There's more to it, but for now, think of it like Comic-Con, except everyone there got way more out of Zootopia than the rest of us. This particular convention was also Harry Potter-themed, presumably because they were otherwise in danger of being too cool. So after I was sorted into the copyright-dodging Dogwarts' house of Hisserin by the magical Sorting Randomizer, I hit the floor to represent my team of evil racists.

Mark Hill

A furry con is a cross between a family reunion, a professional conference, a rave, an unruly mob, and a pride parade (furries have a disproportionately large number of LGBTQ members). When you're part of a community that largely exists online, you have to cram a lot of real-life socializing and activity into a few days when the opportunity comes. Events ranged from a poutine social to board games to karaoke to BDSM tutorials to sessions on puppy play. Some people spend eight hours selling their creations, which could be anything from art to witchcraft supplies to tails, then dance and drink until 4:00 a.m. This is not an event where people get a lot of sleep.

Mark Hill

It is the kind of event where you'll see a man have a polite and friendly conversation with a child who complimented his wolf suit, then later see him drunkenly pretending to hump an inflatable dolphin. You'll be offered lots of hugs from strangers, see big embraces between friends who haven't hung out since the last con, overhear a 1:00 am debate at the bar about where the line between anthropomorphic sex and bestiality is, meet people who introduce themselves as the "Screamer of Meows" and their partner as their mate, witness active and occasionally filthy Telegram chats, and watch groups of people frequently start chants and howls. It is both laidback and relentlessly manic. No one is going to judge you for who you are, but they'll probably offer you glow sticks and weed.

Mark Hill

Everyone I spoke to was friendly and happy to talk, occasionally well beyond the point where they should have picked up on my hints that I wasn't feeling a 10-minute conversation about passport stamps. Everyone was willing to tell me all about themselves when asked, and then they would ask about me with complete sincerity.

Mark Hill

When they learned I wasn't a furry, they invariably reacted with a comment like "Oh no, I hope this isn't too weird for you!" It wasn't -- it's an experience that quickly becomes mundane, and I soon thought nothing of the fact that I was talking to a man dressed as a reindeer in a gimp suit. But it's not surprising that they were worried, because ...

Only about 21 percent of Fur-Eh attendants even wore fursuits in 2016, and of those, the percentage that has what I was without prompting told are called "strategically placed holes" is vanishingly small. But it's hard to scare people into freaking out about the kids these days with dry statistics, which led to a lot of people telling me, again unprompted, that "it's not a sex thing" in a tone that was half laughing it off and half worried that I was going to denounce them as perverts.

Media coverage has improved recently, and the negative portrayals seem to have died down, if only because the novelty has worn off and everyone realized that CSI was terrible. But furries are still cautious, and it's certainly still common for them to be portrayed as lonely misfits and weirdos.

YouTube

YouTube

YouTube

YouTube

In a panel I attended about the experience of wearing a fursuit, people shared stories about getting harassed in public. Later, the host talked about the comical awkwardness of explaining it to his mom, part of the general concern over how (and if) to tell family and colleagues. The latter was especially problematic, because if your boss thinks you like to f**k llamas in hotel rooms on the weekend, you might not be his first choice for a promotion. As one person later told me:

"I try to keep it really under wraps. 'I'm just going to Pittsburgh to hang out with friends.' I don't like living a lie, but I don't want to have to explain it to some people, especially in a professional environment. There's definitely some stereotypes, that's it's just a sex thing. I just like art and my friends. I don't want people to have that idea about me."

Mark Hill

It turns out that if you portray thousands of people as pathetic perverts for a couple of decades, they will both be annoyed and ironically lean into it. Lots of people I talked to took pains to emphasize that they were normal (and I overheard a few making the same promise to their pizza delivery guys), but I also overheard furries bragging about freaking out hotel staff and people on the street. Furries do believe that there's a bias against them, and are often hesitant to talk about the fandom, but if people are going to judge them, then they might as well get a laugh out of it.

Mark Hill

That stigma is unfortunate, in part because it's dickish and lazy, but also because it's concealing better stories. In that same panel, a middle-aged man in dragon PJs told us about work he had done with a children's hospital. He remembered visiting one terminally ill patient in costume, and saw him cheer up and be a kid again for a bit. He later got a letter from the hospital telling him that the kid had drawn pictures of the visit and couldn't stop talking about it. He died not long after. That's more interesting than laughing at someone for wearing dragon PJs in public, but here we are.

