APA-zine 296 00:18:24,562 --> 00:18:26,731 would make photocopies of their artwork 297 00:18:27,023 --> 00:18:28,143 and send it into the editor, 298 00:18:28,316 --> 00:18:30,234 who would compile the entire book together, 299 00:18:30,526 --> 00:18:33,070 and then send a copy out to all the members. 300 00:18:33,362 --> 00:18:34,864 - And then you would get back, 301 00:18:35,156 --> 00:18:38,159 here's my work and 25 or 30 other works. 302 00:18:38,451 --> 00:18:39,660 - This is how a lot of people 303 00:18:39,952 --> 00:18:43,539 over a large geographical area got a chance to get feedback 304 00:18:43,831 --> 00:18:47,084 from other artists, authors, and creators. 305 00:18:47,376 --> 00:18:49,211 - There was literally this giant culture 306 00:18:49,503 --> 00:18:50,981 of people who were talking to each other 307 00:18:51,005 --> 00:18:52,673 by writing into the letters columns 308 00:18:52,965 --> 00:18:54,800 of their favorite magazines. 309 00:18:55,134 --> 00:18:57,136 It was like the internet in slow motion. 310 00:19:02,933 --> 00:19:05,061 We were a very strange fandom. 311 00:19:05,353 --> 00:19:10,066 We didn't fully grasp how strange we were going in, 312 00:19:10,358 --> 00:19:14,612 but we were not a fandom of a property, 313 00:19:14,904 --> 00:19:17,823 nor were we a fandom of a genre. 314 00:19:18,115 --> 00:19:21,535 Other fandoms would look at us and get extremely confused. 315 00:19:21,827 --> 00:19:22,827 What are you about? 316 00:19:23,704 --> 00:19:25,414 WHO are you about? 317 00:19:26,499 --> 00:19:30,878 All of those specificities don't matter. 318 00:19:31,170 --> 00:19:34,256 It's the overarching: animals-doing-things- 319 00:19:34,548 --> 00:19:36,926 that-animals-don't-do, thing, 320 00:19:37,218 --> 00:19:39,136 that binds this all together. 321 00:19:39,428 --> 00:19:42,348 Beyond that, it can be anything. 322 00:19:44,392 --> 00:19:46,472 - Probably the earliest furry work I would talk about 323 00:19:46,686 --> 00:19:48,771 is a Omaha the Cat Dancer, 324 00:19:49,063 --> 00:19:52,900 which exists because Taral Wayne who was fairly influential 325 00:19:53,192 --> 00:19:57,405 in the early furry fandom wrote a letter to "Vootie." 326 00:20:09,625 --> 00:20:12,128 (crowd laughs) 327 00:20:13,796 --> 00:20:15,923 - In response, Kate Worley and Reed Waller 328 00:20:16,215 --> 00:20:17,925 came up with Omaha the cat dancer, 329 00:20:18,843 --> 00:20:22,930 which is about a exotic pole-dancing feline 330 00:20:23,222 --> 00:20:26,100 and her boyfriend and sometimes girlfriend. 331 00:20:26,392 --> 00:20:28,436 It gets a complicated storyline sometimes. 332 00:20:29,687 --> 00:20:31,188 It was story with drama, 333 00:20:31,480 --> 00:20:33,941 it was a story with realistic action, 334 00:20:34,233 --> 00:20:35,901 with character motivations. 335 00:20:41,365 --> 00:20:43,117 Omaha was widely acclaimed 336 00:20:43,409 --> 00:20:47,079 as a great pro-feminist comic as well 337 00:20:47,371 --> 00:20:49,832 because it showed a female main character 338 00:20:50,124 --> 00:20:52,084 in control of her own destiny, 339 00:20:52,376 --> 00:20:56,338 and she didn't let society decide what she wanted. 340 00:21:24,533 --> 00:21:25,785 - We had all quietly discovered 341 00:21:26,076 --> 00:21:30,873 that part of what brought us to furry characters, 342 00:21:31,957 --> 00:21:33,042 anthropomorphic characters, 343 00:21:33,334 --> 00:21:36,170 was that we thought they could be sexy. 344 00:21:36,462 --> 00:21:38,047 It seemed kind of obvious 345 00:21:38,339 --> 00:21:39,819 when you saw some of these characters 346 00:21:40,090 --> 00:21:41,383 and how they were designed 347 00:21:41,675 --> 00:21:44,178 that they were intended to be sexy. 348 00:21:45,137 --> 00:21:47,723 (crowd cheers) 349 00:21:48,015 --> 00:21:49,600 We felt we were just kind of 350 00:21:49,892 --> 00:21:52,812 jumping on a big existing bandwagon. 351 00:21:57,316 --> 00:22:00,236 The very first conventions I ever went to, 352 00:22:00,569 --> 00:22:03,739 there were erotic material of every fandom. 353 00:22:10,830 --> 00:22:14,542 So of course, furry is full of sexuality 354 00:22:14,834 --> 00:22:18,003 because furry is full of human beings 355 00:22:18,295 --> 00:22:21,632 who are alive and thinking and feeling. 356 00:22:27,930 --> 00:22:30,432 - [Mark] Ken Sample quite often would draw 357 00:22:30,724 --> 00:22:34,395 this little cougar guy that looked an awful lot like Ken. 358 00:22:35,396 --> 00:22:38,148 We started calling that character Ken Cougar. 359 00:22:39,567 --> 00:22:42,695 We thought, hey, we should have our own character too 360 00:22:42,987 --> 00:22:44,321 that's actually us. 361 00:22:46,824 --> 00:22:49,243 This was a big shift in the fandom. 362 00:22:49,535 --> 00:22:54,331 We went from fans of animal people to being animal people. 363 00:22:56,000 --> 00:22:59,086 ♪ 364 00:23:11,223 --> 00:23:14,685 - [Mark] This created an explosion in art demand. 365 00:23:15,728 --> 00:23:18,564 (crowd chattering) 366 00:23:28,574 --> 00:23:33,120 - A fursona is someone's character that represents them. 367 00:23:35,122 --> 00:23:37,791 That may be how they see themselves. 368 00:23:38,083 --> 00:23:40,002 It may be an aspirational character, 369 00:23:40,294 --> 00:23:42,755 what they wish they were or would like to become. 370 00:23:44,423 --> 00:23:46,258 As an artist, it involves kind of 371 00:23:46,550 --> 00:23:48,469 getting inside their head and figuring out 372 00:23:48,761 --> 00:23:51,180 what is it that their fursona is saying? 373 00:23:56,226 --> 00:23:57,226 Who is this person, 374 00:23:57,269 --> 00:24:00,147 and what part of this human is this furry character, 375 00:24:00,439 --> 00:24:02,274 this fursona that you're designing? 376 00:24:02,566 --> 00:24:04,252 When you can figure that out and you show them 377 00:24:04,276 --> 00:24:05,670 the final piece of art and they're like, 378 00:24:05,694 --> 00:24:06,774 oh my gosh, that's perfect. 379 00:24:07,029 --> 00:24:08,949 That's just like the greatest thing in the world. 380 00:24:09,156 --> 00:24:09,782 - Because a lot of people, 381 00:24:10,074 --> 00:24:13,953 their furry character is the better version of them. 382 00:24:14,244 --> 00:24:16,580 This would be me if I didn't have these problems 383 00:24:16,872 --> 00:24:18,999 or these things, this is the best of me. 384 00:24:19,291 --> 00:24:20,644 Cause everyone likes to think of animals 385 00:24:20,668 --> 00:24:24,338 as being more pure and more innocent and stuff like that, 386 00:24:24,630 --> 00:24:27,383 'cause humans can do some pretty dark things. 387 00:24:27,675 --> 00:24:29,551 Granted, so do animals in the real world. 388 00:24:29,843 --> 00:24:31,804 But we're not getting into that, this is fantasy. 389 00:24:32,096 --> 00:24:35,057 At least that's how I always interpreted it. 390 00:24:35,349 --> 00:24:37,101 That, and I think some people just thought 391 00:24:37,393 --> 00:24:38,519 certain animals are cute. 392 00:24:38,811 --> 00:24:42,064 - [Mark] Everybody wanted pictures of their fursonas. 393 00:24:43,524 --> 00:24:45,644 - [Rod] We started getting together discussion groups. 394 00:24:45,776 --> 00:24:47,403 What is your fursona? 395 00:24:51,031 --> 00:24:53,784 - My earliest character was a kangaroo 396 00:24:54,076 --> 00:24:56,996 named White Death because I was 13 397 00:24:57,287 --> 00:24:58,287 and I was super edgy. 398 00:24:59,665 --> 00:25:01,000 - I chose a husky. 399 00:25:01,291 --> 00:25:03,210 They were always my favorite dog, 400 00:25:03,502 --> 00:25:07,047 and the personality wise of a husky is basically me. 401 00:25:07,339 --> 00:25:09,925 - I really like border collies cause they're super smart, 402 00:25:10,217 --> 00:25:15,014 and then I was like, but I need to be ferocious like a wolf. 403 00:25:15,305 --> 00:25:17,433 It is a border Collie wolf character. 404 00:25:17,725 --> 00:25:22,312 His name was Kiguel, and I had stolen the name 405 00:25:22,604 --> 00:25:26,191 from an exchange student that was at my school. 406 00:25:26,483 --> 00:25:29,653 - I think people join furry because of how encouraging 407 00:25:29,945 --> 00:25:33,073 it is of exploring yourself, understanding yourself 408 00:25:33,365 --> 00:25:35,492 and expressing it. 409 00:25:51,383 --> 00:25:54,470 - I've been drawing for as long as I can remember. 410 00:25:54,762 --> 00:25:57,139 I just picked it up as a kid and didn't really stop. 411 00:25:59,183 --> 00:26:01,435 I'd say I identify a lot with birds. 412 00:26:02,770 --> 00:26:06,065 I'm pretty quiet, and a little bit shy or flighty. 413 00:26:06,356 --> 00:26:08,567 I deal with social anxiety and things like that. 414 00:26:12,946 --> 00:26:15,657 I feel like I have one foot in the furry fandom 415 00:26:15,949 --> 00:26:18,160 and one foot in fantasy illustration. 416 00:26:18,452 --> 00:26:21,538 There's a humanness that you can impart to animals 417 00:26:21,872 --> 00:26:23,707 or dragons or anything like that, 418 00:26:23,999 --> 00:26:26,502 where there's that ability to relate to what you're seeing, 419 00:26:26,794 --> 00:26:28,962 even though what you're seeing is fantastical. 420 00:26:29,254 --> 00:26:30,631 I think that's really powerful. 421 00:26:32,925 --> 00:26:35,094 I started doing conventions 422 00:26:35,385 --> 00:26:37,012 to go and sell my work and show it. 423 00:26:45,229 --> 00:26:46,669 I love it a lot more than just doing 424 00:26:46,897 --> 00:26:48,257 like a mainstream comic convention 425 00:26:48,524 --> 00:26:50,192 where it's all people celebrating 426 00:26:50,484 --> 00:26:52,111 other intellectual properties 427 00:26:52,402 --> 00:26:54,029 that are technically corporate. 428 00:26:54,321 --> 00:26:55,961 - [Attendee] I can't wait to do that talk 429 00:26:56,115 --> 00:26:57,950 with you tonight at 10:00 PM. 430 00:26:58,242 --> 00:26:58,867 - One of the things I really love 431 00:26:59,159 --> 00:27:02,121 about the fandom is how many people find it 432 00:27:02,412 --> 00:27:04,581 to be their path out of their shell. 433 00:27:31,233 --> 00:27:33,433 - I started looking at all the different suits and stuff 434 00:27:33,569 --> 00:27:36,905 on Google search and they just looked so unique 435 00:27:37,197 --> 00:27:38,907 and just fascinated me. 436 00:27:39,950 --> 00:27:41,743 And I was like, I can do that. 437 00:27:42,035 --> 00:27:42,578 I really wanna to do that. 438 00:27:42,870 --> 00:27:46,331 And this is another creative outlet that I can use. 439 00:27:46,623 --> 00:27:48,792 And I wanted to make my own character come to life 440 00:27:49,084 --> 00:27:50,586 and be one of those fursuits. 441 00:27:54,214 --> 00:27:57,134 I remember wearing my Luna suit for the first time. 442 00:27:58,093 --> 00:27:59,136 I ran into so many people 443 00:27:59,428 --> 00:28:00,971 that wanted to take pictures with me. 444 00:28:01,263 --> 00:28:03,390 And it was just really exciting to like go around 445 00:28:03,682 --> 00:28:06,476 and have fun in fursuit with other people in fursuit. 