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♪

(eerie whistling)

- [Rod] There's this weird
thing that humans do.

We take animals and we put
our words into their mouths

to talk back to us, usually about us.

It's a very strange thing,

but we've done it for centuries.

We learned to read from
anthropomorphic animals.

We learn right from wrong
from anthropomorphic animals.

But most people don't notice it.

Furry fans are the people
who notice that we do this,

and think that there's something

really special about that.

- Well, like the dictionary
definition you get

is furry is a community of people

that enjoy anthropomorphic art, right?

- [Nonstoppup] I feel like
it's way more than that.

It's a social space that is largely queer,

and gravitates around,
using art as the vehicle

to explore identity.

- I sucked at drawing people,

so I would draw animals and everything.

- I sort of anthropomorphized my own dog

in a lot of my drawings, stuff like that.

- I was a part of a Lion
King archive online,

and everybody role plays as lions.

And I remember just thinking,
guys, the lions are great,

but what if we were wolves?

And they're like, ew, furry.

And I was like, furry? (laughs)

- I had my first word to get
to this feeling that I had.

- Yes, yeah, I did your shirt.

I was initially into cosplay.

I cosplayed a lot of anime characters.

- I'm not alone.

There are other people out
there that are into this.

I didn't come out fully, 'cause
furry was taboo back then.

It's something weird, something odd.

It doesn't help that
media never really had

a positive point of view to begin with.

- But I'm always grateful

for the friends that I've made

and the people that
I've met along the way.

It's just a fundamental part of who I am.

- So I'm not super familiar

with the history of the fandom.

I know, I think it originated

out of a sci-fi convention in the 80s,

and I want to say probably California.

(cups clattering)

(wind chime clinks)

- I was already known as
the science fiction geek

of the family.

The movie geek and the Disney geek.

I've been all of these
things since I was a kid.

- I've been interested
in science fiction fandom

since the 1970s, when I went to

my first Star Trek convention.

I was a Navy brat.

Our family would go to the movie theater

at the Air Navy base in
St. Louis and watch films.

- [Rod] One of the first times
I've ever been to a theater,

my dad hated them.

He much preferred drive-ins,

but somehow we talked him into going

to a sit down theater to see "Robin Hood."

- [Mark] And I would fuss
and cry and squirm always,

except in the movie "Bambi."

- [Rod] I was immediately hooked.

I was into that cartoon.

- [Mark] I just loved animation.

What it looked like and
also how it was done.

- [Rod] I'm into it in a way
that my school friends aren't.

I'm into it in a way
that my parents aren't.

So what do I do?

I was looking for fandom.

A bunch of people getting together

and geeking out with
each other about media.

- [Mark] We traveled across the country

and ended up moving to California in 1958.

- [Rod] I live in Southern
California, close to Hollywood,

the media capital of the world,

or at least it was at the time.

- [Director] Background places, please.

- This is lovely.
- Oh, it's lovely.

- [Man] Turn around, let's see your back.

- [Camerawoman] You had a nice
pose, want to try it again?

- [Rod] LosCon 1980.

The local Southern California
science fiction convention.

That was the first convention
that I'd ever been to

that had an art show.

And it was beautiful.

A lot of it was princesses
in flowing gowns,

star fields that you'd see
on the side of someone's van.

And a lot of it was
just absolutely amazing.

But then here are these pictures

of these semi-anthropomorphic
weasel characters

with antennas like bugs.

A friend of mine said,
Rodney, you gotta see these,

'cause they knew I wouldn't shut up

about my enjoyment of mustelid characters.

In school, I was considered
very weird for that.

So I asked them at the art
show, who does this art?

- [Mark] I had a video
room at LosCon seven

showing some anime, some
science fiction TV shows.

And this tall guy comes up and goes--

- Why do your pine martens have antennas?

- Oh my, this person recognizes

the kind of animals I'm drawing.

Most people thought they were cats.

And I said, well, sit down
and I'll explain it to you.

We loved Japanese animation

and nobody knew about it
except for the few shows

By 1977, myself and four other people,

some of whom were
animators in the business,

actually TV animators.

We decided more people
should see this stuff

and started a club.

And it was the first anime club.

- The very first anime
fan club in America.

- A lot of the people
that came to the meetings

were also into animal characters.

Which is why the mascot of the club

became one of my Skiltaire,

which are sort of an alien
mammal based on weasels.

Rodney would come to the screenings

and we'd hang out and talk.

And we saw each other more
and more and more after that.

Here were two people

who came from very different backgrounds,

but we were paralleling each other

amazingly on interests and passions.

Movies, animation, novels, comics.

And a few years later, we
decided to become a couple.

- Rod and Mark are effectively,

the grandparents in the furry fandom.

I consider them the parents
of the furry fandom,

but I've also been in the furry fandom

for 20 years at this point.

The Prancing Skiltaire
household is like a museum

and library of furry things.

They had figurines all over the place.

They have bookcases and
bookshelves of furry comics,

of anime comics, of sci-fi.

- [Rod] So this is San
Diego Comic Con one year.

This is Don Bluth and Douglas Adams.

Me.

- [Rod] Remember they had

the live action muppet?
- The live action muppet show.

- [Rod] There was lots and lots and lots

of science fiction conventions.

- [Attendee] Ah yeah!

- We saw the birth of the comic book shop.

- In the 70s, it was a time when

the Comics Code was
still heavily enforced,

and so comic books all
had to be black and white,

good and evil, superhero comics basically.

But there were these groups of artists

who were just chomping at the
bit to do something different,

to do something, not superheroes,

to do something Funny Animal.

- [Rod] Funny Animal does not
mean animals that are funny.

It means animals that are in the funnies.

- A lot of people think Funny Animal

and think that it all has to go to kids,

but a lot of it was being
consumed by adults as well,

especially in the underground comic scene.

- Their sense of mischief,
their sense of uninhibitedness.

I was sort of in a family where

I don't think there
was a lot of elbow room

for my exuberance, my imagination.

And I think I projected a lot
of that into these stories,

into these characters.

And I think a good deal of identification

developed from that.

- [Mark] Funny Animal comics
used to be very popular

before superheroes took off.

- And they had their own fandom.

It was very spread and
had a lot of difficulty

talking to each other in
the old pre-internet days.

- [Mark] Now they've
been lost to obscurity.

