Saturday, April 15, 2017

On the closure of RMFC and the rise of the Alt-Furry


Recent events which have unfolded within the furry fandom have generated renewed media interest in our community smacking of sensationalist headlines from news outlets such as The Daily Beast claiming “Neo-Nazi’s are tearing the furry world apart” and The dailymail.co.uk with its cringe inducing headline:  The furred Reich: Furry annual convention cancelled amid community’s bitter divisions over rise of alleged neo-Nazi ‘Mr Foxler’ and the ‘Altfur’ movement”. Even Rolling Stone picked up on the fur-flying drama with its own hot take: “Does the furry community have a Nazi problem?” Of course, the news media never picks up on stories about how much money furries have donated to charitable causes like veterans associations and animal welfare organizations. Let’s completely ignore the sheer amount of revenue our tourism has brought to major cities that have played host to our conventions when they are in full swing, not to mention the unbridled happiness we bring unto others with our jovial antics, but I digress. Such stories would never earn enough views for these sites because they’re examples of feel-good drivel that most people only pretend to want; they aren’t the juicy, misinformed click-bait articles that the mainstream press and its rabid audience of normies so desperately craves. The aftermath of this latest debacle has resulted in the closure of a significant furry convention which was held yearly in Denver CO and has shaken the furry community to its core. The RMFC (Rocky Mountain Fur-Con) fiasco is our latest example of an intra-community schism that had developed largely on social media platforms (Primarily twitter) and telegram chat rooms before metastasizing like a cancer into the real world and having very real consequences once the authorities got involved.


By now, most of you reading this article know the gist of the story: Back in January of this year, an attention seeking communist sympathizer named @DeoTasDevil made violent threats (Which were investigated by the authorities and deemed credible) on twitter about punching “Nazis” that was then countered by one “@Oliviameles” who responded with an ambiguous comment along the lines of watching someone shoot Deo in self-defense if they were to be punched. Subsequently, Deo was rightfully banned from attending RMFC by one of its staff members for having made this threat to punch ‘Nazi’s’ along with reasoning that claimed that the threat qualified as an “Incite to riot”. However, the ban notice was delivered in a very unprofessional matter. Seeking no legal consultation and drafting a ‘cease and desist’ letter signed in red-ink with a red thumb-print suggesting sovereign citizenship, a man who staffed RMFC, one “Kendal Ray Emery”, who goes by the furry name ‘Kahuki’ decided it was a good idea to mail this mockery of a ‘C&D’ letter to Deo’s place of residence using vaguely worded, intimidating quasi law-speak. It didn’t help matters that he (Kahuki) also has a criminal record as an underage sex offender and regardless of whether or not that fact has anything to do with the situation at hand, RMFC’s con chair and board of directors should have thought twice about keeping this man on staff to save face for the sake of maintaining its public image…or whatever it had left of one. These are furries we are talking about, after all. There were also allegations that RMFC continued to operate as a non-profit organization even after its permit to do so had long since expired; the allegation continues that the RMFC board of directors took advantage of this tax-exempt status and continued to operate as a non-profit for the purposes of tax evasion. RMFC will be remembered as a poorly managed convention that succumbed to a litany of bad press and mounting legal issues which were directly tied in to its rising security costs in excess of $20,000 as a result of these twitter threats which the authorities deemed enough of a valid concern as to provide a security detail that RMFC was unable to afford. Soon afterward on April 10th 2017, RMFC announced its closure in a press release on its main website.

The fact of the matter is that the entire debacle is a dumpster-fire on both sides and nearly everyone involved is at fault. There is next to nothing in terms of integrity worth salvaging when it comes to RMFC and how its board members handled this incident, let alone how they ran the con into the ground in recent years.  It’s worth noting that this was a convention that nearly collapsed in on itself back in 2009 due to its inability to meet room-block requirements before it was bailed out only through the grace of its supporters and staff in the form of large donations that kept it going for as many years as it did.