446 00:28:06,768 --> 00:28:07,768 - [Attendee] Ta-da! 447 00:28:08,020 --> 00:28:09,396 - You can look at their character 448 00:28:09,688 --> 00:28:11,568 and learn things about them in that very moment. 449 00:28:11,607 --> 00:28:13,150 Like what their species choice is, 450 00:28:13,442 --> 00:28:15,611 what sort of colors they're using, what their name is. 451 00:28:15,903 --> 00:28:17,463 That's all broadcasting a lot of things 452 00:28:17,529 --> 00:28:19,049 that they want you to know about them. 453 00:28:19,156 --> 00:28:20,396 And they might not even realize 454 00:28:20,532 --> 00:28:22,618 what they're sending out subconsciously. 455 00:28:23,827 --> 00:28:25,227 - Usually when I go to make a suit, 456 00:28:25,495 --> 00:28:28,332 everything from gender to height 457 00:28:28,624 --> 00:28:30,602 plays a role in creating these characters for people. 458 00:28:30,626 --> 00:28:32,586 And it's actually really fun to help them explore 459 00:28:32,878 --> 00:28:36,590 this whole new character that they're creating. 460 00:28:37,716 --> 00:28:40,594 - [Cameraman] I think you're in... I think you're in focus. 461 00:28:41,678 --> 00:28:44,264 - We had been going to BayCon, 462 00:28:44,556 --> 00:28:48,393 and the anime fans were taking over the convention. 463 00:28:48,685 --> 00:28:50,020 The people running the convention 464 00:28:50,312 --> 00:28:53,607 kind of politely said could you guys maybe 465 00:28:53,899 --> 00:28:55,943 get your own convention because 466 00:28:56,235 --> 00:28:59,279 this is science fiction and it's becoming all anime. 467 00:29:00,948 --> 00:29:02,783 Rodney and I said, gee. 468 00:29:03,075 --> 00:29:07,496 Maybe we could have a furry convention just for furries. 469 00:29:09,289 --> 00:29:13,043 So we started looking around for a hotel local to us. 470 00:29:13,335 --> 00:29:15,480 We weren't coming in there with a corporate credit card 471 00:29:15,504 --> 00:29:17,506 laying it down and say this pays for everything. 472 00:29:17,798 --> 00:29:20,300 If I signed the contract with the hotel, 473 00:29:20,592 --> 00:29:23,345 I was liable to pay the hotel. 474 00:29:23,637 --> 00:29:28,141 - I will admit I was young and had kind of stars in my eyes. 475 00:29:28,433 --> 00:29:31,061 I think we had a crew of like, five, 476 00:29:31,353 --> 00:29:34,564 counting Mark and myself for running everything. 477 00:29:34,856 --> 00:29:37,317 - We'd been tossing names around. 478 00:29:37,609 --> 00:29:40,195 And I had the idea, how about conference 479 00:29:40,487 --> 00:29:42,281 except put a U of an E? 480 00:29:43,448 --> 00:29:44,950 ConFurence. 481 00:29:45,242 --> 00:29:47,035 That's the name we picked. 482 00:29:47,327 --> 00:29:49,830 We numbered the first convention 'zero'. 483 00:29:50,122 --> 00:29:52,582 - Because we weren't certain it was going to work. 484 00:29:52,874 --> 00:29:56,295 So we said to ourselves, let's get crazy. 485 00:29:56,586 --> 00:29:59,589 If we're going to put on our own conventions, 486 00:29:59,881 --> 00:30:03,176 let's try and do some things differently. 487 00:30:03,468 --> 00:30:06,013 (crowd cheering) 488 00:30:11,184 --> 00:30:13,687 One of the big things that you will always find 489 00:30:13,979 --> 00:30:16,440 in the history of science fiction conventions 490 00:30:16,732 --> 00:30:19,359 is the Saturday night masquerade. 491 00:30:21,153 --> 00:30:23,280 - [Mark] It was the big event. 492 00:30:24,448 --> 00:30:27,451 They weren't professionally lit in any way, shape, or form. 493 00:30:27,743 --> 00:30:30,037 All of us myopic fans with their glasses could see 494 00:30:30,329 --> 00:30:33,498 these glowing blobs sauntering down the stage. 495 00:30:33,790 --> 00:30:35,709 - Yeah, I guess that looks pretty. 496 00:30:36,710 --> 00:30:37,750 - We thought it'd be great 497 00:30:37,794 --> 00:30:40,547 if people could actually see the costumes. 498 00:30:40,839 --> 00:30:42,132 Maybe even close up. 499 00:30:42,424 --> 00:30:43,464 - Is this a little better? 500 00:30:43,675 --> 00:30:44,217 Is this is a little better? 501 00:30:44,509 --> 00:30:46,386 - Yeah. - All right, okay. 502 00:30:47,846 --> 00:30:49,222 Okay, we'll begin with 503 00:30:49,514 --> 00:30:50,724 the first. 504 00:30:51,016 --> 00:30:53,560 (audience claps) 505 00:31:00,150 --> 00:31:02,819 (audience claps) 506 00:31:10,452 --> 00:31:13,121 Back then, art show was the biggest thing. 507 00:31:14,081 --> 00:31:16,333 The art shows were always popular 508 00:31:16,625 --> 00:31:18,877 and always made a lot of money for the artists. 509 00:31:20,712 --> 00:31:23,382 (crowd chatters) 510 00:31:30,722 --> 00:31:35,644 - We wanted to make furry conventions smart and fun. 511 00:31:37,479 --> 00:31:38,855 You wanted to come to learn stuff, 512 00:31:39,147 --> 00:31:40,232 you could learn stuff. 513 00:31:40,524 --> 00:31:43,026 If you wanted to come to hang and be friends, 514 00:31:43,318 --> 00:31:44,611 you could hang and be friends. 515 00:31:45,779 --> 00:31:48,448 (crowd chatters) 516 00:31:51,451 --> 00:31:53,537 - January of '91, a friend of mine and I 517 00:31:53,829 --> 00:31:56,998 drove 44 hours straight from Tampa to SoCal 518 00:31:57,290 --> 00:32:00,836 to ConFurence 2 in Anaheim. 519 00:32:03,130 --> 00:32:04,965 It was a completely new experience. 520 00:32:05,257 --> 00:32:07,217 My first trip out of the time zone. 521 00:32:07,509 --> 00:32:08,844 Seeing hills for the first time, 522 00:32:09,136 --> 00:32:12,514 then mountains for the first time, and then snow. 523 00:32:15,809 --> 00:32:17,936 Just a completely new thing, 524 00:32:18,228 --> 00:32:20,147 throwing me completely out of my element. 525 00:32:20,439 --> 00:32:22,732 Just sheltered shy college kid, and next thing you know, 526 00:32:23,024 --> 00:32:25,986 I'm in California amongst several hundred furries. 527 00:32:28,238 --> 00:32:30,449 These comic artists that I'd seen in fanzines 528 00:32:30,740 --> 00:32:32,242 and black and white comics, 529 00:32:32,534 --> 00:32:33,934 they're right there in front of me. 530 00:32:34,119 --> 00:32:36,580 And they're just, they're just people. 531 00:32:36,872 --> 00:32:40,876 I was learning art myself and drawing from time to time 532 00:32:41,168 --> 00:32:41,668 and next thing you know, 533 00:32:41,960 --> 00:32:43,628 I'm a writing for the first six issues 534 00:32:43,920 --> 00:32:45,088 of a magazine called "Yarf!" 535 00:32:48,508 --> 00:32:50,188 - There's been some footage floating around 536 00:32:50,385 --> 00:32:51,845 that's just adorable. 537 00:32:52,137 --> 00:32:55,390 Terrible 80s hair, the 80s fashion. 538 00:32:55,682 --> 00:33:00,437 And it was very clear that these people were having fun. 539 00:33:00,729 --> 00:33:02,606 - [Panelist] Shop around for your material. 540 00:33:02,898 --> 00:33:04,733 There are places out there that will sell you, 541 00:33:05,025 --> 00:33:06,025 charge you a fortune. 542 00:33:07,027 --> 00:33:10,489 - They've found a place to start exploring who they were 543 00:33:10,780 --> 00:33:11,865 at a time and a place that 544 00:33:12,157 --> 00:33:13,700 they never had been able to before. 545 00:33:15,452 --> 00:33:17,746 It was very inclusive and very welcoming 546 00:33:18,038 --> 00:33:20,457 and became sex-positive. 547 00:33:20,749 --> 00:33:23,877 Not that it was about sex, but that when sex happened, 548 00:33:24,169 --> 00:33:25,962 it was generally viewed favorably. 549 00:33:26,254 --> 00:33:28,965 It wasn't dirty, wasn't wrong. 550 00:33:29,257 --> 00:33:30,509 It was just sex. 551 00:33:30,800 --> 00:33:32,969 And people have sex and that's fine. 552 00:33:36,056 --> 00:33:38,141 - [Announcer] It's the Rod O'Reilly master mix 553 00:33:38,433 --> 00:33:40,310 at ConFurence Zero. 554 00:33:42,604 --> 00:33:45,190 - We were fully prepared for it to fall flat on its face 555 00:33:45,482 --> 00:33:46,858 and cost us a bunch of money. 556 00:33:47,150 --> 00:33:47,817 And then say, well, that was a great idea. 557 00:33:48,109 --> 00:33:50,028 Let's try something else. 558 00:33:50,320 --> 00:33:51,320 But it worked. 559 00:33:53,406 --> 00:33:56,868 - [Mark] It gave me a feeling of accomplishment. 560 00:33:57,160 --> 00:33:59,204 - We were onto something and we said, 561 00:33:59,496 --> 00:34:01,414 let's take this football and run with it. 562 00:34:03,041 --> 00:34:04,041 And we did. 563 00:34:42,622 --> 00:34:45,166 - Can you test it, see if it sounds okay? 564 00:34:45,458 --> 00:34:47,669 The con chair is always the one in the spotlight. 565 00:34:47,961 --> 00:34:50,380 People think we're the only one making the decision. 566 00:34:52,132 --> 00:34:55,051 This whole team of 60 to 100 people 567 00:34:55,385 --> 00:34:58,263 put in months and months of work to put on this show. 568 00:34:58,555 --> 00:34:59,889 We can't run it with five people. 569 00:35:00,181 --> 00:35:01,725 It wouldn't happen, there's no way. 570 00:35:06,646 --> 00:35:08,231 - Boiler to Truffle. 571 00:35:09,190 --> 00:35:11,526 - The thing that I didn't know was 572 00:35:11,818 --> 00:35:14,029 how many small moving parts there are. 573 00:35:14,321 --> 00:35:16,364 What time things open, what time things close, 574 00:35:16,656 --> 00:35:18,700 when things finally get locked down. 575 00:35:18,992 --> 00:35:21,745 And how many people it takes to put on something like this. 576 00:35:22,704 --> 00:35:25,040 (crew chatters) 577 00:35:25,332 --> 00:35:28,543 - Usually set up starts right after the last one ended. 578 00:35:28,835 --> 00:35:30,021 We start putting things in place. 579 00:35:30,045 --> 00:35:31,365 We started listening to feedback. 580 00:35:31,421 --> 00:35:32,964 We started approving things. 581 00:35:33,256 --> 00:35:35,008 It's a very, very complex machine. 582 00:35:36,384 --> 00:35:38,762 - This is A1 corgi to A1... uh, 583 00:35:39,054 --> 00:35:41,681 whatever your species is, Bubbles. 584 00:35:41,973 --> 00:35:44,392 There's a ton of different departments. 585 00:35:44,684 --> 00:35:47,604 We have a business director, events director, 586 00:35:47,896 --> 00:35:50,649 operations director, marketing, and public relations. 587 00:35:50,940 --> 00:35:53,276 Theming, our HR managers. 588 00:35:53,568 --> 00:35:56,446 IT and AV work, so all the sound and lighting that you see. 589 00:35:58,823 --> 00:36:00,575 - [Boiler] Things like dealer's den, 590 00:36:00,867 --> 00:36:02,410 which is a vendor space, 591 00:36:02,702 --> 00:36:04,954 requires hand-choosing the dealers. 592 00:36:06,122 --> 00:36:10,251 And we go through 400 applications every single year. 593 00:36:13,922 --> 00:36:17,008 - There's only two female convention chairs 594 00:36:17,300 --> 00:36:18,677 in the entire fandom. 595 00:36:18,968 --> 00:36:22,222 And we have one and we're proud of that. 596 00:36:25,725 --> 00:36:28,603 - I graduated as an EMT and from high school 597 00:36:28,895 --> 00:36:31,690 at the same time and worked my butt off 598 00:36:31,981 --> 00:36:35,276 to get to paramedic school as soon as I could. 599 00:36:35,568 --> 00:36:38,738 The president of that program sat me down in an office 600 00:36:39,030 --> 00:36:40,716 and said, look, you're going to be the only woman 601 00:36:40,740 --> 00:36:41,282 in this class. 