- The fandom started...pretty much-

Old folk tend to disagree

on where exactly it began,

but the commonly accepted starting point

was a painting done by
the artist Steve Gallacci.

He had created a character,
a furry character,

a pilot in a futuristic spaceship.

This piece was hanging up in an art show

at an east coast science
fiction convention.

Now what you have to understand is

that hadn't been done before.

A furry, an anthropomorphic character,

was limited to a coyote
hitting the bottom of a cliff,

standing up dusting himself off

and going to the Acme catalog.

- [Summercat] He also
published one of the very first

furry anthology comics, "Albedo."

Steve had a whole world

about these anthropomorphic
animals in outer space

and their politics, and war
between different groups.

It really caught people's imaginations.

- It was from discussion of his work

that led to the very first furry party,

directly led to the very
first furry party, actually.

Cause they moved to discussion

from in front of his art panel

to a private room to
continue the discussion.

- It started out as gatherings of people

in room parties at science
fiction conventions.

(people laughing)

- [Joe] His fans would
show up and he discuss

this universe he'd created.

- And that was the beginning.

That was around 1980 or there about.

- [Joe] These room parties somehow

got the name of furry parties.

- The term 'furry' had got
around and stuck enough

that when we had another party

at Westercon 1986 in San Diego,

we decided to call it a furry party.

All of these artists were amazed

that there were other people out there

drawing quote, unquote, Funny Animals

in the way that they did.

- Someone would walk into our party,

pull out a sketchbook and say,

I was the only one I
thought that was drawing

this kind of stuff.

And that just kept
happening again and again.

- They had this same revelation as I did.

I'm not the only one.

I always thought I was weird.

I always thought no one
else would understand.

And here are people who are just like me.

- (TV plays cartoon)

- It was like a quest to find more people

who like the same thing we liked.

And it became the most
important thing in our lives.

- I wanted to jump up on
the Empire State Building

and singing an aria about it.

I thought we had stumbled
across something just so cool.

Well, this is a classic Merlino.

This is the AvantGarden
Gallery in downtown Santa Ana.

It's part of their arts district.

Mark and I have been hosting

what we call the art of furry fandom,

where we gather furry artists together

and have them put their stuff on display

along with all of this
quote, unquote regular art

- Here was our art show
and our sponsor lounge,

couple of panel rooms here,
and a mini fursuit lounge.

And then here was our game room.

Hi, I'm Bubbles, I'm 25.

I'm the convention chair for

five different furry conventions,

including DenFur here in Denver, Colorado.

The hotel will give us this whole space

and we choose how we use it.

A little meet-and-greet area.

Some board-gaming and then
our big, main events room.

(crowd chattering)

We have had hotels that are like,

so I looked up this stuff
and what the heck is this?

I mean, DenFur is like

a celebration of the anthropomorphic arts.

Well, I found furry probably, oh,

probably junior high-ish.

I didn't know what furry was yet.

That was back in the days
of Neopets on the internet.

I found all those message boards,

and I'm like, these are my people.

I guess I'm here.

My parents, they always thought it was

some weird kinky thing that like,

what is my daughter doing?

The fandom growing up was kind of a hobby,

especially working as a medic.

It was a side thing that I could do

and enjoy outside of work.

Now I run conventions.

I mean, my life is the fandom,

and I don't know where I
would be now without it.

(crowd chattering)

- [Mark] We had the creators,
the people that made art.

They were fans of comic strips.

They were fans of comic books

and they were all aiming
to be in that business.

- Reed Waller started an
APA-zine called "Vootie."

It had Funny Animals in it,

but it was more of an
underground influence.

- APA, A-P-A, amateur press association.

- All the members of this APA-zine

would make photocopies of their artwork

and send it into the editor,

who would compile the
entire book together,

and then send a copy
out to all the members.

- And then you would get back,

here's my work and 25 or 30 other works.

- This is how a lot of people

over a large geographical area
got a chance to get feedback

from other artists, authors, and creators.

- There was literally this giant culture

of people who were talking to each other

by writing into the letters columns

of their favorite magazines.

It was like the internet in slow motion.

We were a very strange fandom.

We didn't fully grasp how
strange we were going in,

but we were not a fandom of a property,

nor were we a fandom of a genre.

Other fandoms would look at
us and get extremely confused.

What are you about?

WHO are you about?

All of those specificities don't matter.

It's the overarching:
animals-doing-things-

that-animals-don't-do, thing,

that binds this all together.

Beyond that, it can be anything.

- Probably the earliest
furry work I would talk about

is a Omaha the Cat Dancer,

which exists because Taral
Wayne who was fairly influential

in the early furry fandom
wrote a letter to "Vootie."

(crowd laughs)

- In response, Kate Worley and Reed Waller

came up with Omaha the cat dancer,

which is about a exotic
pole-dancing feline

and her boyfriend and
sometimes girlfriend.

It gets a complicated storyline sometimes.

It was story with drama,

it was a story with realistic action,

with character motivations.

Omaha was widely acclaimed

as a great pro-feminist comic as well

because it showed a female main character

in control of her own destiny,

and she didn't let society
decide what she wanted.

- We had all quietly discovered

that part of what brought
us to furry characters,

anthropomorphic characters,

was that we thought they could be sexy.

It seemed kind of obvious

when you saw some of these characters

and how they were designed

that they were intended to be sexy.

(crowd cheers)

We felt we were just kind of

jumping on a big existing bandwagon.

The very first conventions I ever went to,

there were erotic
material of every fandom.

So of course, furry is full of sexuality

because furry is full of human beings

who are alive and thinking and feeling.

- [Mark] Ken Sample quite often would draw

this little cougar guy that
looked an awful lot like Ken.

We started calling that
character Ken Cougar.

We thought, hey, we should
have our own character too

that's actually us.

This was a big shift in the fandom.

We went from fans of animal
people to being animal people.

♪

- [Mark] This created an
explosion in art demand.

(crowd chattering)

- A fursona is someone's
character that represents them.

That may be how they see themselves.

It may be an aspirational character,

what they wish they were
or would like to become.

As an artist, it involves kind of

getting inside their head and figuring out

what is it that their fursona is saying?

Who is this person,

and what part of this human
is this furry character,

this fursona that you're designing?

When you can figure that
out and you show them

the final piece of art and they're like,

oh my gosh, that's perfect.