Enter “Foxler” and the “Furry Raiders”

So along comes a man dressed in a Fursuit that many choose to perceive as sporting a “Nazi Uniform”. His name is ‘Foxler’ and his foxy fursona is complete with a black paw-print logo stitched onto an armband with a red and white background that loosely resembles a “Nazi Armband” (Which makes for great sensationalist media fodder) causing many Antifa (Anti-fascists) within the furry community to lose their collective shit, taking it upon themselves to harass and attack him based solely on his provocative getup. In 2016, Foxler, who is also the de-facto leader of the ‘Furry Raiders’, overbooked 20 room reservations at the Crowne  Plaza Denver airport which hosted the final RMFC. He was then accused by some members of the furry community of buying up these room blocks in order to scalp them and leverage control over attendees. There was an outcry within the community that desperately tried to label this action as a ‘putsch’. As ‘2 The Ranting Griffin’ pointed out last year, the Furry raiders appropriately handled the situation by calling the hotel and cancelling the room reservations due to the overbooking mistake. This caused a great furor in the community, with many claiming that the ‘Furry Raiders’ were a ‘Neo Nazi’ group.

There are many people within the furry community who accuse Foxler, (whose last name is “Miller”) of having a fursona that is supportive of, and synonymous with, Adolf Hitler. Yet Foxler has openly claimed that he is not a Nazi and in no way supports Hitler, rather, insisting that his name is a combination of ‘Fox’ and his last name ‘Miller.’ It is worth noting that Foxler was rejected in the past by actual neo-Nazi’s for being both gay and a furry. The furry raiders also sell rainbow armbands which RMFC had banned the previous year. Yes, that’s right. The furry raiders wear rainbow variations of Foxler’s iconic armband that look vaguely similar to a Nazi armband. What could possibly be more terrifying? Social justice snowflakes apparently feel so gravely threatened by this iconography that they’ve lost their minds and went on a limb to target him and anyone else they see as remotely “toxic”, especially those daring enough to artistically express themselves or are beholden to right-wing views.  This is not the first time a schism of this magnitude has occurred within the furry community. The current state of the furry fandom does draw very similar parallels to the ‘Burned Furs’ debacle of 1998-2001 that tore the fandom apart and resulted in a very embarrassing media frenzy. For anyone unfamiliar with this event, consult the following article.

RMFC foundered because it was a weak and poorly managed convention, but the question we must also ask ourselves is if it is acceptable for radicalized attention seeking individuals to continue to commit libel against others and then threaten to assault them based solely on how they dress or choose to represent themselves? Or perhaps, because their political views are right of center and they are apparently, you know, “ACTUAL NAZI’S”?

The obvious answer is of course not.

Is it healthy for our community to vent this way until the hysteria inevitably burns itself out?  

Only time will tell.

Allegations of ‘Neo Nazism’ proliferating in the furry fandom are little more than a distraction from the core issues we are facing and a convenient smoke screen for authoritarian leftists to hide behind. The problem was never ‘Nazi’s in the fandom’, but SJW’s labeling others as “Nazi’s” with impunity. Make no mistake: The heart of the matter is ultimately one of deeply rooted social and political differences manifesting themselves. The symptomatic issues we are now experiencing in the furry community is indicative of a far larger cultural shift occurring worldwide, notably, a reaction to the rise of populism, conservatism and a nationalist surge that continues to gain momentum. In truth, the furry fandom is embattled by the same social and political challenges that affect any large community that has managed to attain a worldwide reach. It just so happens that this occurs in the furry fandom on a much smaller scale. Even as the witch-hunt of ‘Neo Nazi’s in the community turns out to be a red herring, the allegations of tax evasion concerning RMFC may in time prove far more credible.


Who are the alt-furry, you might ask?