602 00:36:41,574 --> 00:36:42,742 I think you should leave. 603 00:36:43,034 --> 00:36:45,203 Just being able to overcome that in that profession, 604 00:36:45,495 --> 00:36:48,289 also coming to furry has made a big difference 605 00:36:48,581 --> 00:36:50,375 'cause in the convention leadership world, 606 00:36:50,667 --> 00:36:51,835 there's not a lot of women. 607 00:36:53,211 --> 00:36:55,296 It is still extremely male dominated. 608 00:36:59,426 --> 00:37:03,054 A lot of people in the 9-1-1 first responder profession 609 00:37:03,346 --> 00:37:04,346 hurt their back. 610 00:37:04,472 --> 00:37:06,516 And that's unfortunately what happened to me. 611 00:37:06,808 --> 00:37:08,601 I wasn't allowed to do that job anymore. 612 00:37:19,821 --> 00:37:21,156 I do miss medicine, 613 00:37:21,448 --> 00:37:25,785 but I get a lot of the same gratification out of this. 614 00:37:28,788 --> 00:37:30,599 - Okay, yeah, so there's the con store stuff... 615 00:37:30,623 --> 00:37:31,750 so I can get the GoH... 616 00:37:32,041 --> 00:37:34,669 (radio muffles) 617 00:37:34,961 --> 00:37:37,338 - The computer, the network, 618 00:37:37,630 --> 00:37:41,342 the mass communication revolution 619 00:37:41,634 --> 00:37:43,553 is what made furry fandom take off. 620 00:37:45,346 --> 00:37:48,475 A whole lot of people who are furries are in IT. 621 00:37:49,392 --> 00:37:52,103 - [Rod] But it was the realm of the military and colleges 622 00:37:52,395 --> 00:37:54,115 that were the only people who knew about it. 623 00:37:54,272 --> 00:37:55,872 Eventually the college peoples went home 624 00:37:56,107 --> 00:37:58,109 and took a lot of the computer stuff with them. 625 00:37:58,401 --> 00:38:03,198 - And then along came ARPANET, FidoNet, bulletin boards, 626 00:38:03,573 --> 00:38:04,991 the proto internet. 627 00:38:06,701 --> 00:38:09,037 A bulletin board service. 628 00:38:09,329 --> 00:38:13,166 You had to dial in to this central network 629 00:38:13,458 --> 00:38:16,711 and you could post text, pictures. 630 00:38:17,003 --> 00:38:18,323 The pictures was the painful part 631 00:38:18,463 --> 00:38:20,965 because it would take about 30 minutes to download it. 632 00:38:21,257 --> 00:38:23,676 And you would see the cursor rendering across the screen, 633 00:38:23,968 --> 00:38:26,137 every line of pixels. 634 00:38:26,429 --> 00:38:28,681 - It was only a week until you got a reply to your post 635 00:38:28,973 --> 00:38:29,599 instead of a month. 636 00:38:29,891 --> 00:38:31,684 Hey, life improves. 637 00:38:31,976 --> 00:38:33,370 - People today take it for granted. 638 00:38:33,394 --> 00:38:34,604 Back then, this was new. 639 00:38:34,896 --> 00:38:36,022 This was unheard of. 640 00:38:36,314 --> 00:38:38,024 This was Star Trek stuff. 641 00:38:38,316 --> 00:38:39,484 - It gave people a chance 642 00:38:39,776 --> 00:38:41,986 to do role play as their characters. 643 00:38:47,242 --> 00:38:49,077 - When I was just coming out of college 644 00:38:49,369 --> 00:38:50,449 and I was starting to work, 645 00:38:50,703 --> 00:38:53,748 the internet was a very small place. 646 00:38:54,040 --> 00:38:56,251 We think of it as this big thing of global data, 647 00:38:56,543 --> 00:38:58,586 but really, there wasn't as much out there 648 00:38:58,878 --> 00:39:00,129 as people think there was, 649 00:39:00,421 --> 00:39:01,661 and there weren't the browsers. 650 00:39:01,840 --> 00:39:03,842 So we were using things like Gopher and Mosaic 651 00:39:04,133 --> 00:39:05,361 and all kinds of weird technology 652 00:39:05,385 --> 00:39:07,053 that doesn't exist anymore. 653 00:39:07,345 --> 00:39:09,031 - [Rod] A bunch of people would get together 654 00:39:09,055 --> 00:39:10,055 on a computer system, 655 00:39:10,306 --> 00:39:14,269 form characters and go on an adventure together. 656 00:39:14,561 --> 00:39:15,881 They started calling these things 657 00:39:16,104 --> 00:39:18,439 multi-user dungeons, MUDs. 658 00:39:21,317 --> 00:39:23,278 It would say you are now in a room 659 00:39:23,570 --> 00:39:26,656 that is this big, it's colored red, it's made of brick, 660 00:39:26,948 --> 00:39:28,348 and there is a dragon sitting there 661 00:39:28,616 --> 00:39:30,451 that's going to eat your face. 662 00:39:30,743 --> 00:39:33,329 - Other gathering started that were entirely social. 663 00:39:33,663 --> 00:39:36,082 They didn't want to continue using the word MUD 664 00:39:36,374 --> 00:39:39,460 because that still had that dungeon connotation. 665 00:39:39,752 --> 00:39:42,171 So they started calling them MUCKS. 666 00:39:42,463 --> 00:39:43,673 - With the online communities, 667 00:39:43,965 --> 00:39:46,551 particularly Furry MUCK that started in 1990, 668 00:39:46,843 --> 00:39:48,678 people were getting to know each other 669 00:39:48,970 --> 00:39:51,014 and they would go to conventions to meet each other. 670 00:39:51,306 --> 00:39:53,433 - [Joe Strike] Excuse me, are you THE Karno? 671 00:39:53,725 --> 00:39:54,267 - Yes. 672 00:39:54,559 --> 00:39:55,786 - [Joe Strike] Hi, I'm THE Joe Strike. 673 00:39:55,810 --> 00:39:56,477 - Hey, hiya, Joe. 674 00:39:56,769 --> 00:39:58,938 - [Joe Strike] Oh yeah, shake right there you go. 675 00:39:59,230 --> 00:40:00,899 - I'm Mutie on Furry MUCK. 676 00:40:01,190 --> 00:40:04,485 This is Chirik, who also is on furry MUCK. 677 00:40:08,531 --> 00:40:10,291 - And it became more about meeting each other 678 00:40:10,450 --> 00:40:12,702 and having this sense of community 679 00:40:12,994 --> 00:40:15,747 beyond just people centered around creators. 680 00:40:16,039 --> 00:40:19,459 That's how I first found that there was 681 00:40:19,751 --> 00:40:21,377 an organized furry fandom. 682 00:40:21,711 --> 00:40:26,007 The community was, was my solace, my salvation. 683 00:40:26,299 --> 00:40:27,759 I was not very happy where I was. 684 00:40:28,051 --> 00:40:30,136 The South side of Chicago at the time. 685 00:40:30,428 --> 00:40:32,388 I spent a very, very long year there. 686 00:40:32,680 --> 00:40:33,908 - [Cameraman] There we go, we got furries. 687 00:40:33,932 --> 00:40:35,016 - And somebody mentioned 688 00:40:35,308 --> 00:40:37,477 that there was a convention coming up 689 00:40:37,769 --> 00:40:39,854 in Southern California called ConFurence. 690 00:40:40,897 --> 00:40:41,606 Maybe you should go. 691 00:40:41,898 --> 00:40:44,817 I said, I'm a postdoc at this point, I don't have any money. 692 00:40:45,109 --> 00:40:47,570 I called my dear and sainted mother. 693 00:40:47,862 --> 00:40:50,949 Kids, never lie to your mom. 694 00:40:51,240 --> 00:40:53,451 I told my mom the truth. 695 00:40:53,743 --> 00:40:55,870 I'd like to go to a conference in California, 696 00:40:56,162 --> 00:40:57,830 but the professor won't pay for it. 697 00:40:58,998 --> 00:41:00,208 That's a true statement. 698 00:41:01,250 --> 00:41:03,628 So she sent me the money to go to the conference. 699 00:41:05,380 --> 00:41:07,256 And that was my first furry convention. 700 00:41:12,345 --> 00:41:14,889 Now, I had been going to science fiction conventions 701 00:41:15,181 --> 00:41:16,181 for 10 years. 702 00:41:16,224 --> 00:41:17,464 I've been volunteering at them. 703 00:41:17,600 --> 00:41:19,811 I was a convention goer. 704 00:41:20,103 --> 00:41:21,396 But this was the first time 705 00:41:21,688 --> 00:41:24,357 that it was a convention that was entirely 706 00:41:24,649 --> 00:41:25,649 of interest to me. 707 00:41:28,778 --> 00:41:30,780 And started going to furry conventions 708 00:41:31,072 --> 00:41:32,240 every year after that. 709 00:41:33,741 --> 00:41:34,741 - Uncle Kage. 710 00:41:34,951 --> 00:41:35,493 - Uncle Kage. 711 00:41:35,785 --> 00:41:37,704 - Uncle Kage slash Sam Conway. 712 00:41:37,996 --> 00:41:39,247 - He's very charismatic. 713 00:41:39,539 --> 00:41:41,082 - He's very funny. 714 00:41:41,374 --> 00:41:44,335 - He had this sort of mad scientist kind of persona, 715 00:41:44,627 --> 00:41:45,169 - [Joe Strike] So you're gonna create, 716 00:41:45,461 --> 00:41:46,004 you're gonna create real furries? 717 00:41:46,295 --> 00:41:46,838 - I am, as a matter of fact. 718 00:41:47,130 --> 00:41:48,148 - [Joe Strike] And how are you gonna do that? 719 00:41:48,172 --> 00:41:49,882 - Well, it's quite simple. 720 00:41:50,174 --> 00:41:52,552 You see the a, you take the, 721 00:41:52,844 --> 00:41:53,844 Oh yeah. 722 00:41:53,970 --> 00:41:55,722 I was sitting in the lobby, 723 00:41:56,014 --> 00:41:58,057 and I was telling somebody a story. 724 00:41:58,349 --> 00:41:59,475 It's in my nature 725 00:41:59,809 --> 00:42:00,809 - As Mary Shelley said, 726 00:42:00,852 --> 00:42:02,532 if you make the creature a gigantic statue, 727 00:42:02,687 --> 00:42:04,731 you have a much easier time 728 00:42:05,023 --> 00:42:07,275 in dealing with the parts, you see. 729 00:42:07,567 --> 00:42:08,567 - And they simply said, 730 00:42:08,651 --> 00:42:09,193 would you come back next year 731 00:42:09,485 --> 00:42:11,237 and do that as an event? 732 00:42:11,529 --> 00:42:12,071 What? 733 00:42:12,363 --> 00:42:14,032 Complain about my job? 734 00:42:14,323 --> 00:42:14,866 And they said, yeah. 735 00:42:15,158 --> 00:42:16,218 I said, oh, I can do that, sure. 736 00:42:16,242 --> 00:42:17,660 So I stood up in the lobby 737 00:42:17,952 --> 00:42:19,954 and complained about my job for an hour. 738 00:42:20,246 --> 00:42:21,926 - [Mark] Well, he was kind of doing standup 739 00:42:22,081 --> 00:42:23,708 that was slice of life. 740 00:42:24,000 --> 00:42:25,376 People loved his stories. 741 00:42:25,668 --> 00:42:28,421 - He was already getting a reputation for his performances. 742 00:42:28,713 --> 00:42:32,467 And we were just thrilled to have him at our show. 743 00:42:32,759 --> 00:42:36,846 And that was 25 or so years ago. 744 00:42:37,138 --> 00:42:39,474 And people still fly me all over the world 745 00:42:39,766 --> 00:42:41,267 to get up on stage and talk. 746 00:42:41,559 --> 00:42:42,268 That's all I do. 747 00:42:42,560 --> 00:42:43,560 I don't understand it. 748 00:42:43,686 --> 00:42:45,521 I just do it and they keep inviting me back, 749 00:42:45,855 --> 00:42:47,398 so I must be doing something right. 750 00:42:51,444 --> 00:42:53,112 - After Furry MUCK, 751 00:42:53,404 --> 00:42:56,240 almost all the furries were college students. 752 00:42:57,366 --> 00:42:59,327 This tripled our attendance. 753 00:43:01,454 --> 00:43:04,082 Since we had all of the role players coming in, 754 00:43:04,373 --> 00:43:07,168 all the college students coming into the fandom, 755 00:43:07,460 --> 00:43:10,963 the gender of the content began to shift. 756 00:43:12,090 --> 00:43:14,133 You had a lot more males, 757 00:43:14,425 --> 00:43:17,678 you had a lot more lesbian couples and gay couples. 758 00:43:19,305 --> 00:43:20,473 - People don't realize it. 759 00:43:20,765 --> 00:43:23,476 But back in the 60s and 70s, 760 00:43:23,768 --> 00:43:26,562 there wasn't that much of a gay community. 761 00:43:26,854 --> 00:43:29,565 - Where could you go for companionship? 