That's just like the
greatest thing in the world.

- Because a lot of people,

their furry character is
the better version of them.

This would be me if I
didn't have these problems

or these things, this is the best of me.

Cause everyone likes to think of animals

as being more pure and more
innocent and stuff like that,

'cause humans can do
some pretty dark things.

Granted, so do animals in the real world.

But we're not getting into
that, this is fantasy.

At least that's how I
always interpreted it.

That, and I think some people just thought

certain animals are cute.

- [Mark] Everybody wanted
pictures of their fursonas.

- [Rod] We started getting
together discussion groups.

What is your fursona?

- My earliest character was a kangaroo

named White Death because I was 13

and I was super edgy.

- I chose a husky.

They were always my favorite dog,

and the personality wise
of a husky is basically me.

- I really like border collies
cause they're super smart,

and then I was like, but I need
to be ferocious like a wolf.

It is a border Collie wolf character.

His name was Kiguel, and
I had stolen the name

from an exchange student
that was at my school.

- I think people join furry
because of how encouraging

it is of exploring yourself,
understanding yourself

and expressing it.

- I've been drawing for
as long as I can remember.

I just picked it up as a
kid and didn't really stop.

I'd say I identify a lot with birds.

I'm pretty quiet, and a
little bit shy or flighty.

I deal with social anxiety
and things like that.

I feel like I have one
foot in the furry fandom

and one foot in fantasy illustration.

There's a humanness that
you can impart to animals

or dragons or anything like that,

where there's that ability to
relate to what you're seeing,

even though what you're
seeing is fantastical.

I think that's really powerful.

I started doing conventions

to go and sell my work and show it.

I love it a lot more than just doing

like a mainstream comic convention

where it's all people celebrating

other intellectual properties

that are technically corporate.

- [Attendee] I can't wait to do that talk

with you tonight at 10:00 PM.

- One of the things I really love

about the fandom is
how many people find it

to be their path out of their shell.

- I started looking at all
the different suits and stuff

on Google search and they
just looked so unique

and just fascinated me.

And I was like, I can do that.

I really wanna to do that.

And this is another creative
outlet that I can use.

And I wanted to make my
own character come to life

and be one of those fursuits.

I remember wearing my Luna
suit for the first time.

I ran into so many people

that wanted to take pictures with me.

And it was just really
exciting to like go around

and have fun in fursuit with
other people in fursuit.

- [Attendee] Ta-da!

- You can look at their character

and learn things about
them in that very moment.

Like what their species choice is,

what sort of colors they're
using, what their name is.

That's all broadcasting a lot of things

that they want you to know about them.

And they might not even realize

what they're sending out subconsciously.

- Usually when I go to make a suit,

everything from gender to height

plays a role in creating
these characters for people.

And it's actually really
fun to help them explore

this whole new character
that they're creating.

- [Cameraman] I think you're
in...I think you're in focus.

- We had been going to BayCon,

and the anime fans were
taking over the convention.

The people running the convention

kind of politely said could you guys maybe

get your own convention because

this is science fiction and
it's becoming all anime.

Rodney and I said, gee.

Maybe we could have a furry
convention just for furries.

So we started looking around
for a hotel local to us.

We weren't coming in there
with a corporate credit card

laying it down and say
this pays for everything.

If I signed the contract with the hotel,

I was liable to pay the hotel.

- I will admit I was young and
had kind of stars in my eyes.

I think we had a crew of like, five,

counting Mark and myself
for running everything.

- We'd been tossing names around.

And I had the idea, how about conference

except put a U of an E?

ConFurence.

That's the name we picked.

We numbered the first convention 'zero'.

- Because we weren't certain
it was going to work.

So we said to ourselves, let's get crazy.

If we're going to put
on our own conventions,

let's try and do some things differently.

(crowd cheering)

One of the big things
that you will always find

in the history of science
fiction conventions

is the Saturday night masquerade.

- [Mark] It was the big event.

They weren't professionally
lit in any way, shape, or form.

All of us myopic fans with
their glasses could see

these glowing blobs
sauntering down the stage.

- Yeah, I guess that looks pretty.

- We thought it'd be great

if people could actually see the costumes.

Maybe even close up.

- Is this a little better?

Is this is a little better?

- Yeah.
- All right, okay.

Okay, we'll begin with

the first.

(audience claps)

(audience claps)

Back then, art show was the biggest thing.

The art shows were always popular

and always made a lot of
money for the artists.

(crowd chatters)

- We wanted to make furry
conventions smart and fun.

You wanted to come to learn stuff,

you could learn stuff.

If you wanted to come
to hang and be friends,

you could hang and be friends.

(crowd chatters)

- January of '91, a friend of mine and I

drove 44 hours straight
from Tampa to SoCal

to ConFurence 2 in Anaheim.

It was a completely new experience.

My first trip out of the time zone.

Seeing hills for the first time,

then mountains for the
first time, and then snow.

Just a completely new thing,

throwing me completely out of my element.

Just sheltered shy college
kid, and next thing you know,

I'm in California amongst
several hundred furries.

These comic artists that
I'd seen in fanzines

and black and white comics,

they're right there in front of me.

And they're just, they're just people.

I was learning art myself
and drawing from time to time

and next thing you know,

I'm a writing for the first six issues

of a magazine called "Yarf!"

- There's been some
footage floating around

that's just adorable.

Terrible 80s hair, the 80s fashion.

And it was very clear that
these people were having fun.

- [Panelist] Shop around
for your material.

There are places out
there that will sell you,

charge you a fortune.

- They've found a place to
start exploring who they were

at a time and a place that

they never had been able to before.

It was very inclusive and very welcoming

and became sex-positive.

Not that it was about sex,
but that when sex happened,

it was generally viewed favorably.

It wasn't dirty, wasn't wrong.

It was just sex.

And people have sex and that's fine.

- [Announcer] It's the
Rod O'Reilly master mix

at ConFurence Zero.

- We were fully prepared for
it to fall flat on its face

and cost us a bunch of money.

And then say, well, that was a great idea.

Let's try something else.

But it worked.

- [Mark] It gave me a
feeling of accomplishment.

- We were onto something and we said,

let's take this football and run with it.

And we did.

- Can you test it, see if it sounds okay?

The con chair is always
the one in the spotlight.

People think we're the only
one making the decision.