That effect was obvious at the convention. I met people outside of their suits who were a little shy or awkward, only to find them tearing up the dance floor or holding court in costume. As one fursuiter told me, "It's hard to be embarrassed when no one can see your face." And as my fox-wolf friend said:

"There's just something about putting a mask on. When you're just 'normal,' you're kind of exposed, people can judge how you look, you're supposed to act a 'proper' way. But when you put on a costume, you can embody a character. If I went around hugging everybody and flopping around, people would be like 'What's wrong with her?' But if the suit is on, it's cute, people love it, they take pictures, everyone wants hugs, you become popular and adorable."

Mark Hill

She got interested in Lion King fan art when she was 14, and eventually discovered the furry fandom. That's a common path in a community that skews young -- teenagers develop an interest in something animal-related, think that they're weird, then discover that they're not. As she put it, "It's always funny, everyone who starts out as a furry thinks that they're the only one in the world. But they're not."

The creative element was also brought up constantly. The rules of Star Trek or Zelda already exist, and you can't completely overwrite them without getting shoved to the fringes of the fandom. You also can't legally sell Star Trek art, no matter how much you insist to Paramount that Spock impregnating Kirk is a beautiful expression of the show's themes. But there are no real rules in the furry fandom, so you can create whatever you want. Artists, in turn, told me that they found it validating to bring a person's creation to life, because while that mosquito wearing parachute pants may look odd to you, to someone else, it's an extension of who they are.

Mark Hill

Like any fantasy, this is all healthy right up until it's not. And like any interest, the furry community has some people who are using it to avoid reality. Generally, however, research says that furries don't let fandom get in the way of their lives, and for many, the fandom is a valuable source of support.

Psychology aside, a convention is still a party. And on that note ...

There were also general dances that were weird, in that they still cared about "Who Let the Dogs Out" in 2017 ...

Mark Hill

Mark Hill

Mark Hill

... and a fursuit parade through the parking lot, to the bafflement of anyone driving by:

Mark Hill

Mark Hill

Mark Hill

Because of the con's theme, there was also a furry quidditch game -- a phrase whose mere existence has prompted a thousand angry rants about millennials. Real-life quidditch is roughly a combination between dodgeball, handball, and the challenge of not feeling like an imbecile while running around with a fake broom between your legs -- that last one being a skill I failed to acquire.

Mark Hill

Mark Hill

While most people played down to the stereotype of flailing nerds, the guy wearing the full fursuit pulled the equivalent of LeBron dunking on children by almost singlehandedly winning a game, although unlike LeBron, he then had to run inside to chug several liters of water, because it turns out that hot, stifling fursuits don't make for the best athletic gear. I was drafted into the next game, and in a highlight unlikely to make SportsCenter, was almost immediately slammed into the pavement by an overzealous man wearing a tail who apparently had a lot of high school gym class issues to work through.

Mark Hill

Then someone leaned out of his window, shouted that we were all "f*****g nerds," and flipped us off -- none of which are issues that Harry Potter had to put up with.

Mark Hill

That sums up what it's like to try to capture the magic of Harry Potter in the harsh reality of a slightly run-down hotel. Further ruining the magic were all the "students" I saw in robes getting drunk and smoking weed, although I guess even Harry and friends needed to unwind somehow. But that's actually fitting. Despite the stereotype of furries as weirdo obsessives, few people were taking it too seriously. Which means ...

It's generally poor writing to tell people that a story isn't actually all that interesting, but that's the case here. There are no orgies or hordes of unhygienic people who believe that they have the souls of polar bears and are being oppressed by humanity. The reality of any subculture is rarely as interesting as the myths that are spread about them, and furries never really got the chance to establish their own myths.

Mark Hill

Like any fandom, furries are not without issues. I heard complaints about immature drama, bullying, and the treatment of women in a mostly male fanbase, among other concerns. But furries are, in general, as happy and satisfied as anyone, and a convention boils down to a bunch of friends having fun and blowing off steam. If you think that's weird, literally all you have to do is ignore it.

Mark Hill

I'm not planning to attend another furry convention anytime soon. But there was something sweet about being at this one and seeing a big fox sitting with his arm around a middle-aged woman, then seeing them holding hands when he was out of his suit and realizing that there was a real person behind that love. Despite its flaws, that's ultimately what the furry community seems to be about.

f**k quidditch, though.

Mark is on Twitter and has a book that has a couple of animals in it.

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