762 00:43:29,899 --> 00:43:32,068 Some place where you had an equal chance 763 00:43:32,360 --> 00:43:35,196 of getting your teeth kicked in or getting arrested. 764 00:43:35,488 --> 00:43:38,324 - [Rod] Right about the time that furry fandom was hitting 765 00:43:38,616 --> 00:43:41,327 was right about the time that the AIDS crisis hit. 766 00:43:42,703 --> 00:43:44,080 ♪ 767 00:43:46,207 --> 00:43:49,001 (crowd chattering fades) 768 00:43:53,965 --> 00:43:56,717 - I know people who lost dozens of friends. 769 00:43:58,094 --> 00:44:01,681 An awful lot of people had to come out of the closet 770 00:44:01,973 --> 00:44:04,100 and get active for their own survival. 771 00:44:05,309 --> 00:44:10,231 There was in fact, an LGBT contingent in the furries. 772 00:44:10,940 --> 00:44:13,234 We're going to celebrate both of those at once. 773 00:44:14,861 --> 00:44:17,071 - I still remember how I felt when I joined the fandom, 774 00:44:17,363 --> 00:44:18,948 like when I was like a teenager 775 00:44:19,240 --> 00:44:21,492 and I had no idea if I was queer or not. 776 00:44:21,826 --> 00:44:23,826 And I thought I was really scared to talk about it. 777 00:44:23,911 --> 00:44:25,997 And I couldn't tell my friends. 778 00:44:26,289 --> 00:44:27,623 - High school was rough. 779 00:44:28,624 --> 00:44:30,459 High school was rough. 780 00:44:31,711 --> 00:44:36,340 I was pretty socially isolated, I was nerdy, I was bullied. 781 00:44:37,425 --> 00:44:38,905 - The community around me at the time 782 00:44:39,177 --> 00:44:42,138 was not queer friendly, or even art friendly. 783 00:44:58,863 --> 00:45:00,281 - Doing art's really vulnerable. 784 00:45:00,573 --> 00:45:02,009 Like if you put something on the page, 785 00:45:02,033 --> 00:45:04,285 then you probably did that for a reason. 786 00:45:06,412 --> 00:45:07,955 About midway through college, 787 00:45:08,247 --> 00:45:09,474 I started questioning my gender 788 00:45:09,498 --> 00:45:12,126 and eventually transitioned. 789 00:45:12,418 --> 00:45:14,295 And that was a very powerful time of my life, 790 00:45:14,587 --> 00:45:16,227 where I got to really re-sort my identity 791 00:45:16,464 --> 00:45:18,049 as this purpose-driven person. 792 00:45:20,551 --> 00:45:22,553 - When I started to transition, 793 00:45:22,845 --> 00:45:26,599 I actually explored the identity first with my character 794 00:45:26,891 --> 00:45:28,935 to see, I guess, if it felt right 795 00:45:29,227 --> 00:45:32,688 to become more masculine. 796 00:45:32,980 --> 00:45:34,273 It was no longer Luna. 797 00:45:34,565 --> 00:45:36,692 It was now the masculine Nate. 798 00:45:37,026 --> 00:45:38,653 And it's really helped me explore 799 00:45:38,945 --> 00:45:41,072 what parts of myself I wanted to be 800 00:45:41,364 --> 00:45:43,908 as more trans masculine versus, you know, 801 00:45:44,200 --> 00:45:46,702 the meek female. I used to be. 802 00:45:46,994 --> 00:45:49,163 A safe place to explore the transition 803 00:45:49,455 --> 00:45:51,540 without transitioning myself first. 804 00:46:07,598 --> 00:46:11,269 Trans experiences are just human experiences. 805 00:46:12,311 --> 00:46:14,939 Ultimately, furry is also about human experiences. 806 00:46:16,107 --> 00:46:17,400 - Once I discovered the fandom, 807 00:46:17,692 --> 00:46:19,277 I could chat with people online. 808 00:46:19,568 --> 00:46:21,153 I could express my creativity. 809 00:46:21,445 --> 00:46:22,488 I could make friends. 810 00:46:22,780 --> 00:46:24,532 - Well, I can actually talk about 811 00:46:24,824 --> 00:46:27,410 being queer without being worried 812 00:46:27,702 --> 00:46:29,120 that people make fun of me. 813 00:46:30,329 --> 00:46:31,872 - What better place is there 814 00:46:32,164 --> 00:46:33,524 to put yourself out there and say, 815 00:46:33,791 --> 00:46:35,711 hey, this is how, I'd like to be seen or treated. 816 00:46:35,793 --> 00:46:37,473 And people will meet you on your own terms 817 00:46:37,545 --> 00:46:40,548 in a way that you just don't get anywhere else. 818 00:46:40,840 --> 00:46:42,091 ♪ 819 00:46:46,012 --> 00:46:47,372 - The dealer room closes at eight, 820 00:46:47,555 --> 00:46:48,995 they could just be right closing up. 821 00:46:51,100 --> 00:46:52,935 - [Rod] The first three ConFurences, 822 00:46:53,227 --> 00:46:54,645 everyone who showed up 823 00:46:54,937 --> 00:46:57,023 was someone that I knew personally by name. 824 00:46:57,315 --> 00:46:58,715 - [Attendee] Very nice, keep it up. 825 00:46:58,774 --> 00:47:00,054 - [Rod] We realized that the con 826 00:47:00,151 --> 00:47:04,947 had gotten so large that we didn't know everyone by name. 827 00:47:07,158 --> 00:47:08,598 - Pull like that, pull the mask down 828 00:47:08,743 --> 00:47:10,119 against your cheeks. 829 00:47:10,411 --> 00:47:12,514 - [Cameraman] This'll be interesting to watch some day. 830 00:47:12,538 --> 00:47:13,122 (crowd laughing) 831 00:47:13,414 --> 00:47:15,958 - If you asked who we were and could you point at us, 832 00:47:16,250 --> 00:47:16,751 they wouldn't know. 833 00:47:17,043 --> 00:47:19,420 And that was perfectly fine. 834 00:47:19,712 --> 00:47:21,112 But it was always about this thing. 835 00:47:21,213 --> 00:47:22,798 It was not about us. 836 00:47:23,132 --> 00:47:25,343 We never wanted to be celebrities. 837 00:47:26,344 --> 00:47:28,971 So they were very, very few fursuiters. 838 00:47:29,263 --> 00:47:30,903 There was only, I think, maybe one or two 839 00:47:31,182 --> 00:47:32,600 at the earliest furry conventions. 840 00:47:32,892 --> 00:47:34,727 - The suiting was almost nonexistent. 841 00:47:35,019 --> 00:47:36,330 People would just paint their bodies. 842 00:47:36,354 --> 00:47:37,354 And that was it. 843 00:47:38,939 --> 00:47:41,150 - [Mark] One of them is Hilda the Bambioid, 844 00:47:41,442 --> 00:47:43,652 created and performed by Robert Hill. 845 00:47:43,944 --> 00:47:45,704 - [Cameraman] I see we have a bambioid there. 846 00:47:45,863 --> 00:47:47,239 - [Attendee] Hello, bambioid. 847 00:47:47,531 --> 00:47:48,074 - You could pretty much say 848 00:47:48,366 --> 00:47:50,451 that it was the original fursuit. 849 00:47:51,911 --> 00:47:53,371 - Oopsie, hello, how you doing? 850 00:47:55,081 --> 00:47:57,958 I was part of the burgeoning fursuiting community. 851 00:48:00,127 --> 00:48:01,712 You can make your own mascot. 852 00:48:02,797 --> 00:48:04,298 That was mind blowing. 853 00:48:04,590 --> 00:48:06,842 - [Announcer] For your consideration for ConFurence eight 854 00:48:07,134 --> 00:48:08,134 favorite costume is... 855 00:48:08,260 --> 00:48:10,846 (audience cheers) 856 00:48:20,564 --> 00:48:22,400 - The convention ConFurence grew 857 00:48:22,691 --> 00:48:25,277 to be the largest convention in its day, 858 00:48:25,569 --> 00:48:26,569 over a thousand people, 859 00:48:26,779 --> 00:48:28,197 which was huge for the time. 860 00:48:28,489 --> 00:48:31,450 But then there was negative publicity about it. 861 00:48:31,742 --> 00:48:33,911 And I'm not sure how much detail 862 00:48:34,203 --> 00:48:35,788 you want to get into about that. 863 00:48:36,080 --> 00:48:37,623 (group cheering) 864 00:48:37,915 --> 00:48:39,834 - [Attendee] Da da da da da da. 865 00:48:40,126 --> 00:48:42,086 - [Mark] We did have some incidents at conventions 866 00:48:42,253 --> 00:48:45,798 where there were people getting completely drunk 867 00:48:46,841 --> 00:48:49,593 coming out into the convention and causing trouble. 868 00:48:51,387 --> 00:48:54,098 Or in some cases getting stoned out of their mind 869 00:48:54,390 --> 00:48:56,183 and having to be taken off the property. 870 00:49:01,397 --> 00:49:02,690 In the very early days, 871 00:49:02,982 --> 00:49:06,026 a furry convention was, an unintentional pun, 872 00:49:06,318 --> 00:49:08,863 a rather wild and untamed unfair. 873 00:49:10,739 --> 00:49:12,199 - [Crowd Member] Yeah! 874 00:49:12,491 --> 00:49:15,870 - There was not a lot of attention paid to public decorum, 875 00:49:16,162 --> 00:49:17,642 and people are out there to have fun. 876 00:49:17,746 --> 00:49:19,039 They were letting themselves go. 877 00:49:19,331 --> 00:49:20,374 Let's just be crazy. 878 00:49:21,876 --> 00:49:24,462 That's fun and that's fine, 879 00:49:24,753 --> 00:49:28,007 if you keep in mind that you're still in a public venue. 880 00:49:28,299 --> 00:49:29,508 Folks tended to forget that. 881 00:49:30,634 --> 00:49:33,596 - Rod. (group screaming) 882 00:49:38,559 --> 00:49:39,559 - [Attendee] Oh my god, 883 00:49:39,685 --> 00:49:42,062 it's the psychedelic Cousin Itt! 884 00:49:44,899 --> 00:49:48,110 - [Announcer] The bidding starts at $20. 885 00:49:54,492 --> 00:49:56,410 (vacuum buzzing) 886 00:49:58,287 --> 00:49:59,287 - Well, let's see now. 887 00:49:59,538 --> 00:50:02,041 Should I talk about the semen in the elevator? 888 00:50:03,250 --> 00:50:05,050 No, I don't know if there's any truth to that. 889 00:50:05,252 --> 00:50:05,961 I think there were people 890 00:50:06,253 --> 00:50:10,007 who wanted to give the furs a bad reputation, 891 00:50:10,299 --> 00:50:12,968 and I think a lot of this misinformation was spread. 892 00:50:13,302 --> 00:50:14,637 But there might've been people 893 00:50:14,929 --> 00:50:16,889 who felt a little too liberated. 894 00:50:18,849 --> 00:50:20,976 - This caused us to have to do something 895 00:50:21,310 --> 00:50:23,395 we didn't think was necessary. 896 00:50:23,687 --> 00:50:27,900 We had to put rules of conduct in our program book. 897 00:50:30,694 --> 00:50:31,737 And we were criticized. 898 00:50:32,029 --> 00:50:34,198 Why didn't you have rules of conduct 899 00:50:34,490 --> 00:50:35,490 from the very beginning? 900 00:50:36,367 --> 00:50:40,037 Because we didn't think people were that stupid. 901 00:50:40,329 --> 00:50:41,529 - [Director] Okay, Here we go. 902 00:50:41,705 --> 00:50:45,960 - And when we had 200, 300, 400 people, we'd have problems. 903 00:50:47,836 --> 00:50:49,129 Their twist on it was yeah, 904 00:50:49,421 --> 00:50:52,258 Mark and Rodney allow that kind of stuff at conventions. 905 00:50:52,550 --> 00:50:55,094 - I remember when I was working at Disney television 906 00:50:55,386 --> 00:50:56,762 in the mid 90s. 907 00:50:57,054 --> 00:50:59,473 The executives at Disney and at the other studios 908 00:50:59,765 --> 00:51:01,267 knew about furries, 909 00:51:01,559 --> 00:51:03,561 but they did not particularly like the furries. 910 00:51:03,852 --> 00:51:06,105 - Some furry artists have been turned away 911 00:51:06,397 --> 00:51:08,148 because of the people that are interviewing 912 00:51:08,440 --> 00:51:10,080 that heard about these furry conventions. 913 00:51:10,359 --> 00:51:11,461 - And interestingly, it wasn't 914 00:51:11,485 --> 00:51:12,885 just because of the adult material. 915 00:51:13,028 --> 00:51:14,613 It was also because they saw people 916 00:51:14,905 --> 00:51:17,199 trading art back and forth freely. 917 00:51:17,491 --> 00:51:18,691 And they did not like the idea 918 00:51:18,909 --> 00:51:21,537 of property being freely exchanged like that. 919 00:51:24,790 --> 00:51:27,042 It was kind of a professional hazard 920 00:51:27,334 --> 00:51:29,962 to let anyone know that you were involved 921 00:51:30,254 --> 00:51:31,254 with the furry fandom. 