This whole team of 60 to 100 people

put in months and months of
work to put on this show.

We can't run it with five people.

It wouldn't happen, there's no way.

- Boiler to Truffle.

- The thing that I didn't know was

how many small moving parts there are.

What time things open,
what time things close,

when things finally get locked down.

And how many people it takes
to put on something like this.

(crew chatters)

- Usually set up starts right
after the last one ended.

We start putting things in place.

We started listening to feedback.

We started approving things.

It's a very, very complex machine.

- This is A1 corgi to A1...uh,

whatever your species is, Bubbles.

There's a ton of different departments.

We have a business
director, events director,

operations director, marketing,
and public relations.

Theming, our HR managers.

IT and AV work, so all the
sound and lighting that you see.

- [Boiler] Things like dealer's den,

which is a vendor space,

requires hand-choosing the dealers.

And we go through 400
applications every single year.

- There's only two
female convention chairs

in the entire fandom.

And we have one and we're proud of that.

- I graduated as an EMT
and from high school

at the same time and worked my butt off

to get to paramedic
school as soon as I could.

The president of that program
sat me down in an office

and said, look, you're
going to be the only woman

in this class.

I think you should leave.

Just being able to overcome
that in that profession,

also coming to furry has
made a big difference

'cause in the convention leadership world,

there's not a lot of women.

It is still extremely male dominated.

A lot of people in the 9-1-1
first responder profession

hurt their back.

And that's unfortunately
what happened to me.

I wasn't allowed to do that job anymore.

I do miss medicine,

but I get a lot of the same
gratification out of this.

- Okay, yeah, so there's
the con store stuff...

so I can get the GoH...

(radio muffles)

- The computer, the network,

the mass communication revolution

is what made furry fandom take off.

A whole lot of people who
are furries are in IT.

- [Rod] But it was the realm
of the military and colleges

that were the only
people who knew about it.

Eventually the college peoples went home

and took a lot of the
computer stuff with them.

- And then along came ARPANET,
FidoNet, bulletin boards,

the proto internet.

A bulletin board service.

You had to dial in to this central network

and you could post text, pictures.

The pictures was the painful part

because it would take about
30 minutes to download it.

And you would see the cursor
rendering across the screen,

every line of pixels.

- It was only a week until
you got a reply to your post

instead of a month.

Hey, life improves.

- People today take it for granted.

Back then, this was new.

This was unheard of.

This was Star Trek stuff.

- It gave people a chance

to do role play as their characters.

- When I was just coming out of college

and I was starting to work,

the internet was a very small place.

We think of it as this
big thing of global data,

but really, there wasn't as much out there

as people think there was,

and there weren't the browsers.

So we were using things
like Gopher and Mosaic

and all kinds of weird technology

that doesn't exist anymore.

- [Rod] A bunch of
people would get together

on a computer system,

form characters and go
on an adventure together.

They started calling these things

multi-user dungeons, MUDs.

It would say you are now in a room

that is this big, it's colored
red, it's made of brick,

and there is a dragon sitting there

that's going to eat your face.

- Other gathering started
that were entirely social.

They didn't want to
continue using the word MUD

because that still had
that dungeon connotation.

So they started calling them MUCKs.

- With the online communities,

particularly Furry MUCK
that started in 1990,

people were getting to know each other

and they would go to
conventions to meet each other.

- [Joe Strike] Excuse
me, are you THE Karno?

- Yes.

- [Joe Strike] Hi, I'm THE Joe Strike.

- Hey, hiya, Joe.

- [Joe Strike] Oh yeah,
shake right there you go.

- I'm Mutie on Furry MUCK.

This is Chirik, who also is on furry MUCK.

- And it became more
about meeting each other

and having this sense of community

beyond just people
centered around creators.

That's how I first found that there was

an organized furry fandom.

The community was, was
my solace, my salvation.

I was not very happy where I was.

The South side of Chicago at the time.

I spent a very, very long year there.

- [Cameraman] There we go, we got furries.

- And somebody mentioned

that there was a convention coming up

in Southern California called ConFurence.

Maybe you should go.

I said, I'm a postdoc at this
point, I don't have any money.

I called my dear and sainted mother.

Kids, never lie to your mom.

I told my mom the truth.

I'd like to go to a
conference in California,

but the professor won't pay for it.

That's a true statement.

So she sent me the money
to go to the conference.

And that was my first furry convention.

Now, I had been going to
science fiction conventions

for 10 years.

I've been volunteering at them.

I was a convention goer.

but this was the first time

that it was a convention that was entirely

of interest to me.

And started going to furry conventions

every year after that.

- Uncle Kage.

- Uncle Kage.

- Uncle Kage slash Sam Conway.

- He's very charismatic.

- He's very funny.

- He had this sort of mad
scientist kind of persona,

- [Joe Strike] So you're gonna create,

you're gonna create real furries?

- I am, as a matter of fact.

- [Joe Strike] And how
are you gonna do that?

- Well, it's quite simple.

You see the a, you take the,

Oh yeah.

I was sitting in the lobby,

and I was telling somebody a story.

It's in my nature

- As Mary Shelley said,

if you make the creature
a gigantic statue,

you have a much easier time

in dealing with the parts, you see.

- And they simply said,

would you come back next year

and do that as an event?

What?

Complain about my job?

And they said, yeah.

I said, oh, I can do that, sure.

So I stood up in the lobby

and complained about my job for an hour.

- [Mark] Well, he was
kind of doing standup

that was slice of life.

People loved his stories.

- He was already getting a
reputation for his performances.

And we were just thrilled
to have him at our show.

And that was 25 or so years ago.

And people still fly me all over the world

to get up on stage and talk.

That's all I do.

I don't understand it.

I just do it and they
keep inviting me back,

so I must be doing something right.

- After Furry MUCK,

almost all the furries
were college students.

This tripled our attendance.

Since we had all of the
role players coming in,

all the college students
coming into the fandom,

the gender of the content began to shift.

You had a lot more males,

you had a lot more lesbian
couples and gay couples.

- People don't realize it.

But back in the 60s and 70s,

there wasn't that much of a gay community.

- Where could you go for companionship?

Some place where you had an equal chance

of getting your teeth kicked
in or getting arrested.

- [Rod] Right about the time
that furry fandom was hitting

was right about the time
that the AIDS crisis hit.