As one of the early adopters of the ‘Alt-furry’ movement shortly after it formed in November 2016, I can attest to its rise to prominence within the furry community firsthand. A certain ‘Pooka’ going by the name“@TheQuQu” built up a support base using the #Altfurry hashtag on twitter, soon becoming the main press contact associated with the movement after releasing  a series of YouTube videos, eventually culminating an interview that legitimate news websites picked up on, which is linked in the following article. Altfurry’s “@Azu_Rayn” also had a major role in proliferating the message of altfurry on social media and producing these videos which many in the furry community at first saw as a joke, but alarmed the leftist opposition when it began to gain traction. One thing still remains very clear and that is just how many people, even within the furry community at large, fail to grasp the sheer irony involved with altfurry as it began primarily as a reactionary movement whose purpose was to mock the extreme far left elements that had cropped up in the fandom in recent years. SJW’s, BLM sympathizers, punks, anarcho-communists and the like began whining louder than ever before following Trump’s victory on November 9th 2016. In the wake of Trump’s inauguration and the Berkley riots earlier this year, these fanatical leftists began demanding concessions that spilled over into the furry community. The more virulent among them began using passive-aggressive tactics to insult and shun anyone who didn’t adhere to their worldview. Some artists and small businesses have openly stated that they will not produce work for Trump supporters and while they are perfectly within their legal right to do just that, their actions still represent an unfortunate byproduct of just how extensively poisonous a small but vocal band of SJW’s have soured the well for everyone involved. They are oblivious to the atmosphere of hypocrisy they have created, preaching the message of a tolerant and open furry community while ostracizing those they disagree with in a bid to control furry-run events and public spaces (conventions) all part of the greater culture war being waged in modern America.


No, not all ‘alt-furry’s support president Trump, though many do. However, from what I’ve seen, most have a tendency toward varying degrees of conservatism in their political stances and uphold the core tenets of many right-leaning views. Some still maintain support for Rand Paul or Ted Cruz, while many others simply do not care one iota when it comes to the American political landscape, partaking in the altfurry shenanigans for reasons all their own. It is said that the opposition to altfurry necessitates the need for altfurry, and this proclamation thus became our iconic rallying cry:

 “This is why we need Altfurry.”

Ideally, politics should really have little to no place in the furry fandom, but, by that same token, being a furry means unabashedly being yourself and staying true to who you are. Whether or not others agree with those political sentiments does nothing to hinder how we choose to voice them. Self-actualization encompasses our right to form our own political opinion without reprisal. Speaking personally, my ethics, convictions and values are an integral part of my identity and since ‘Furry’ is a vehicle for self-expression; they both come part and parcel of what defines me as much as it does for anyone else. In right-wing furry circles there is a strong undercurrent that promotes the embracing of American values, patriotism, capitalism, traditional American culture as well as European history and culture in the Anglo-sphere. In large part, there is a repudiation of political Islamism which is seen as a foreign threat that is incompatible with our way of life. There is a prevailing sense of nationalism, but also a rejection of the ‘old guard’ Republican values with its bible-thumping evangelical religious zealotry, bigotry and prudishness. Hence, the ‘alt’ right began in large part by the youth (Gen X and Millennials) as an alternative to the stale conservatism of the past before being co-opted. “Altfurry” has thus become something of a furry analogue to GamerGate and “Frog-Twitter”.  Many in the rank of Altfurry are strongly pro LGBT, while others are generally tolerant of, or at most, indifferent to gay rights issues along with other typical ‘left’ leaning issues such as environmentalism and socialized healthcare. There are plenty of people within ‘altfurry’ as well as ‘Furry raiders’ that openly embrace many of these so-called  ‘liberal’ issues and support civil liberties and open tolerance as there is always room for overlap. Radicals on both sides rarely choose to see individuals as mosaics beholding to a complex web of moderate views, but rather, wish to project their own image of the opposition to the extremes delineating in stark contrasts.  They do not wish to see the nuanced views we support that give us agency, partly out of laziness, but also out of political expediency: It’s easier to justify punching someone when they are a “Nazi”

Nazi’s, in my fandom? It’s more likely than you think!

Yes, there is a very small minority of furries that dress up in ‘fascist’ attire, the majority of whom do so to fulfill a sexual fetish power trip. Others usually commission furry art of their characters adorned in Nazi outfits to lambast their critics because they want the truth vested in irony and there is no better way to do it than by creating an elaborate charade. How is this any different than Mel Brooks prancing around in Springtime for Hitler or Sarah Silverman dressing up as Nazi caricature? The objective is to embrace the absurdity, because it can’t be taken seriously. It’s not supposed to be.