922 00:51:35,843 --> 00:51:38,470 I had snuck away to go to ConFurence for the weekend. 923 00:51:38,762 --> 00:51:41,223 And two of my coworkers had apparently shadowed the con 924 00:51:41,515 --> 00:51:42,641 and seen me there. 925 00:51:42,933 --> 00:51:44,053 As soon as I came into work, 926 00:51:44,143 --> 00:51:45,823 they popped in my cubicle and started going 927 00:51:45,936 --> 00:51:46,936 furry, furry. 928 00:51:47,187 --> 00:51:48,939 And I was like, oh my god. 929 00:51:49,231 --> 00:51:50,774 I mean, they've been there themselves, 930 00:51:51,066 --> 00:51:52,568 So what could they say? 931 00:51:52,860 --> 00:51:54,337 - [Cameraman] You guys here for a convention of your own? 932 00:51:54,361 --> 00:51:55,029 - Yeah. 933 00:51:55,321 --> 00:51:56,321 - Computers? - Marketing. 934 00:51:56,572 --> 00:51:58,240 - [Cameraman] Whoa, even better. 935 00:51:58,532 --> 00:52:01,619 - There was a large fandom out here in California, 936 00:52:01,910 --> 00:52:03,537 And there was also one back east, 937 00:52:03,829 --> 00:52:06,040 kind of around New York. 938 00:52:06,373 --> 00:52:08,292 - There had been an attempt to start up 939 00:52:08,584 --> 00:52:09,824 an east coast furry convention, 940 00:52:10,085 --> 00:52:12,338 'cause in the United States, there was ConFurence 941 00:52:12,630 --> 00:52:15,174 in Southern California, and that was it. 942 00:52:15,466 --> 00:52:18,135 So in 1997, they started Albany Anthrocon. 943 00:52:20,638 --> 00:52:22,318 I went because it was only four hours away 944 00:52:22,556 --> 00:52:23,098 from Philadelphia. 945 00:52:23,390 --> 00:52:27,269 I could drive there instead of flying across the country. 946 00:52:27,561 --> 00:52:30,272 It was obviously a first year con, kind of cute. 947 00:52:30,564 --> 00:52:32,191 As I said, I had been volunteering 948 00:52:32,483 --> 00:52:34,610 at science fiction conventions for years. 949 00:52:36,362 --> 00:52:38,530 And I was approached by one of their committee members 950 00:52:38,822 --> 00:52:41,241 who said, would you be our guest of honor next year? 951 00:52:42,368 --> 00:52:43,648 As the convention was coming up, 952 00:52:43,911 --> 00:52:46,705 they had an email list for staff members. 953 00:52:46,997 --> 00:52:50,626 A longstanding problem that I have is 954 00:52:50,918 --> 00:52:53,712 I have a tendency to stick my nose in 955 00:52:54,004 --> 00:52:55,464 whether it's wanted or not. 956 00:52:57,341 --> 00:52:59,093 Things were coming across the mailing list 957 00:52:59,385 --> 00:53:00,385 and I'm going, hmm. 958 00:53:00,594 --> 00:53:02,638 And I would hesitantly type out 959 00:53:02,930 --> 00:53:05,307 are you guys really sure you want to do that? 960 00:53:05,599 --> 00:53:08,727 You see Philcon tried this in, in 1984, 961 00:53:09,019 --> 00:53:11,772 and here, here, this, this list of terrible things happened 962 00:53:12,064 --> 00:53:14,817 and they swore high and low they'd never do that again. 963 00:53:15,109 --> 00:53:17,861 If you do this, that would get around those problems. 964 00:53:18,153 --> 00:53:20,280 Then they started asking my advice. 965 00:53:20,572 --> 00:53:21,732 Well, how would you run this? 966 00:53:21,949 --> 00:53:22,949 What would you do here? 967 00:53:22,991 --> 00:53:24,326 How should we do the following? 968 00:53:25,786 --> 00:53:28,163 They're honest questions, so I answered honestly. 969 00:53:29,456 --> 00:53:32,167 As the convention date was approaching, 970 00:53:32,459 --> 00:53:35,129 there was a concern over the finances. 971 00:53:35,421 --> 00:53:37,047 The chairman of the convention realized 972 00:53:37,339 --> 00:53:40,175 that we are probably going to completely lose our shirts. 973 00:53:40,467 --> 00:53:42,720 We're going to have to shut this down. 974 00:53:43,011 --> 00:53:44,811 Some of the staff members came to me and said, 975 00:53:44,930 --> 00:53:46,390 would you take over? 976 00:53:46,682 --> 00:53:50,978 And I said, this is all kind of happening awful fast, folks. 977 00:53:51,270 --> 00:53:52,670 First off, I'm your guest of honor. 978 00:53:52,771 --> 00:53:55,607 It looks kind of bad if I'm also your chairman that year. 979 00:53:55,899 --> 00:53:58,610 Okay, I'm willing to do it because I want to help out. 980 00:53:58,902 --> 00:54:00,102 It's a good little convention. 981 00:54:00,195 --> 00:54:02,072 You guys are really gung ho. 982 00:54:02,990 --> 00:54:05,159 I'm happy to do it. 983 00:54:05,451 --> 00:54:08,203 But it's gonna have to be done differently. 984 00:54:08,495 --> 00:54:10,414 You can't run it like a bunch of college kids 985 00:54:10,706 --> 00:54:11,999 having a party anymore. 986 00:54:12,291 --> 00:54:15,043 If you want this to succeed and have another year, 987 00:54:15,335 --> 00:54:17,212 you're going to have to run it as a business. 988 00:54:17,504 --> 00:54:19,715 - [Cameraman] Tell us all about Albany Anthrocon. 989 00:54:20,007 --> 00:54:21,925 - Albany Anthrocon no longer exists. 990 00:54:22,217 --> 00:54:23,319 - [Cameraman] It's now become? 991 00:54:23,343 --> 00:54:27,014 - It's simply become Anthrocon, the Furry Revolution. 992 00:54:27,306 --> 00:54:29,433 We moved to the place that it all began. 993 00:54:29,725 --> 00:54:31,185 The Hilton Valley Forge. 994 00:54:31,477 --> 00:54:33,580 That's where the Declaration of Independence was signed. 995 00:54:33,604 --> 00:54:36,356 - Actually in the Hilton? - In the Hilton. 996 00:54:36,648 --> 00:54:38,418 - Signed in the Hilton? - Signed in the Hilton. 997 00:54:38,442 --> 00:54:39,586 - Will you turn that off already? 998 00:54:39,610 --> 00:54:40,736 So these people don't know. 999 00:54:44,531 --> 00:54:45,949 - Finally, in 1999, I attended 1000 00:54:46,241 --> 00:54:48,869 my very first furry convention, which was Anthrocon. 1001 00:54:50,329 --> 00:54:51,556 That was one of the first major things 1002 00:54:51,580 --> 00:54:52,915 I'd ever traveled to by myself. 1003 00:54:55,793 --> 00:55:00,005 There were probably all of 30 events for the entire weekend. 1004 00:55:00,297 --> 00:55:01,924 But for me, that was a lot to do. 1005 00:55:03,008 --> 00:55:04,885 And this guy just came down. 1006 00:55:05,177 --> 00:55:08,472 He said, you look troubled my friend, what's wrong? 1007 00:55:08,764 --> 00:55:10,604 And I was like, well, I just don't know what to 1008 00:55:10,849 --> 00:55:11,849 make of all this. 1009 00:55:13,477 --> 00:55:14,957 He put his arm around me and he said, 1010 00:55:15,145 --> 00:55:17,356 I want you to take a look around the lobby. 1011 00:55:18,315 --> 00:55:19,675 This is a moment you will remember 1012 00:55:19,775 --> 00:55:20,859 for the rest of your life. 1013 00:55:23,654 --> 00:55:25,155 - [Cameraman] He's doing it again. 1014 00:55:30,285 --> 00:55:32,454 (fan whirring) 1015 00:55:32,746 --> 00:55:34,557 - And that was the moment that I really realized 1016 00:55:34,581 --> 00:55:38,001 I found a group of people that I not only related to, 1017 00:55:38,293 --> 00:55:40,754 but they made me feel good about myself. 1018 00:55:41,046 --> 00:55:44,216 My personality had a place in the world. 1019 00:55:46,927 --> 00:55:49,721 And the person that told me that was Uncle Kage. 1020 00:55:56,812 --> 00:55:59,356 - I got us a great hotel, it's perfect. 1021 00:55:59,648 --> 00:56:00,357 We can be there forever 1022 00:56:00,649 --> 00:56:04,736 because it's got more space than we could ever possibly use. 1023 00:56:05,028 --> 00:56:06,196 First year, bam, full. 1024 00:56:07,239 --> 00:56:10,534 The next year we filled it and two hotels down the road, 1025 00:56:10,826 --> 00:56:12,911 We're going to need bigger space. 1026 00:56:15,372 --> 00:56:19,293 I looked around in Philadelphia, got the problem solved. 1027 00:56:19,585 --> 00:56:21,253 The Adam's Mark has gotten more space 1028 00:56:21,545 --> 00:56:23,422 than we could ever possibly need. 1029 00:56:24,423 --> 00:56:25,966 Bam, full that very first year. 1030 00:56:28,010 --> 00:56:30,596 - 1,457 furries are in the room. 1031 00:56:32,097 --> 00:56:35,851 - That was 1,457 in case you didn't hear that. 1032 00:56:37,769 --> 00:56:39,271 How many of us are there? 1033 00:56:41,607 --> 00:56:43,275 When I was negotiating with Pittsburgh, 1034 00:56:43,567 --> 00:56:45,235 I said, okay guys, it's perfect. 1035 00:56:45,527 --> 00:56:46,527 We got more space there, 1036 00:56:46,612 --> 00:56:49,323 and they said, shhhh, stop, don't say it. 1037 00:56:50,407 --> 00:56:52,910 I'm still not allowed to say that phrase 1038 00:56:53,201 --> 00:56:54,745 in regards to this city. 1039 00:56:56,079 --> 00:56:58,373 It just got more space than we ever possibly need. 1040 00:57:13,722 --> 00:57:15,599 - Every convention has a hook. 1041 00:57:15,891 --> 00:57:18,644 The hook for Anthrocon is Pittsburgh itself. 1042 00:57:18,936 --> 00:57:19,936 It's the city. 1043 00:57:20,103 --> 00:57:22,689 The downtown area is vibrant and alive, 1044 00:57:22,981 --> 00:57:25,567 and people are coming down to watch the fursuit parade. 1045 00:57:27,152 --> 00:57:28,946 We were recently told that Anthrocon 1046 00:57:29,237 --> 00:57:30,717 is the third most valuable convention 1047 00:57:30,781 --> 00:57:32,282 to the city of Pittsburgh itself. 1048 00:57:47,381 --> 00:57:51,051 We have become a Pittsburgh institution. 1049 00:57:51,343 --> 00:57:53,053 We're not just an event that happens. 1050 00:57:53,345 --> 00:57:56,556 We are now part of the city's art scene. 1051 00:57:56,848 --> 00:57:59,184 I don't think any other convention anywhere 1052 00:57:59,476 --> 00:58:00,727 has that sort of distinction. 1053 00:58:02,062 --> 00:58:04,648 (drums banging) 1054 00:58:18,328 --> 00:58:19,746 - [Bubbles] I hate going on stage. 1055 00:58:20,038 --> 00:58:21,415 I get stage-fright hardcore. 1056 00:58:22,749 --> 00:58:24,429 And people are like, you're the con chair. 1057 00:58:24,501 --> 00:58:25,669 You have to be extroverted. 1058 00:58:25,961 --> 00:58:27,754 You have to be willing to talk to anybody 1059 00:58:28,046 --> 00:58:29,046 and talk about anything. 1060 00:58:29,131 --> 00:58:30,131 And I'm not. 1061 00:58:33,051 --> 00:58:35,470 The suit definitely helps with that. 1062 00:58:40,058 --> 00:58:42,978 I love being in a costume and being able to act 1063 00:58:43,270 --> 00:58:44,664 like something else, 'cause in high school, 1064 00:58:44,688 --> 00:58:45,689 I was the school mascot. 1065 00:58:49,026 --> 00:58:53,196 I'm more open and comfortable with myself. 1066 00:58:59,119 --> 00:59:01,038 - Since I was like three years old, 1067 00:59:01,329 --> 00:59:03,457 I was trying to take a feather duster 1068 00:59:03,749 --> 00:59:04,749 and put it in my shorts. 1069 00:59:04,958 --> 00:59:06,209 And then I have a tail. 1070 00:59:06,501 --> 00:59:08,503 If you found a mask with feathers on it, 1071 00:59:08,795 --> 00:59:10,881 possibilities were endless. 1072 00:59:11,173 --> 00:59:13,550 So I was just trying to make the perfect costume. 