♪

(crowd chattering fades)

- I know people who
lost dozens of friends.

An awful lot of people had
to come out of the closet

and get active for their own survival.

There was in fact, an LGBT
contingent in the furries.

We're going to celebrate
both of those at once.

- I still remember how I felt
when I joined the fandom,

like when I was like a teenager

and I had no idea if I was queer or not.

And I thought I was really
scared to talk about it.

And I couldn't tell my friends.

- High school was rough.

High school was rough.

I was pretty socially isolated,
I was nerdy, I was bullied.

- The community around me at the time

was not queer friendly,
or even art friendly.

- Doing art's really vulnerable.

Like if you put something on the page,

then you probably did that for a reason.

About midway through college,

I started questioning my gender

and eventually transitioned.

And that was a very
powerful time of my life,

where I got to really re-sort my identity

as this purpose-driven person.

- When I started to transition,

I actually explored the
identity first with my character

to see, I guess, if it felt right

to become more masculine.

it was no longer Luna.

It was now the masculine Nate.

And it's really helped me explore

what parts of myself I wanted to be

as more trans masculine versus, you know,

the meek female. I used to be.

A safe place to explore the transition

without transitioning myself first.

Trans experiences are
just human experiences.

Ultimately, furry is also
about human experiences.

- Once I discovered the fandom,

I could chat with people online.

I could express my creativity.

I could make friends.

- Well, I can actually talk about

being queer without being worried

that people make fun of me.

- What better place is there

to put yourself out there and say,

hey, this is how, I'd like
to be seen or treated.

And people will meet you on your own terms

in a way that you just
don't get anywhere else.

♪

- The dealer room closes at eight,

they could just be right closing up.

- [Rod] The first three ConFurences,

everyone who showed up

was someone that I knew
personally by name.

- [Attendee] Very nice, keep it up.

- [Rod] We realized that the con

had gotten so large that we
didn't know everyone by name.

- Pull like that, pull the mask down

against your cheeks.

- [Cameraman] This'll be
interesting to watch some day.

(crowd laughing)

- If you asked who we were
and could you point at us,

they wouldn't know.

And that was perfectly fine.

But it was always about this thing.

It was not about us.

We never wanted to be celebrities.

So they were very, very few fursuiters.

There was only, I think, maybe one or two

at the earliest furry conventions.

- The suiting was almost nonexistent.

People would just paint their bodies.

And that was it.

- [Mark] One of them
is Hilda the Bambioid,

created and performed by Robert Hill.

- [Cameraman] I see we
have a bambioid there.

- [Attendee] Hello, bambioid.

- You could pretty much say

that it was the original fursuit.

- Oopsie, hello, how you doing?

I was part of the burgeoning
fursuiting community.

You can make your own mascot.

That was mind blowing.

- [Announcer] For your
consideration for ConFurence eight

favorite costume is--

(audience cheers)

- The convention ConFurence grew

to be the largest convention in its day,

over a thousand people,

which was huge for the time.

But then there was negative
publicity about it.

And I'm not sure how much detail

you want to get into about that.

(group cheering)

- [Attendee] Da da da da da da.

- [Mark] We did have some
incidents at conventions

where there were people
getting completely drunk

coming out into the convention
and causing trouble.

Or in some cases getting
stoned out of their mind

and having to be taken off the property.

In the very early days,

a furry convention was,
an unintentional pun,

a rather wild and untamed unfair.

- [Crowd Member] Yeah!

- There was not a lot of
attention paid to public decorum,

and people are out there to have fun.

They were letting themselves go.

Let's just be crazy.

That's fun and that's fine,

if you keep in mind that
you're still in a public venue.

Folks tended to forget that.

- Rod.
(group screaming)

- [Attendee] Oh my god,

it's the psychedelic Cousin Itt!

- [Announcer] The bidding starts at $20.

(vacuum buzzing)

- Well, let's see now.

Should I talk about the
semen in the elevator?

No, I don't know if
there's any truth to that.

I think there were people

who wanted to give the
furs a bad reputation,

and I think a lot of this
misinformation was spread.

But there might've been people

who felt a little too liberated.

- This caused us to have to do something

we didn't think was necessary.

We had to put rules of
conduct in our program book.

And we were criticized.

Why didn't you have rules of conduct

from the very beginning?

Because we didn't think
people were that stupid.

- [Director] Okay, Here we go.

- And when we had 200, 300,
400 people, we'd have problems.

Their twist on it was yeah,

Mark and Rodney allow that
kind of stuff at conventions.

- I remember when I was
working at Disney television

in the mid 90s.

The executives at Disney
and at the other studios

knew about furries,

but they did not particularly
like the furries.

- Some furry artists have been turned away

because of the people
that are interviewing

that heard about these furry conventions.

- And interestingly, it wasn't

just because of the adult material.

It was also because they saw people

trading art back and forth freely.

And they did not like the idea

of property being freely
exchanged like that.

It was kind of a professional hazard

to let anyone know that you were involved

with the furry fandom.

I had snuck away to go to
ConFurence for the weekend.

And two of my coworkers had
apparently shadowed the con

and seen me there.

As soon as I came into work,

they popped in my
cubicle and started going

furry, furry.

And I was like, oh my god.

I mean, they've been there themselves,

so what could they say?

- [Cameraman] You guys here
for a convention of your own?

- Yeah.

- Computers?
- Marketing.

- [Cameraman] Whoa, even better.

- There was a large fandom
out here in California,

And there was also one back east,

kind of around New York.

- There had been an attempt to start up

an east coast furry convention,

'cause in the United
States, there was ConFurence

in Southern California, and that was it.

So in 1997, they started Albany Anthrocon.

I went because it was only four hours away

from Philadelphia.

I could drive there instead
of flying across the country.

It was obviously a first
year con, kind of cute.

As I said, I had been volunteering

at science fiction conventions for years.

And I was approached by one
of their committee members

who said, would you be our
guest of honor next year?

As the convention was coming up,

they had an email list for staff members.

A longstanding problem that I have is

I have a tendency to stick my nose in

whether it's wanted or not.

Things were coming across the mailing list

and I'm going, hmm.

And I would hesitantly type out

are you guys really sure
you want to do that?

You see Philcon tried this in, in 1984,

and here, here, this, this list
of terrible things happened

and they swore high and low
they'd never do that again.