I voted for, and continue to support “Orange Hitler” therefore I am a ‘fascist’ no matter which stance I take or argument I posit. The ensuing backlash which often occurs with extreme liberal leftists in the furry community has become something of a Monty Python skit gone horribly wrong: a parody that can only be met with a heavy dose of irony followed by no shortage of apathy when the contact cord is finally cut. Nine times out of ten, a person with a diametrically opposing sociopolitical outlook will just block any and all interaction out of ignorance which I suspect is largely due to their inability to formulate a viable counterpoint. Personally, I see this as a concession and a victory in-itself over their purported ideologies that they claim to hold so dear, showing that the much lauded ‘tolerant’ leftist is quite a rare animal indeed. There is simply no point in arguing the matter when there are people clinging so unwittingly to an obtuse mentality that they cannot tolerate a differing perspective, but there is much to be said about staying true to one’s own convictions and a great deal of merit to be gained by taking a stand in the values one cherishes and wishes to see proliferate in their country against all opposition.

I am a strong civic nationalist and I believe in the idealism that America is a nation for every race, creed, and orientation; that being said, I shouldn’t have to virtue signal in order to prove that my egalitarian intentions are inclusive and accepting of anyone who wishes to partake in the furry fandom. Because you can’t just be a ‘good person’ and have voted for Trump.  No, they have no other recourse but to vilify you and then block. There may be no reconciliation in differences of opinion with these extremists, but they are quickly finding out that the furry fandom is not theirs to control.
 
While “Deo” enjoys 15 minutes of furry-fame before inevitably fading into obscurity, the more extreme leftists within the fandom will rally around the “REEEEEEEEEEs” of this injured varmint crying foul and feigning oppression while the alt-furs have a good laugh about it and continue to mine the salt for all its worth. Alt-furry have been disparaged and attacked for simply existing, because our very presence is a threat to those who desire further censorship when we exercise our freedom of expression.  The old idiom of “The fascists of the future will call themselves anti-fascists” has proven incredibly accurate.  Let me also point out that Fascism is a left wing ideology (National socialists). Deo has thus far proven to be a useful idiot for the far-left furry cadre that will no doubt flaunt their collective self-victimization as a calling card for more sympathy while throwing a conniption fit to the press with so much ire and gnashing of teeth. It’s important that we reserve some degree of pity for many ‘Antifa-fur’s as many of them have come from broken homes with no nuclear family or traditional father figure to steer them right, else they wouldn’t be so morally bankrupt and misguided as to engage in cultural Marxism and resort to Anarcho-communism as an outlet to form their worldview. They will continue to find themselves further and further marginalized in a fandom that has grown far larger and more diverse than they could ever hope to control and those who take it upon themselves to act upon their violent urges will wind up permanently banned from future convention spaces. Their cries of Nazi’s! have thus far attracted the attention of the press, but this melodrama will backfire after wearing thin and falling flat. The moment they have exhausted their tantrum and resort to violence, their being tolerated by the greater berth of the furry community will begin to evaporate. In regards to self-proclaimed ‘Antifa furs’ and SJW’s participating in the furry fandom, there is no central ‘leadership’ as it is a very nebulous clique rooted in degenerate communism and far left socialism. Theirs is little more than another ill-fated power-grab in an attempt to ‘gate keep’ the fandom by their efforts to oust ‘undesirables’ and  to prevent others from displaying their colorful armbands. It’s an attack on the freedom of self-expression which is enshrined in the constitution. I stand with Foxler and his right to express himself as he sees fit. I stand with the confederate flag Fursuiter who was banned for two years at MFF 2015 for emblazoning a symbol on the back of his fursuit which is a crucial and integral part of American history that can be found on the Mississippi state flag.