1073 00:59:13,842 --> 00:59:15,385 And I found furries where 1074 00:59:15,677 --> 00:59:17,679 we're all trying to get the perfect costume. 1075 00:59:19,890 --> 00:59:21,725 I had just gotten out of high school 1076 00:59:22,017 --> 00:59:23,457 and I was starting to go to college, 1077 00:59:23,643 --> 00:59:25,645 and I'm making a fursuit for some reason, 1078 00:59:26,688 --> 00:59:28,940 I called a friend up and I was like, 1079 00:59:29,232 --> 00:59:30,442 take me to PetSmart. 1080 00:59:30,734 --> 00:59:33,653 I need to buy a collar in my costume. 1081 00:59:37,491 --> 00:59:39,910 As we're driving back home, there's this carwash. 1082 00:59:40,202 --> 00:59:41,802 And we just see this guy hopping around, 1083 00:59:42,037 --> 00:59:44,414 struggling to get people to come to the carwash. 1084 00:59:44,706 --> 00:59:47,751 And I was like, he needs my help. 1085 00:59:48,043 --> 00:59:49,836 I jumped in, I was doing jumping jacks 1086 00:59:50,128 --> 00:59:52,631 and just helping to get a bunch of people to pull over. 1087 00:59:52,923 --> 00:59:54,508 And it was a success. 1088 00:59:57,427 --> 00:59:59,554 People were like, where did you get that? 1089 00:59:59,846 --> 01:00:01,324 And then when they'd find out I made it, 1090 01:00:01,348 --> 01:00:02,788 they were like, can you make me one? 1091 01:00:02,933 --> 01:00:06,103 And I was like, oh, well, I don't know. 1092 01:00:11,858 --> 01:00:13,944 - I was obsessed with "The Lion King," 1093 01:00:14,236 --> 01:00:17,197 obsessed with pretty much any animal movie. 1094 01:00:17,489 --> 01:00:18,907 So I built my first suit at 17 1095 01:00:19,199 --> 01:00:21,326 and I wore it for Halloween at my high school. 1096 01:00:23,286 --> 01:00:24,566 I went to college, got my degree 1097 01:00:24,746 --> 01:00:26,066 in something completely unrelated 1098 01:00:26,331 --> 01:00:28,041 and was just doing it on the side. 1099 01:00:28,333 --> 01:00:30,961 And then it just kind of accidentally became a business. 1100 01:00:31,253 --> 01:00:32,712 And now I'm doing this full time. 1101 01:00:35,423 --> 01:00:38,051 - I would see the suits being built and I'm like, 1102 01:00:38,343 --> 01:00:38,885 I want to do that. 1103 01:00:39,177 --> 01:00:40,512 I could get involved. 1104 01:00:40,804 --> 01:00:42,931 And I didn't really feel very much technology 1105 01:00:43,223 --> 01:00:45,392 was really being used in building these things. 1106 01:00:46,810 --> 01:00:47,477 It was a challenge for me. 1107 01:00:47,769 --> 01:00:49,688 I wanted to figure out how to do it my way. 1108 01:01:08,540 --> 01:01:10,780 - My whole life, I struggled with anxiety and depression, 1109 01:01:10,876 --> 01:01:13,628 and a few years ago I was diagnosed with bipolar as well. 1110 01:01:13,962 --> 01:01:15,682 It's really hard and it just tears you down, 1111 01:01:15,964 --> 01:01:18,633 and I would come home from work everyday crying. 1112 01:01:18,967 --> 01:01:21,303 Nowadays, I feel like I've done something good. 1113 01:01:21,595 --> 01:01:23,972 I'm creating something for someone to enjoy. 1114 01:01:24,264 --> 01:01:27,267 I'm much more stable mentally, and it feels really good. 1115 01:01:30,437 --> 01:01:33,648 - I had worked really hard to have a nice house, 1116 01:01:33,940 --> 01:01:36,693 a nice car, typical American dream, 1117 01:01:36,985 --> 01:01:38,265 but I found it was really empty. 1118 01:01:38,486 --> 01:01:40,166 And I found that it was, this is, you know, 1119 01:01:40,280 --> 01:01:42,490 it was not fulfilling at the end of the day. 1120 01:01:42,782 --> 01:01:45,202 And I've been having more fun in doing this 1121 01:01:45,493 --> 01:01:48,747 than I think I've ever had with anything in my entire life. 1122 01:01:53,460 --> 01:01:55,060 - [Lucky Coyote] I teamed up with Scuff, 1123 01:01:55,170 --> 01:01:56,530 'cause Scuff was starting to build 1124 01:01:56,755 --> 01:01:58,131 pieces and parts on his own. 1125 01:01:59,049 --> 01:02:01,218 - Not only do you want a fursuit to look good, 1126 01:02:01,509 --> 01:02:03,011 it needs to feel good. 1127 01:02:03,303 --> 01:02:06,014 Every fur suit we build is custom, 1128 01:02:06,306 --> 01:02:07,474 but that's your fursuit. 1129 01:02:07,766 --> 01:02:10,268 It should feel like your fursuit when you put it on. 1130 01:02:12,020 --> 01:02:15,649 - I think we've made over 600 fursuits. 1131 01:02:15,941 --> 01:02:17,984 I've kind of lost track. 1132 01:02:18,276 --> 01:02:20,987 (crowd chattering) 1133 01:02:27,410 --> 01:02:29,010 - [Announcer] If you can see the camera, 1134 01:02:29,079 --> 01:02:30,288 you're in the picture. 1135 01:02:30,580 --> 01:02:32,123 All right, let's see those paws up. 1136 01:02:43,802 --> 01:02:45,887 - It's not just about the animal characters. 1137 01:02:46,179 --> 01:02:48,598 It's about the people and it's about the, you know, 1138 01:02:48,890 --> 01:02:51,309 the atmosphere of it. 1139 01:02:51,601 --> 01:02:53,395 You've got writers, artists, animators, 1140 01:02:53,687 --> 01:02:55,981 performers, musicians that all collide 1141 01:02:56,273 --> 01:02:58,191 into this one massive group. 1142 01:02:58,483 --> 01:03:00,402 And that's what makes it interesting. 1143 01:03:00,694 --> 01:03:02,487 There's always something new. 1144 01:03:02,779 --> 01:03:05,073 My daughter was in the fursuit parade. 1145 01:03:05,365 --> 01:03:07,409 People complimented her on her suit, 1146 01:03:07,701 --> 01:03:08,910 thought she was adorable. 1147 01:03:09,202 --> 01:03:11,242 You want your child to have as many of those moments 1148 01:03:11,496 --> 01:03:13,832 as they can, 'cause in the adult world, 1149 01:03:14,124 --> 01:03:17,836 you know, you can't guarantee that for them. 1150 01:03:18,128 --> 01:03:20,755 - [Interviewer] The talent, he's a, whoa. 1151 01:03:21,047 --> 01:03:23,300 We don't know nearly enough about furries. 1152 01:03:23,591 --> 01:03:24,134 We're trying to learn. 1153 01:03:24,426 --> 01:03:24,968 Excellent. 1154 01:03:25,260 --> 01:03:26,636 - Get in touch with Mark Merlino. 1155 01:03:26,928 --> 01:03:28,888 - [Interviewer] He's the man, he the man, yeah. 1156 01:03:29,180 --> 01:03:32,475 - The earliest media coverage that I can remember 1157 01:03:32,767 --> 01:03:36,438 was in 1993. 1158 01:03:36,730 --> 01:03:39,441 The crew from Sci-Fi channel called Sci-Fi Buzz 1159 01:03:39,733 --> 01:03:43,028 wound up going to one of the early ConFurences. 1160 01:03:43,320 --> 01:03:45,322 And they did a very positive piece. 1161 01:03:46,489 --> 01:03:49,576 We weren't as careful as people are these days, 1162 01:03:49,868 --> 01:03:51,870 so if people got it wrong, 1163 01:03:52,162 --> 01:03:54,539 I quite often would just let it slide. 1164 01:03:54,831 --> 01:03:56,291 I sometimes regret that. 1165 01:04:00,003 --> 01:04:01,379 - [Mark] This is 2001. 1166 01:04:02,881 --> 01:04:04,716 If you look through it, 1167 01:04:05,008 --> 01:04:07,218 you'll see a lot of photos of furries 1168 01:04:07,510 --> 01:04:09,804 enjoying themselves in fur meets, 1169 01:04:10,096 --> 01:04:13,975 and people are talking about their own take on furry. 1170 01:04:15,101 --> 01:04:17,562 Interspersed with other articles 1171 01:04:17,854 --> 01:04:21,983 talking about poly groups and orgies and stuff like that. 1172 01:04:23,360 --> 01:04:26,446 That's not what furry fandom was all about. 1173 01:04:27,614 --> 01:04:29,824 - I was approached in 99 by a guy 1174 01:04:30,116 --> 01:04:31,409 claiming to be a film student. 1175 01:04:31,701 --> 01:04:33,596 I thought, you know, I'd help him with this film project. 1176 01:04:33,620 --> 01:04:35,830 So I just answered a few questions 1177 01:04:36,122 --> 01:04:40,919 and ended up at on MTV in a rather unsavory show. 1178 01:04:45,340 --> 01:04:50,136 - What was even worse was the CSI episode in 2003. 1179 01:04:50,428 --> 01:04:54,391 They actually had locals on the show as consultants 1180 01:04:54,682 --> 01:04:56,935 who say that the show decided to 1181 01:04:57,227 --> 01:04:58,728 ignore everything they said, 1182 01:04:59,020 --> 01:05:02,941 - Unfortunately, that was the image that was now given. 1183 01:05:03,233 --> 01:05:06,194 This is what the world was seeing. 1184 01:05:06,486 --> 01:05:08,571 A boss would see at a clip somewhere on the news. 1185 01:05:08,863 --> 01:05:10,543 Oh, you're one of those weird freaky people 1186 01:05:10,782 --> 01:05:12,158 I heard about. 1187 01:05:12,450 --> 01:05:16,496 Some folk lost jobs, lost relationships. 1188 01:05:16,788 --> 01:05:21,000 - I had people at Disney telling me that I had to leave 1189 01:05:21,292 --> 01:05:24,379 in order to focus on my career or you know, 1190 01:05:24,671 --> 01:05:27,966 or else I wouldn't have a career in animation. 1191 01:05:28,258 --> 01:05:30,510 And so I had to make a decision and that decision 1192 01:05:30,802 --> 01:05:35,598 was to leave the fandom to focus on a career. 1193 01:05:36,558 --> 01:05:38,893 - You don't tell your family, you don't tell your work, 1194 01:05:39,185 --> 01:05:40,520 you don't tell other people. 1195 01:05:41,688 --> 01:05:46,609 - That definitely made for a insular environment, 1196 01:05:46,901 --> 01:05:49,821 especially in the early 2000s. 1197 01:05:50,113 --> 01:05:52,824 - And you, you need to sell your magazine or something. 1198 01:05:53,116 --> 01:05:55,910 You want people to pick that thing up and read it. 1199 01:05:56,244 --> 01:05:58,163 Well, you can talk to this person for 45 minutes 1200 01:05:58,455 --> 01:06:00,874 about, oh, I made this fursuit and it took me this long, 1201 01:06:01,166 --> 01:06:02,966 and here's how I stitched it, and this is the. 1202 01:06:03,209 --> 01:06:04,961 You can talk to this guy over here. 1203 01:06:05,253 --> 01:06:06,933 Well, yeah, I'm a writer, I write stories. 1204 01:06:07,213 --> 01:06:08,923 And then my stories are all about furries, 1205 01:06:09,215 --> 01:06:11,134 and I put furries in the stories and I write. 1206 01:06:11,426 --> 01:06:12,802 Or you get the guy who says yeah, 1207 01:06:13,094 --> 01:06:15,680 I like to have sex in my fursuit. 1208 01:06:15,972 --> 01:06:17,557 That's what's gonna sell. 1209 01:06:17,849 --> 01:06:19,249 Damned if I'm going to stand around 1210 01:06:19,517 --> 01:06:22,020 and let you put this TV show on 1211 01:06:22,312 --> 01:06:23,792 that's going to make them embarrassed 1212 01:06:24,063 --> 01:06:26,357 to be a part of this remarkable thing 1213 01:06:26,649 --> 01:06:27,942 that we have created together. 1214 01:06:29,110 --> 01:06:31,029 So I fought back. 1215 01:06:31,321 --> 01:06:33,865 Here is the problem we face. 1216 01:06:34,157 --> 01:06:37,619 The media wants to do stories on furry fandom. 1217 01:06:37,911 --> 01:06:42,081 Very, very often, they are going to be asking questions. 1218 01:06:42,373 --> 01:06:44,334 Does that sort of thing go on at your convention? 1219 01:06:44,626 --> 01:06:46,586 Look, I run the thing. 1220 01:06:46,878 --> 01:06:48,918 If that sort of thing was going on in my convention, 1221 01:06:49,088 --> 01:06:52,425 number one, I would like to think I know about it. 1222 01:06:52,717 --> 01:06:54,594 Number two, why am I not invited? 