If you do this, that would
get around those problems.

Then they started asking my advice.

Well, how would you run this?

What would you do here?

How should we do the following?

They're honest questions,
so I answered honestly.

As the convention date was approaching,

there was a concern over the finances.

The chairman of the convention realized

that we are probably going to
completely lose our shirts.

We're going to have to shut this down.

Some of the staff members
came to me and said,

would you take over?

And I said, this is all kind
of happening awful fast, folks.

First off, I'm your guest of honor.

It looks kind of bad if I'm
also your chairman that year.

Okay, I'm willing to do it
because I want to help out.

It's a good little convention.

You guys are really gung ho.

I'm happy to do it.

But it's gonna have to
be done differently.

You can't run it like
a bunch of college kids

having a party anymore.

If you want this to succeed
and have another year,

you're going to have to
run it as a business.

- [Cameraman] Tell us all
about Albany Anthrocon.

- Albany Anthrocon no longer exists.

- [Cameraman] It's now become?

- It's simply become Anthrocon,
the Furry Revolution.

We moved to the place that it all began.

The Hilton Valley Forge.

That's where the Declaration
of Independence was signed.

- Actually in the Hilton?
- In the Hilton.

- Signed in the Hilton?
- Signed in the Hilton.

- Will you turn that off already?

So these people don't know.

- Finally, in 1999, I attended

my very first furry convention,
which was Anthrocon.

That was one of the first major things

I'd ever traveled to by myself.

There were probably all of 30
events for the entire weekend.

But for me, that was a lot to do.

And this guy just came down.

He said, you look troubled
my friend, what's wrong?

And I was like, well, I
just don't know what to

make of all this.

He put his arm around me and he said,

I want you to take a
look around the lobby.

This is a moment you will remember

for the rest of your life.

- [Cameraman] He's doing it again.

(fan whirring)

- And that was the moment
that I really realized

I found a group of people
that I not only related to,

but they made me feel good about myself.

My personality had a place in the world.

And the person that told
me that was Uncle Kage.

- I got us a great hotel, it's perfect.

We can be there forever

because it's got more space
than we could ever possibly use.

First year, bam, full.

The next year we filled it
and two hotels down the road,

We're going to need bigger space.

I looked around in Philadelphia,
got the problem solved.

The Adam's Mark has gotten more space

than we could ever possibly need.

Bam, full that very first year.

- 1,457 furries are in the room.

- That was 1,457 in case
you didn't hear that.

How many of us are there?

When I was negotiating with Pittsburgh,

I said, okay guys, it's perfect.

We got more space there,

and they said, shhhh, stop, don't say it.

I'm still not allowed to say that phrase

in regards to this city.

It just got more space
than we ever possibly need.

- Every convention has a hook.

The hook for Anthrocon
is Pittsburgh itself.

It's the city.

The downtown area is vibrant and alive,

and people are coming down
to watch the fursuit parade.

We were recently told that Anthrocon

is the third most valuable convention

to the city of Pittsburgh itself.

We have become a Pittsburgh institution.

We're not just an event that happens.

We are now part of the city's art scene.

I don't think any other
convention anywhere

has that sort of distinction.

(drums banging)

- [Bubbles] I hate going on stage.

I get stage-fright hardcore.

And people are like, you're the con chair.

You have to be extroverted.

You have to be willing to talk to anybody

and talk about anything.

And I'm not.

The suit definitely helps with that.

I love being in a costume
and being able to act

like something else,
'cause in high school,

I was the school mascot.

I'm more open and comfortable with myself.

- Since I was like three years old,

I was trying to take a feather duster

and put it in my shorts.

And then I have a tail.

If you found a mask with feathers on it,

possibilities were endless.

So I was just trying to
make the perfect costume.

And I found furries where

we're all trying to get
the perfect costume.

I had just gotten out of high school

and I was starting to go to college,

and I'm making a fursuit for some reason,

I called a friend up and I was like,

take me to PetSmart.

I need to buy a collar in my costume.

As we're driving back
home, there's this carwash.

And we just see this guy hopping around,

struggling to get people
to come to the carwash.

And I was like, he needs my help.

I jumped in, I was doing jumping jacks

and just helping to get a
bunch of people to pull over.

And it was a success.

People were like, where did you get that?

And then when they'd find out I made it,

they were like, can you make me one?

And I was like, oh, well, I don't know.

- I was obsessed with "The Lion King,"

obsessed with pretty
much any animal movie.

So I built my first suit at 17

and I wore it for Halloween
at my high school.

I went to college, got my degree

in something completely unrelated

and was just doing it on the side.

And then it just kind of
accidentally became a business.

And now I'm doing this full time.

- I would see the suits
being built and I'm like,

I want to do that.

I could get involved.

And I didn't really feel
very much technology

was really being used in
building these things.

It was a challenge for me.

I wanted to figure out
how to do it my way.

- My whole life, I struggled
with anxiety and depression,

and a few years ago I was
diagnosed with bipolar as well.

It's really hard and
it just tears you down,

and I would come home
from work everyday crying.

Nowadays, I feel like
I've done something good.

I'm creating something
for someone to enjoy.

I'm much more stable mentally,
and it feels really good.

- I had worked really
hard to have a nice house,

a nice car, typical American dream,

but I found it was really empty.

And I found that it
was, this is, you know,

it was not fulfilling
at the end of the day.

And I've been having
more fun in doing this

than I think I've ever had with
anything in my entire life.

- [Lucky Coyote] I teamed up with Scuff,

'cause Scuff was starting to build

pieces and parts on his own.

- Not only do you want
a fursuit to look good,

it needs to feel good.

Every fur suit we build is custom,

but that's your fursuit.

It should feel like your
fursuit when you put it on.

- I think we've made over 600 fursuits.

I've kind of lost track.

(crowd chattering)

- [Announcer] If you can see the camera,

you're in the picture.

All right, let's see those paws up.

- It's not just about
the animal characters.

It's about the people and
it's about the, you know,

the atmosphere of it.

You've got writers, artists, animators,

performers, musicians that all collide

into this one massive group.

And that's what makes it interesting.

There's always something new.

My daughter was in the fursuit parade.

People complimented her on her suit,

thought she was adorable.

You want your child to have
as many of those moments

as they can, 'cause in the adult world,

you know, you can't
guarantee that for them.

- [Interviewer] The talent, he's a, whoa.

