In a time of self-isolation and quarantining, the hunger for personal connection can be
overwhelming. We all need people in our lives to watch out for us. Luckily, before the pandemic,
I had Amy Hoggart visit one of the most caring and hopeful communities of all. Earlier this
month, before everyone was wearing masks and gloves, I met a group of people wearing…
well, masks and gloves. Furries. Yep. I'm at a furry convention. Is everyone okay?
- Oh, everyone's fine. You know, a lot of people don't really understand furries because
it's outside the social norm. But instead of being fans of sports teams, or fans of
coin collecting, comics, or something like that, we’re fans of walking, talking animals.
Remember when we had the time and energy to walk around dressed like whatever this is?
Oh, a dinosaur holding a dolphin. Of course. I miss six days ago.
Okay, but really. Remember when we had time to think about the election that’s coming
up? Yeah. That’s still happening. Do you think that there is a candidate that
most furries are excited to vote for? - Pretty much everybody I talked to was supporting
Sanders. - Bernie Sanders.
Would you describe yourself as a Furry Bernie Bro? Or a Bernie Furry Bro?
- Yes. Okay.
Whether or not he’s out of the race, Bernie’s purr-gressive policies resonate with the furries
for a reason. What do you think the furry community stands for?
- Acceptance. Everybody’s welcome in the furry fandom. We don’t discriminate.
- I would say that furries care about the environment, trans rights, and LGBT rights
as well. - Being transgender—it feels like an out,
another way to express for me. - Give me your energy!
What’s going on? - It’s a Dragon Ball Z reference where everyone
tries to give them their energy or something. That’s nice.
- Yeah. Energy transfers does sound a lot like Democratic
Socialism. So naturally, Bernie speaks to them.
- Bernie or riot bro. Has he ever appealed to the furry community
directly? - Well, there’s a famous photo. It’s like
Bernie in a photo with a furry in it. And it’s very popular in this community.
So not necessarily a furry fan, but in a photo with a furry.
- Yeah. He’s been photographed with furries. - I would hope Bernie Sanders would be a lowkey
furry. That would be great. - He would be… a badger.
Why? - He just kinda looks like one.
Wicked. And Biden? - Oh… like a cackling hyena or something.
And cackling hyenas poll really well in this community.
Who are you gonna be voting for? - Uh, probably Biden. ‘Cause he’s pragmatic.
‘Cause you’re gonna need that going into a divided country.
Is there a world where you’d vote for Trump? - I would never vote for Trump.
- I think he’d do better if he didn’t tweet quite so often.
- He’s acting like a man-child in the office. Do you think there are any Donald-Trump-voting
furries? - Oh, there’s quite a bit of them, unfortunately.
Really? - Yeah. It’s bizarre to me.
Even fake animals have real assholes. Yeah. The furry community was infiltrated by the
far right. Or, as I like to call them, the fur right.
- There’s kind of a deep hidden war almost in this fandom. Most of the drama happened
last year. Throughout the country, small groups of alt-furries
have popped up. - The alt-right has tried to infiltrate the
furry fandom via the Furry Raiders. So the Fur Nation created videos to rally
against the hate. - This was their logo and they wore it in
an armband fashion. - They literally wear armbands that have,
like, Nazi propaganda on them. - They have a history of threatening conventions,
LGBTQ people… - There has to be a point where you can’t
be welcome anymore. And whereas America at large has basically
failed to control the rise in hate, furry conventions instituted anti-harassment policies
and banned garments and costumes that communicate hostile messaging. This effectively banned
the Nazi furries, proving that furries should be running both Twitter and Facebook.
Do you think America would be helped if everybody was a furry?
- Yes. I wish everybody other than furries had the same experience that we do here. It’s
really just a liberating and wholesome experience. - I
think the best way you can understand who a furry is is to understand who furries were.
We were the fat kid in school that got picked on a lot. Or we were the kid who stood awkwardly
at the wall on the gym hoping someone would ask us to be part of the dance. We are all
types of people who, for whatever reason, craved social acceptance, but we never really
found it from our peers. Who are we today? We’re simply people who never forgot our
childhood friends. If you can understand that, you can understand what motivates a lot of
furries.
We can learn a lot from people who were forced to social distance before it was cool. Badgers,
hyenas, whatever. Furries show us what it looks like to take care of each other. It’s
not about who we were, but who we want to be when this is done.
Also, dibs on the furry Dr. Fauci suit.