1223 01:06:57,055 --> 01:06:57,764 Yeah, you're all laughing. 1224 01:06:58,056 --> 01:06:59,140 Ha ha, it's a joke. 1225 01:06:59,432 --> 01:07:00,558 You notice I didn't say no? 1226 01:07:02,435 --> 01:07:03,937 Never lie. 1227 01:07:04,229 --> 01:07:06,606 But you can minimize it. 1228 01:07:06,898 --> 01:07:09,859 - Anthrocon is not just for people in costume. 1229 01:07:10,151 --> 01:07:12,654 It's for artists, cartoonists, performers, 1230 01:07:12,946 --> 01:07:15,073 and we have writers, artists, puppeteers, 1231 01:07:15,365 --> 01:07:16,645 and there'll be wandering about. 1232 01:07:16,783 --> 01:07:18,983 If you see a large raccoon on the streets of Pittsburgh, 1233 01:07:19,244 --> 01:07:20,484 Don't be alarmed, it's just us. 1234 01:07:20,578 --> 01:07:21,847 If they're gonna have their misconceptions, 1235 01:07:21,871 --> 01:07:24,832 the only thing we can do is stand back and say, here we are. 1236 01:07:26,334 --> 01:07:28,062 - [Michele Light] Kage is always is out there talking 1237 01:07:28,086 --> 01:07:29,587 about the money we bring to the city 1238 01:07:29,879 --> 01:07:32,048 and the good will we bring to the city. 1239 01:07:32,340 --> 01:07:33,550 - He knew how to make furry 1240 01:07:33,841 --> 01:07:35,552 appealing to the public at large. 1241 01:07:35,843 --> 01:07:37,762 And it is just so gratifying and rewarding 1242 01:07:38,054 --> 01:07:40,598 to come to a place where you're welcome and embraced. 1243 01:07:40,890 --> 01:07:42,330 - Yes. Welcome to opening ceremonies 1244 01:07:42,559 --> 01:07:45,186 of what looks to continue to be 1245 01:07:45,478 --> 01:07:47,939 the largest and furriest convention in the world. 1246 01:07:49,399 --> 01:07:50,759 - Everybody's scared of saying it. 1247 01:07:51,025 --> 01:07:52,777 It's fine, sex is fine. 1248 01:07:53,069 --> 01:07:55,071 And sometimes we have it. 1249 01:07:55,363 --> 01:07:56,823 It's not what defines the community, 1250 01:07:57,115 --> 01:07:58,355 but it's part of the community. 1251 01:07:58,449 --> 01:07:59,659 And for a lot of people, 1252 01:07:59,951 --> 01:08:03,538 this community helped them discover what that means. 1253 01:08:03,830 --> 01:08:06,916 How could you just try to say it doesn't exist? 1254 01:08:07,208 --> 01:08:08,418 That's insane. 1255 01:08:08,710 --> 01:08:10,962 - I've been accused of whitewashing the fandom. 1256 01:08:11,254 --> 01:08:14,299 I've been accused of, oh, he's trying to control the media. 1257 01:08:14,591 --> 01:08:15,591 Well, you know what? 1258 01:08:15,717 --> 01:08:17,051 You try it someday. 1259 01:08:17,385 --> 01:08:19,105 You know, let's get you in front of a camera 1260 01:08:19,220 --> 01:08:20,220 and have them say, okay, 1261 01:08:20,471 --> 01:08:22,807 so what's it like to have sex in a fursuit? 1262 01:08:23,099 --> 01:08:24,684 Let's have you answer that question. 1263 01:08:25,727 --> 01:08:28,313 Especially if you know that your grandmom's watching. 1264 01:08:29,564 --> 01:08:34,152 Or your mom or your dad or your future spouse. 1265 01:08:35,612 --> 01:08:38,823 (audience claps) 1266 01:08:39,115 --> 01:08:41,618 When furry fandom first began, 1267 01:08:41,909 --> 01:08:44,787 it was organized by some fellows who, 1268 01:08:45,079 --> 01:08:47,332 as enthusiastic as they were, 1269 01:08:47,624 --> 01:08:52,003 really did not pay much mind to the sort of public image 1270 01:08:52,295 --> 01:08:55,006 they were giving to this burgeoning fandom. 1271 01:08:55,298 --> 01:08:55,882 Let's face it. 1272 01:08:56,174 --> 01:08:57,216 I was there. 1273 01:08:57,508 --> 01:09:00,053 Kind of looked like pride fest on an acid trip. 1274 01:09:03,848 --> 01:09:06,267 (fireworks booming) 1275 01:09:06,559 --> 01:09:08,686 I have worked very, very, 1276 01:09:08,978 --> 01:09:13,775 very hard to foster good relationships with the local media 1277 01:09:14,734 --> 01:09:16,819 and with the city of Pittsburgh. 1278 01:09:18,946 --> 01:09:20,823 I want to keep it that way. 1279 01:09:25,828 --> 01:09:28,956 - [Panelist] I've heard at least one opinion up there 1280 01:09:29,248 --> 01:09:31,668 that the physical aspect seems more prevalent, 1281 01:09:31,959 --> 01:09:33,753 the sexual aspect. 1282 01:09:34,045 --> 01:09:37,298 - Why do you think, where do you think it originated from? 1283 01:09:37,590 --> 01:09:38,817 - If you're going to put all your effort 1284 01:09:38,841 --> 01:09:41,135 into one little piece, you want to make sure it sells, 1285 01:09:41,469 --> 01:09:44,597 and the one that's sure to sell is that hot steamy one. 1286 01:09:44,889 --> 01:09:46,349 - On the internet, it's horrible, 1287 01:09:46,641 --> 01:09:51,396 'cause like you cannot find any good, normal furry art. 1288 01:09:51,896 --> 01:09:53,416 - You go into the ConFurence art show, 1289 01:09:53,648 --> 01:09:56,067 and even in the general audience section, 1290 01:09:56,359 --> 01:09:58,039 there's stuff that I wouldn't show a child. 1291 01:09:58,319 --> 01:09:59,862 Or my mother or any of my friends 1292 01:10:00,154 --> 01:10:01,239 outside furry fandom. 1293 01:10:02,407 --> 01:10:04,784 - I mean, sex sells everywhere. 1294 01:10:05,076 --> 01:10:09,831 You look in any subculture, mainstream subculture, 1295 01:10:10,123 --> 01:10:12,709 goth, furry, anywhere. 1296 01:10:13,000 --> 01:10:15,336 - Not to the extreme extent 1297 01:10:15,628 --> 01:10:17,880 that it is portrayed and pushed and produced 1298 01:10:18,172 --> 01:10:19,298 in furry fandom. 1299 01:10:28,683 --> 01:10:29,683 - Next, please. 1300 01:10:32,270 --> 01:10:34,814 - We started getting problems with people 1301 01:10:35,106 --> 01:10:39,235 trying to sabotage the convention pretty early on. 1302 01:10:42,071 --> 01:10:43,511 You had to chalk this up to the fact 1303 01:10:43,781 --> 01:10:45,908 that people didn't like Rodney and I, 1304 01:10:46,200 --> 01:10:48,828 especially because we were a couple. 1305 01:10:49,829 --> 01:10:52,665 They naturally assumed our main interest 1306 01:10:52,957 --> 01:10:57,420 was have gathering of like-minded people for sex. 1307 01:10:58,755 --> 01:11:02,925 And a lot of these rumors were strung on for years. 1308 01:11:22,737 --> 01:11:25,782 - And then a Bay Area, furry convention 1309 01:11:26,073 --> 01:11:27,313 was gonna to happen in January. 1310 01:11:27,366 --> 01:11:32,163 This same time ours had happened for nearly 10 years. 1311 01:11:33,331 --> 01:11:35,666 So we decided to change our dates. 1312 01:11:40,463 --> 01:11:42,340 A lot of the fans from San Diego said, 1313 01:11:42,632 --> 01:11:43,872 how about the Town and Country? 1314 01:11:44,050 --> 01:11:45,810 We've been having science fiction conventions 1315 01:11:45,968 --> 01:11:47,011 there for years. 1316 01:11:47,303 --> 01:11:48,679 So I went and talked to the hotel 1317 01:11:48,971 --> 01:11:50,765 and I cut a deal with them. 1318 01:11:51,057 --> 01:11:55,436 But we tried have our planning meetings in San Diego. 1319 01:11:55,728 --> 01:11:57,939 The staff from up here would not come. 1320 01:11:59,273 --> 01:12:00,358 They wouldn't drive it. 1321 01:12:01,317 --> 01:12:03,110 And more and more of the responsibility 1322 01:12:03,402 --> 01:12:04,737 fell on me and Rodney. 1323 01:12:05,029 --> 01:12:06,572 And it was taking all my time. 1324 01:12:08,699 --> 01:12:10,139 - [Radio] ...by all the flood water. 1325 01:12:10,201 --> 01:12:11,619 - As the nail in the coffin, 1326 01:12:11,911 --> 01:12:13,538 we had the worst April weather 1327 01:12:13,830 --> 01:12:16,123 they've ever had in San Diego in 20 years. 1328 01:12:17,458 --> 01:12:20,002 It was actually hailing in San Diego. 1329 01:12:21,963 --> 01:12:24,841 Attendance was down by at least 200 people. 1330 01:12:25,883 --> 01:12:28,761 When I had the staff meeting at the end of the convention, 1331 01:12:29,053 --> 01:12:31,347 I said, okay, I have worked with Rodney, 1332 01:12:31,639 --> 01:12:35,601 ran this convention from zero to 10. 1333 01:12:37,937 --> 01:12:40,106 I am stepping down. 1334 01:12:42,066 --> 01:12:44,485 People looked around for someone to replace me 1335 01:12:44,777 --> 01:12:48,072 and the gentleman who had been doing our daily newsletter, 1336 01:12:48,364 --> 01:12:50,157 stood up and said, I will take it over. 1337 01:12:51,117 --> 01:12:52,243 And everyone said great. 1338 01:12:56,789 --> 01:12:59,000 I guess it was in 2003. 1339 01:12:59,959 --> 01:13:02,837 He basically stood up at the closing ceremonies and said, 1340 01:13:03,129 --> 01:13:06,257 I am officially closing ConFurence forever. 1341 01:13:08,259 --> 01:13:10,678 He had told us that he had trademarked the name 1342 01:13:10,970 --> 01:13:12,597 and that nobody else could ever have 1343 01:13:12,889 --> 01:13:14,599 a convention called ConFurence. 1344 01:13:21,939 --> 01:13:23,316 - I feel strange saying this, 1345 01:13:23,608 --> 01:13:25,067 but I expected it to get bigger. 1346 01:13:27,403 --> 01:13:29,822 I just had this dream in my head 1347 01:13:30,114 --> 01:13:32,658 of everything kind of coming together, 1348 01:13:33,659 --> 01:13:35,119 but we're going into an era 1349 01:13:35,411 --> 01:13:39,123 where people are more about breaking apart communities 1350 01:13:39,415 --> 01:13:42,501 rather than coming together into big communities. 1351 01:13:42,793 --> 01:13:46,923 And unfortunately, there's furry, too. 1352 01:13:54,221 --> 01:13:56,140 - Conventions were kind of viewed 1353 01:13:56,432 --> 01:13:58,112 by their host hotels and their host cities 1354 01:13:58,392 --> 01:14:00,770 as, what is this stuff? 1355 01:14:01,062 --> 01:14:02,146 Some folk got together. 1356 01:14:02,438 --> 01:14:04,440 They called themselves the Burned Furs 1357 01:14:04,732 --> 01:14:09,528 having been burned by this image that was being projected. 1358 01:14:11,072 --> 01:14:14,867 The Burned Furs were out to clean up the fandom, 1359 01:14:15,159 --> 01:14:19,956 get rid of all of that sex related stuff. 1360 01:14:20,665 --> 01:14:25,002 Now, I kind of agreed in principle with that concept. 1361 01:14:25,294 --> 01:14:27,964 We okay, we can have fun, 1362 01:14:28,297 --> 01:14:31,133 but can we do it over there, where people aren't looking? 1363 01:14:31,425 --> 01:14:33,385 - And I thought, hey, this seems like a good idea. 1364 01:14:33,469 --> 01:14:34,679 Clean up fandom, why not? 1365 01:14:34,971 --> 01:14:38,641 But it was to the extreme. 1366 01:14:38,933 --> 01:14:42,061 - I've seen this fandom to generate from a very nice thing 1367 01:14:42,353 --> 01:14:45,147 into a endless parade of human debris. 1368 01:14:45,439 --> 01:14:46,440 Thank you very much. 1369 01:14:46,732 --> 01:14:47,400 - This is Limbaugh. (panelists clap) 1370 01:14:47,692 --> 01:14:52,071 - The Burned Furs felt that there were people 1371 01:14:52,363 --> 01:14:54,699 in fur fandom that they did not like 1372 01:14:54,991 --> 01:14:58,661 who should be somehow pushed out of the fandom. 1373 01:14:59,745 --> 01:15:03,124 - Particularly people who like Rodney and I, 1374 01:15:03,416 --> 01:15:08,212 who were gay or bi and demonstratively so at conventions. 