We don't know nearly enough about furries.

We're trying to learn.

Excellent.

- Get in touch with Mark Merlino.

- [Interviewer] He's the
man, he the man, yeah.

- The earliest media
coverage that I can remember

was in 1993.

The crew from Sci-Fi
channel called Sci-Fi Buzz

wound up going to one of
the early ConFurences.

And they did a very positive piece.

We weren't as careful as
people are these days,

so if people got it wrong,

I quite often would just let it slide.

I sometimes regret that.

- [Mark] This is 2001.

If you look through it,

you'll see a lot of photos of furries

enjoying themselves in fur meets,

and people are talking about
their own take on furry.

Interspersed with other articles

talking about poly groups and
orgies and stuff like that.

That's not what furry
fandom was all about.

- I was approached in 99 by a guy

claiming to be a film student.

I thought, you know, I'd help
him with this film project.

So I just answered a few questions

and ended up at on MTV in
a rather unsavory show.

- What was even worse was
the CSI episode in 2003.

They actually had locals
on the show as consultants

who say that the show decided to

ignore everything they said,

- Unfortunately, that was
the image that was now given.

This is what the world was seeing.

A boss would see at a clip
somewhere on the news.

Oh, you're one of those
weird freaky people

I heard about.

Some folk lost jobs, lost relationships.

- I had people at Disney
telling me that I had to leave

in order to focus on
my career or you know,

or else I wouldn't have
a career in animation.

And so I had to make a
decision and that decision

was to leave the fandom
to focus on a career.

- You don't tell your family,
you don't tell your work,

you don't tell other people.

- That definitely made
for a insular environment,

especially in the early 2000s.

- And you, you need to sell
your magazine or something.

You want people to pick
that thing up and read it.

Well, you can talk to
this person for 45 minutes

about, oh, I made this fursuit
and it took me this long,

and here's how I stitched
it, and this is the.

You can talk to this guy over here.

Well, yeah, I'm a writer, I write stories.

And then my stories are all about furries,

and I put furries in
the stories and I write.

Or you get the guy who says yeah,

I like to have sex in my fursuit.

That's what's gonna sell.

Damned if I'm going to stand around

and let you put this TV show on

that's going to make them embarrassed

to be a part of this remarkable thing

that we have created together.

So I fought back.

Here is the problem we face.

The media wants to do
stories on furry fandom.

Very, very often, they are
going to be asking questions.

Does that sort of thing
go on at your convention?

Look, I run the thing.

If that sort of thing was
going on in my convention,

number one, I would like
to think I know about it.

Number two, why am I not invited?

Yeah, you're all laughing.

Ha ha, it's a joke.

You notice I didn't say no?

Never lie.

But you can minimize it.

- Anthrocon is not just
for people in costume.

It's for artists, cartoonists, performers,

and we have writers, artists, puppeteers,

and there'll be wandering about.

If you see a large raccoon
on the streets of Pittsburgh,

Don't be alarmed, it's just us.

If they're gonna have
their misconceptions,

the only thing we can do is
stand back and say, here we are.

- [Michele Light] Kage is
always is out there talking

about the money we bring to the city

and the good will we bring to the city.

- He knew how to make furry

appealing to the public at large.

And it is just so gratifying and rewarding

to come to a place where
you're welcome and embraced.

- Yes. Welcome to opening ceremonies

of what looks to continue to be

the largest and furriest
convention in the world.

- Everybody's scared of saying it.

It's fine, sex is fine.

And sometimes we have it.

It's not what defines the community,

but it's part of the community.

And for a lot of people,

this community helped them
discover what that means.

How could you just try
to say it doesn't exist?

That's insane.

- I've been accused of
whitewashing the fandom.

I've been accused of, oh, he's
trying to control the media.

Well, you know what?

You try it someday.

You know, let's get you
in front of a camera

and have them say, okay,

so what's it like to
have sex in a fursuit?

Let's have you answer that question.

Especially if you know that
your grandmom's watching.

Or your mom or your dad
or your future spouse.

(audience claps)

When furry fandom first began,

it was organized by some fellows who,

as enthusiastic as they were,

really did not pay much mind
to the sort of public image

they were giving to
this burgeoning fandom.

Let's face it.

I was there.

Kind of looked like pride
fest on an acid trip.

(fireworks booming)

I have worked very, very,

very hard to foster good
relationships with the local media

and with the city of Pittsburgh.

I want to keep it that way.

- [Panelist] I've heard at
least one opinion up there

that the physical aspect
seems more prevalent,

the sexual aspect.

- Why do you think, where do
you think it originated from?

- If you're going to put all your effort

into one little piece, you
want to make sure it sells,

and the one that's sure to
sell is that hot steamy one.

- On the internet, it's horrible,

'cause like you cannot find
any good, normal furry art.

- You go into the ConFurence art show,

and even in the general audience section,

there's stuff that I
wouldn't show a child.

or my mother or any of my friends

outside furry fandom.

- I mean, sex sells everywhere.

You look in any subculture,
mainstream subculture,

goth, furry, anywhere.

- Not to the extreme extent

that it is portrayed
and pushed and produced

in furry fandom.

- Next, please.

- We started getting problems with people

trying to sabotage the
convention pretty early on.

You had to chalk this up to the fact

that people didn't like Rodney and I,

especially because we were a couple.

They naturally assumed our main interest

was have gathering of
like-minded people for sex.

And a lot of these rumors
were strung on for years.

- And then a Bay Area, furry convention

was gonna to happen in January.

This same time ours had
happened for nearly 10 years.

So we decided to change our dates.

A lot of the fans from San Diego said,

how about the Town and Country?

We've been having science
fiction conventions

there for years.

So I went and talked to the hotel

and I cut a deal with them.

But we tried have our planning
meetings in San Diego.

The staff from up here would not come.

They wouldn't drive it.

And more and more of the responsibility

fell on me and Rodney.

And it was taking all my time.

- [Radio] ...by all the flood water.

- As the nail in the coffin,

we had the worst April weather

they've ever had in San Diego in 20 years.

It was actually hailing in San Diego.

Attendance was down by
at least 200 people.

When I had the staff meeting
at the end of the convention,

I said, okay, I have worked with Rodney,

ran this convention from zero to 10.

I am stepping down.