A legitimate concern that affects everyone involved is how these SJW extremists and Antifa fur’s may continue to maneuver themselves into positions of power such as convention staff in order to abuse their authority and begin chartering policies that prohibit freedom of expression and enact bias against right wing members of the furry fandom.  This has already happened in small part, particularly at MFF (Midwest Furfest). The latest development that has taken shape after RMFC cratered is that Deo is promoting “Mile High Furcon”  as an alternative to RMFC where they are looking for staff members who are not “bigoted or share hate speech.” which is code word for sheltering a safe-space that enforces a rigid authoritarian leftist agenda. Altfurry is not so much focused on creating a ‘safe space’ for right-leaning furs, but rather helping form a support channel through which they are encouraged to participate in the community and let their voices be heard. The altfurry now heralds a call for acceptance without demands to oust leftist opposition from the community as we are confident that they will surely do that to themselves.

Conclusions

The furry fandom has grown into a world-wide social circle where we are free to find out who we truly are through boundless creativity and inspiration in one another; a venue by which we express ourselves and have fun in doing so. Perhaps what I find most distressing about this situation is how much attention the RMFC fiasco has garnered when in comparison to the most severe issues that rocked the furry fandom. Where was the outrage when five prominent men in the furry community were convicted of raping an underage boy?
 
…and it was swept under the rug and conveniently ignored in large part. There is a tremendous disconnect occurring in this community when it comes to focusing on which issues should be a priority that could keep its most vulnerable members safe. The latent corruption within this fandom has not been receiving nearly as much attention as when the imaginary boogeymen of Furry Raiders and Alt-Furrys were thrown into the spotlight as a distraction, lost amidst cries of “Literal NAZI’s taking over the fandom!” which rang out in false alarm. In regards to the molestation case in PA, there were many statements on message boards expressing sentiments of “Oh it shouldn’t matter that they were furry!” and “This could happen in any community!” while true, these sentiments said nothing about what steps were being taken to prevent this behavior and any attempt at examination to root out this kind of depravity by banning individuals with a similar record of child abuse from attending conventions was not considered. This lapse in judgment constitutes a grave danger in our community. Each individual snowflake will never see fit to take responsibility for the avalanche when it comes crashing down.

While 501(c) non-profit organizations are well within their legal right to permit or deny whomever they choose to attend a convention space while in operation, any attempt by board members of existing conventions that begin enforcing Antifa and SJW tactics by banning or intimidating attendees based on their social and political views will certainly result in a fractured fandom and find their conventions run into the ground in a similar fashion to RMFC, Rainfurrest and Oklacon. Any convention taking this approach will be akin to the community putting a choke hold on its own growth that will result in a long term deterioration which the fandom hasn’t truly experienced yet. If this does occur, defamation lawsuits will be filed and it will only be a matter of time until someone is crossed to the point where they have the convention investigated for tax evasion or have them sued for libel. This is a community that has been growing on a steady incline since the late 70’s yet may be in for a shock if it does indeed fracture into separate fandoms or stop growing altogether which wouldn’t be a good thing for anyone. This is a grassroots fandom that was built on self-discovery and unity, but that unity is predicated upon acceptance and requires open minds that are inclusive and tolerant of people who have differing points of view. This includes Trump supporters, right-wing conservatives, nationalists and Libertarians.

Furries come from all walks of life and have many different perspectives, something which many grown adults have yet to learn how to accomplish. After a numbing series of defeats, the far left is still in the midst of a massive tantrum. They have become a desperate group of people striving to enlarge the influence of their echo chambers under the guise of ‘safe spaces’ within the ranks of our community because they have stuck their heads so far up their asses that they demand everyone group-think identically as they do.  God Forbid if anyone else maintains a differing point of view from theirs, thinks for themselves, or does not adhere to their fanatical leftist value system else they are truly a dyed in the wool Nazi and worthy of being punched. Despite all the current hysteria going around I’ve no doubt that once this drama tapers off the greater furry community will do some soul searching and come to find that the #altfurry are fellow members of this fandom, no better or worse than they are, but eager to temper liberal extremism regardless of whether or not everyone may agree with our methods. We continue to accomplish a great deal of progress by upholding freedom of speech and expression in this fandom. The vitriol coming from many Antifa (which are a domestic terror group) and their ilk threatening to begin ‘Punching Nazi’s’ will be confronted directly, reported to authorities and exposed as a small group of cornered animals posturing out of weakness as more and more people will come to find out that their bark is worse than their bite.

Pun intended.

-Fox Crimson

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