1375 01:15:10,339 --> 01:15:12,049 Hanging out with their boyfriend, 1376 01:15:12,341 --> 01:15:13,884 cuddling on the couch or something. 1377 01:15:15,386 --> 01:15:18,597 What if, what if a underage person sees that? 1378 01:15:21,100 --> 01:15:23,477 - So this group wanted to do something about it 1379 01:15:23,769 --> 01:15:27,231 and they had a manifesto of cleaning up the fandom. 1380 01:15:28,983 --> 01:15:30,234 No one was complaining 1381 01:15:30,526 --> 01:15:33,029 when all of the art was female pinups 1382 01:15:34,447 --> 01:15:36,240 and heterosexual couples. 1383 01:15:37,616 --> 01:15:38,659 It was okay. 1384 01:15:38,951 --> 01:15:42,455 - And ultimately the pushback against porn and adult content 1385 01:15:42,747 --> 01:15:47,501 in furry is an attempt to push LGBT furs out of furry. 1386 01:15:47,835 --> 01:15:51,881 - Somehow Mark and I were at fault 1387 01:15:52,173 --> 01:15:56,969 for the appearance of LGBT people in among furry fandom, 1388 01:15:58,054 --> 01:16:01,432 which if we wanted to, we wouldn't have known how. 1389 01:16:09,315 --> 01:16:13,152 Furry fandom has attracted every stripe 1390 01:16:13,444 --> 01:16:15,321 of the political spectrum. 1391 01:16:15,613 --> 01:16:18,491 Although we could all sit around and discuss Donald Duck, 1392 01:16:18,783 --> 01:16:21,243 if we got into talking about whether or not 1393 01:16:21,535 --> 01:16:23,412 there should be gay marriage allowed, 1394 01:16:23,704 --> 01:16:25,915 there would be bottles being thrown. 1395 01:16:28,501 --> 01:16:32,004 - It's interesting how this entire thing got sidetracked, 1396 01:16:32,296 --> 01:16:34,548 essentially got completely sidetracked. 1397 01:16:48,312 --> 01:16:50,689 - The current alt-right problem 1398 01:16:50,981 --> 01:16:53,984 in furry fandom is the current alt-right problem 1399 01:16:54,276 --> 01:16:55,820 in the United States, 1400 01:16:56,112 --> 01:16:57,672 which is the current alt-right problem. 1401 01:16:57,947 --> 01:16:59,490 In Western civilization, 1402 01:16:59,782 --> 01:17:00,991 - You are seeing more politics 1403 01:17:01,283 --> 01:17:02,723 than you've ever seen before get in. 1404 01:17:02,827 --> 01:17:04,679 I think once you've got the Trump administration in, 1405 01:17:04,703 --> 01:17:06,247 you saw a lot of furries become 1406 01:17:06,539 --> 01:17:07,957 much more politically active, 1407 01:17:08,249 --> 01:17:10,918 and that's made it more difficult for convention organizers 1408 01:17:11,210 --> 01:17:13,504 to know what they should and shouldn't respond to. 1409 01:17:18,342 --> 01:17:22,388 - We have a pocket of individuals here, 1410 01:17:22,680 --> 01:17:27,268 intertwining with the larger online community 1411 01:17:27,560 --> 01:17:28,560 of the alt-right. 1412 01:17:29,436 --> 01:17:32,189 Entangled with people that represent 1413 01:17:32,481 --> 01:17:36,110 a hate message towards marginalized individuals. 1414 01:17:38,070 --> 01:17:42,366 - Different conventions have had politics take them down. 1415 01:17:44,827 --> 01:17:47,288 - For the furry community, that's pretty bad 1416 01:17:47,580 --> 01:17:49,707 'cause a lot of us are LGBTIA. 1417 01:17:51,375 --> 01:17:52,815 I don't think that I would have been 1418 01:17:53,002 --> 01:17:54,042 the person that I am today 1419 01:17:54,295 --> 01:17:55,754 if I didn't have furry cons. 1420 01:17:57,047 --> 01:17:58,047 No doubt. 1421 01:17:59,008 --> 01:18:01,385 - Thank you for this year. 1422 01:18:01,677 --> 01:18:03,317 Thank you for everything up to this year. 1423 01:18:03,470 --> 01:18:05,598 And we'll see you tomorrow. 1424 01:18:05,890 --> 01:18:09,768 We'll see you next year and good evening. 1425 01:18:11,061 --> 01:18:13,731 (audience claps) 1426 01:18:26,493 --> 01:18:28,078 - [Attendee] Hi mom. 1427 01:18:34,710 --> 01:18:37,713 - Well, early on I had encountered people 1428 01:18:38,005 --> 01:18:40,925 who said I came to the convention 1429 01:18:41,842 --> 01:18:45,679 and I walked into the lobby and I felt I'm home. 1430 01:18:47,973 --> 01:18:49,391 I'm finally home. 1431 01:18:53,145 --> 01:18:57,149 They found their family, they found their people, 1432 01:18:58,609 --> 01:19:03,530 they found their culture, and that aspect has not changed. 1433 01:19:06,909 --> 01:19:09,745 (crowd chattering) 1434 01:19:26,762 --> 01:19:28,122 - Once I'm committed to something, 1435 01:19:28,389 --> 01:19:29,431 I don't want to let it go. 1436 01:19:29,723 --> 01:19:31,183 I can't let it go until the dies. 1437 01:19:32,226 --> 01:19:35,062 We've all grown as a community together, 1438 01:19:35,354 --> 01:19:36,689 but we want to make sure that 1439 01:19:37,690 --> 01:19:40,442 what we're doing now is what the community wants now. 1440 01:19:41,527 --> 01:19:43,487 And I know if we lose these conventions, 1441 01:19:43,779 --> 01:19:45,489 we'll lose a lot of our community. 1442 01:19:45,781 --> 01:19:48,117 We have younger people coming into the fandom 1443 01:19:48,409 --> 01:19:51,287 and they see how open everybody is and they deserve that. 1444 01:19:51,578 --> 01:19:53,747 They deserve the opportunities that we have 1445 01:19:54,039 --> 01:19:56,333 or that we didn't have when we were younger. 1446 01:19:56,625 --> 01:19:58,625 - We can create environments where people are safe, 1447 01:19:58,836 --> 01:20:01,213 where we don't overreact, where we're not dramatic 1448 01:20:02,256 --> 01:20:04,925 and just try to be in the best interest 1449 01:20:05,217 --> 01:20:07,303 of our attendees overall, and let them have 1450 01:20:07,594 --> 01:20:09,722 the environment they can to be they wanna be. 1451 01:20:11,890 --> 01:20:12,890 - A lot of the negativity 1452 01:20:13,142 --> 01:20:15,060 comes from these big voices online. 1453 01:20:15,352 --> 01:20:17,479 And when you take it into perspective, 1454 01:20:17,771 --> 01:20:19,011 there's a thousand other people 1455 01:20:19,148 --> 01:20:20,733 that are having a good time. 1456 01:20:21,025 --> 01:20:22,067 I couldn't let it go. 1457 01:20:22,359 --> 01:20:23,777 I would, I would feel so guilty. 1458 01:20:33,495 --> 01:20:35,372 I think this year went really well. 1459 01:20:35,664 --> 01:20:37,916 2,700 attendees. 1460 01:20:39,126 --> 01:20:41,045 We raised $15,000 for charity. 1461 01:20:42,338 --> 01:20:44,018 - For Denver, we have Freedom Service Dogs, 1462 01:20:44,089 --> 01:20:46,258 where last year we raised $15,000. 1463 01:20:46,550 --> 01:20:48,469 So they can have an awning for the dogs 1464 01:20:48,761 --> 01:20:50,196 when they go outside so it didn't burn 1465 01:20:50,220 --> 01:20:50,763 their paw pads. 1466 01:20:51,055 --> 01:20:52,866 When they're going from the indoor training facilities 1467 01:20:52,890 --> 01:20:54,350 to the outdoor kennels, 1468 01:20:54,641 --> 01:20:56,361 - [Bubbles] We raise as much money as we can 1469 01:20:56,560 --> 01:20:58,270 for the charity we choose. 1470 01:20:58,562 --> 01:21:00,356 We try to pick them locally 1471 01:21:00,647 --> 01:21:02,441 and they're usually animal related. 1472 01:21:07,404 --> 01:21:10,366 - I really feel like I owe a lot to the community 1473 01:21:10,657 --> 01:21:12,534 just because it's taught me so much. 1474 01:21:12,826 --> 01:21:13,986 It's made me become much more 1475 01:21:14,161 --> 01:21:15,954 of a open and understanding person. 1476 01:21:16,246 --> 01:21:18,916 - And we are, I think, outgrowing those stereotypes. 1477 01:21:19,208 --> 01:21:21,585 I think we're becoming appreciated for ourselves. 1478 01:21:21,877 --> 01:21:23,229 - Artists are really like the backbone 1479 01:21:23,253 --> 01:21:24,293 of so much of what happens 1480 01:21:24,505 --> 01:21:26,256 because that's how we're representing 1481 01:21:26,548 --> 01:21:27,548 these characters at all. 1482 01:21:27,758 --> 01:21:29,927 - I remember at the first few conventions, 1483 01:21:30,219 --> 01:21:32,280 no, nobody's ever gonna make a living off of doing this. 1484 01:21:32,304 --> 01:21:34,932 You're crazy to think that, and here we are today 1485 01:21:35,224 --> 01:21:36,975 and there's probably hundreds of artists 1486 01:21:37,267 --> 01:21:39,520 making some or all of their living off of this. 1487 01:21:47,403 --> 01:21:49,163 - I think the fandom has made my life better. 1488 01:21:49,238 --> 01:21:50,478 - I probably wouldn't even have 1489 01:21:50,656 --> 01:21:52,096 a quarter of the life that I do now. 1490 01:21:52,324 --> 01:21:53,617 - I'd have a different career. 1491 01:21:53,909 --> 01:21:55,536 I don't know if I'd be happy. 1492 01:21:55,828 --> 01:21:59,123 - I'd be just a nobody in a crowd. 1493 01:21:59,415 --> 01:22:00,683 - I would never have met my husband. 1494 01:22:00,707 --> 01:22:02,543 I would never have met my best friends. 1495 01:22:02,835 --> 01:22:05,671 - Every single one of my closest friends is a furry. 1496 01:22:05,963 --> 01:22:10,676 - Just thinking about not having that experience is hard. 1497 01:22:10,968 --> 01:22:13,887 - Not having that, I don't know what I do. 1498 01:22:14,179 --> 01:22:15,639 - I don't really want to think about 1499 01:22:15,931 --> 01:22:17,251 because it seems like it would be 1500 01:22:17,433 --> 01:22:19,226 a very, very dark road to go down. 1501 01:22:23,230 --> 01:22:26,567 - We have our typical story we have about fandom. 1502 01:22:27,818 --> 01:22:28,527 - What is furry fandom? 1503 01:22:28,819 --> 01:22:30,630 On, it's a bunch of guys who like sitting around drawing. 1504 01:22:30,654 --> 01:22:33,115 - And a lot of the films were really popular. 1505 01:22:33,407 --> 01:22:35,909 - That was the first convention. 1506 01:22:36,201 --> 01:22:38,745 (crowd chatters) 1507 01:22:46,879 --> 01:22:49,131 - [Mark] Our fandom is based on a concept, 1508 01:22:50,132 --> 01:22:52,551 and that concept isn't going away. 1509 01:22:52,843 --> 01:22:54,720 - 1 go around to conventions 1510 01:22:55,012 --> 01:22:57,473 and I look at the fur suit parade. 1511 01:22:57,806 --> 01:22:59,725 I look at the dances. 1512 01:23:00,017 --> 01:23:03,562 I look at the dealers' rooms and how big they've gotten 1513 01:23:03,854 --> 01:23:05,856 and I'll admit it. 1514 01:23:06,148 --> 01:23:08,692 I sometimes will walk around kind of going. 1515 01:23:08,984 --> 01:23:11,528 Yeah, yeah. 1516 01:23:11,820 --> 01:23:13,864 I was involved with starting this, yeah. 1517 01:23:16,575 --> 01:23:18,118 - We're still in it. 1518 01:23:18,410 --> 01:23:20,579 And we're probably not going to get out of it. 1519 01:23:20,871 --> 01:23:22,539 I don't intend to ever get out of it. 1520 01:23:26,335 --> 01:23:29,546 I think the fandom is something 1521 01:23:29,838 --> 01:23:32,257 I'm the most proud of in my life. 1522 01:23:34,051 --> 01:23:37,387 - When people are having fun at a convention, 1523 01:23:37,679 --> 01:23:42,476 at a meetup, online, or just two people 1524 01:23:42,768 --> 01:23:44,478 who never would have met one another 1525 01:23:44,770 --> 01:23:48,440 who discover a mutual love of furry 1526 01:23:48,732 --> 01:23:49,732 and they get married. 1527 01:23:51,235 --> 01:23:53,904 (crowd whooping) 1528 01:23:59,785 --> 01:24:02,204 Yeah, that's what we're about.