People looked around for
someone to replace me

and the gentleman who had been
doing our daily newsletter,

stood up and said, I will take it over.

And everyone said great.

I guess it was in 2003.

He basically stood up at the
closing ceremonies and said,

I am officially closing
ConFurence forever.

He had told us that he
had trademarked the name

and that nobody else could ever have

a convention called ConFurence.

- I feel strange saying this,

but I expected it to get bigger.

I just had this dream in my head

of everything kind of coming together,

but we're going into an era

where people are more about
breaking apart communities

rather than coming together
into big communities.

And unfortunately, there's furry, too.

- Conventions were kind of viewed

by their host hotels and their host cities

as, what is this stuff?

Some folk got together.

They called themselves the Burned Furs

having been burned by this
image that was being projected.

The Burned Furs were out
to clean up the fandom,

get rid of all of that sex related stuff.

Now, I kind of agreed in
principle with that concept.

We okay, we can have fun,

but can we do it over there,
where people aren't looking?

- And I thought, hey, this
seems like a good idea.

Clean up fandom, why not?

But it was to the extreme.

- I've seen this fandom to
generate from a very nice thing

into a endless parade of human debris.

Thank you very much.

- This is Limbaugh.
(panelists clap)

- The Burned Furs felt
that there were people

in fur fandom that they did not like

who should be somehow
pushed out of the fandom.

- Particularly people
who like Rodney and I,

who were gay or bi and
demonstratively so at conventions.

Hanging out with their boyfriend,

cuddling on the couch or something.

What if, what if a
underage person sees that?

- So this group wanted
to do something about it

and they had a manifesto
of cleaning up the fandom.

No one was complaining

when all of the art was female pinups

and heterosexual couples.

It was okay.

- And ultimately the pushback
against porn and adult content

in furry is an attempt to
push LGBT furs out of furry.

- Somehow Mark and I were at fault

for the appearance of LGBT
people in among furry fandom,

which if we wanted to, we
wouldn't have known how.

Furry fandom has attracted every stripe

of the political spectrum.

Although we could all sit
around and discuss Donald Duck,

if we got into talking
about whether or not

there should be gay marriage allowed,

there would be bottles being thrown.

- It's interesting how this
entire thing got sidetracked,

essentially got completely sidetracked.

- The current alt-right problem

in furry fandom is the
current alt-right problem

in the United States,

which is the current alt-right problem.

In Western civilization,

- You are seeing more politics

than you've ever seen before get in.

I think once you've got the
Trump administration in,

you saw a lot of furries become

much more politically active,

and that's made it more difficult
for convention organizers

to know what they should
and shouldn't respond to.

- We have a pocket of individuals here,

intertwining with the
larger online community

of the alt-right.

Entangled with people that represent

a hate message towards
marginalized individuals.

- Different conventions have
had politics take them down.

- For the furry community,
that's pretty bad

'cause a lot of us are LGBTIA.

I don't think that I would have been

the person that I am today

if I didn't have furry cons.

No doubt.

- Thank you for this year.

Thank you for everything up to this year.

And we'll see you tomorrow.

We'll see you next year and good evening.

(audience claps)

- [Attendee] Hi mom.

- Well, early on I had encountered people

who said I came to the convention

and I walked into the
lobby and I felt I'm home.

I'm finally home.

They found their family,
they found their people,

they found their culture, and
that aspect has not changed.

(crowd chattering)

- Once I'm committed to something,

I don't want to let it go.

I can't let it go until the dies.

We've all grown as a community together,

but we want to make sure that

what we're doing now is what
the community wants now.

And I know if we lose these conventions,

we'll lose a lot of our community.

We have younger people
coming into the fandom

and they see how open everybody
is and they deserve that.

They deserve the
opportunities that we have

or that we didn't have
when we were younger.

- We can create environments
where people are safe,

where we don't overreact,
where we're not dramatic

and just try to be in the best interest

of our attendees overall,
and let them have

the environment they
can to be they wanna be.

- A lot of the negativity

comes from these big voices online.

And when you take it into perspective,

there's a thousand other people

that are having a good time.

I couldn't let it go.

I would, I would feel so guilty.

I think this year went really well.

2,700 attendees.

We raised $15,000 for charity.

- For Denver, we have
Freedom Service Dogs,

where last year we raised $15,000.

So they can have an awning for the dogs

when they go outside so it didn't burn

their paw pads.

when they're going from the
indoor training facilities

to the outdoor kennels,

- [Bubbles] We raise
as much money as we can

for the charity we choose.

We try to pick them locally

and they're usually animal related.

- I really feel like I
owe a lot to the community

just because it's taught me so much.

It's made me become much more

of a open and understanding person.

- And we are, I think,
outgrowing those stereotypes.

I think we're becoming
appreciated for ourselves.

- Artists are really like the backbone

of so much of what happens

because that's how we're representing

these characters at all.

- I remember at the first few conventions,

no, nobody's ever gonna make
a living off of doing this.

You're crazy to think
that, and here we are today

and there's probably hundreds of artists

making some or all of
their living off of this.

- I think the fandom
has made my life better.

- I probably wouldn't even have

a quarter of the life that I do now.

- I'd have a different career.

I don't know if I'd be happy.

- I'd be just a nobody in a crowd.

- I would never have met my husband.

I would never have met my best friends.

- Every single one of my
closest friends is a furry.

- Just thinking about not
having that experience is hard.

- Not having that, I don't know what I do.

- I don't really want to think about

because it seems like it would be

a very, very dark road to go down.

- We have our typical
story we have about fandom.

- What is furry fandom?

Oh, it's a bunch of guys who
like sitting around drawing.

- And a lot of the films
were really popular.

- That was the first convention.

(crowd chatters)

- [Mark] Our fandom is based on a concept,

and that concept isn't going away.

- I go around to conventions

and I look at the fur suit parade.

I look at the dances.

I look at the dealers' rooms
and how big they've gotten

and I'll admit it.

I sometimes will walk
around kind of going.

Yeah, yeah.

I was involved with starting this, yeah.

- We're still in it.

And we're probably not
going to get out of it.

I don't intend to ever get out of it.

I think the fandom is something

I'm the most proud of in my life.

- When people are having
fun at a convention,

at a meetup, online, or just two people

who never would have met one another

who discover a mutual love of furry

and they get married.

(crowd whooping)

Yeah, that's what we're about.