So, I linked to this article in Newsbytes; ironically, I found it on bo-news, which is linked above. It was actually submitted and "frontpaged" twice, once by the other founder of Portal of Evil, K. Thor Jensen (the founder not featured in the Newsbyte article. Like Vivisector, bo is basically a spin-off of a spin-off of Portal of Evil (via PoE News in bo's case).
I was a bit disappointed with the reaction to the article; despite the fact that Chet Faliszek is generally regarded as a racist even by the members of bo-news today, they mostly felt like the case that these kind of sites are the progenitors of things like Gamergate or the r/thedonald to be weak. Which, I mean, I was called the n-word within the first hour of posting to PoE, so, there you go.
I mean, we're like on day four of another "what's killing furry this time?" fight, and this time it's "SJWs versus Nazis", but I mean, in the past it's been the media or homosexuality or whatever; everyone's got their own "who broke furry?" pet theory. And mine is, well, we were the training wheels for all tactics we now see being used in things like GamerGate and the alt-right. I mean, it's the classic line, right? First they came for the furries, and nobody defended us, because, who cares right? And now they're coming for everyone, ha ha, jokes on you. Should've seen it coming. Meanwhile, furry kind of limps around like a beaten dog, afraid of its own shadow. I mean, we had three (four, if you count Rock Dog) wide release movies with no human, all fully anthro animal casts last year, and only one half-assedly sorta, kinda acknowledged us in their advertising at all (and even that's arguable). And the thing is, as far as I can tell, furries were just okay with this. You try to make a comic book movie without acknowledging it's a comic book movie in the advertising, you fire your advertising firm. You make a furry movie without acknowledging it's a furry movie ... not even furries are bothered. Am I the only one who thinks this is weird?
But anyway, my point is, we don't want furry to be in the non-furry spotlight, because for most of our history, that meant horrific online harassment. And the worst of it is that it seems to have been fairly arbitrary; I mean, furry's not perfect, but there's no crime committed by a furry not shared by other fandoms and subcultures. Hell, we don't even have a monopoly on bestiality. It's just we got picked, and now we still get told a catchphrase that basically amounts to "I hope you are consigned to eternal torment" followed by a homosexual slur.
Well, I called the guy who run's bo out on it. I screencapped my post and Tweeted it, since the forums are available only if you have an account (don't get an account; you probably don't want to be there, we probably don't want you there). Anyway, there's a silver lining here; I didn't get any negative "red bulbs" (it would take forever to explain why down and up votes are called bulbs there, and be boring) and got enough "bulbs" to reach "!!!" status. The point is, since I'm a furry, I'll always be a bit of an outsider there. I can see things they may not be able to. Things they may not want to admit.
Likewise, sites like Crush!Yiff!Destroy! or Vivisector or even those old-timey furry boogeymen, the Burned Furs, (or even, you know, me) because they came out of the Portal of Evil school, they are always a bit on the outside of furry. And we can see things. Example, film critic Jen Yamoto's take on Fursonas, in which she compared Uncle Kage to the guy currently running Scientology in the headline. I mean, on the face of it, that's laughable, but only because she's overestimating Kage's power. You may bristle at the idea that furry looks sort of like a cult to an outsider, but as a pseudo-outsider myself, I'd been reading some pretty creepy, culty stuff on sites like [a][s] and Ask Papabear for years.
But even most of this cultiness is just a deep-seated secrecy, which is just those old scars still acting up.
Anyway, I got this reply:
I feel guilty about a lot of the stuff I did but probably not as much as you'd like.
It's not exactly an apology, but it's not not exactly an apology, either. Oh, well.
I forgive a lot of it but probably not as much as he'd like.
So, I linked to this article in Newsbytes; ironically, I found it on bo-news, which is linked above. It was actually submitted and "frontpaged" twice, once by the other founder of Portal of Evil, K. Thor Jensen (the founder not featured in the Newsbyte article. Like Vivisector, bo is basically a spin-off of a spin-off of Portal of Evil (via PoE News in bo's case).
I was a bit disappointed with the reaction to the article; despite the fact that Chet Faliszek is generally regarded as a racist even by the members of bo-news today, they mostly felt like the case that these kind of sites are the progenitors of things like Gamergate or the r/thedonald to be weak. Which, I mean, I was called the n-word within the first hour of posting to PoE, so, there you go.
I mean, we're like on day four of another "what's killing furry this time?" fight, and this time it's "SJWs versus Nazis", but I mean, in the past it's been the media or homosexuality or whatever; everyone's got their own "who broke furry?" pet theory. And mine is, well, we were the training wheels for all tactics we now see being used in things like GamerGate and the alt-right. I mean, it's the classic line, right? First they came for the furries, and nobody defended us, because, who cares right? And now they're coming for everyone, ha ha, jokes on you. Should've seen it coming. Meanwhile, furry kind of limps around like a beaten dog, afraid of its own shadow. I mean, we had three (four, if you count Rock Dog) wide release movies with no human, all fully anthro animal casts last year, and only one half-assedly sorta, kinda acknowledged us in their advertising at all (and even that's arguable). And the thing is, as far as I can tell, furries were just okay with this. You try to make a comic book movie without acknowledging it's a comic book movie in the advertising, you fire your advertising firm. You make a furry movie without acknowledging it's a furry movie ... not even furries are bothered. Am I the only one who thinks this is weird?
But anyway, my point is, we don't want furry to be in the non-furry spotlight, because for most of our history, that meant horrific online harassment. And the worst of it is that it seems to have been fairly arbitrary; I mean, furry's not perfect, but there's no crime committed by a furry not shared by other fandoms and subcultures. Hell, we don't even have a monopoly on bestiality. It's just we got picked, and now we still get told a catchphrase that basically amounts to "I hope you are consigned to eternal torment" followed by a homosexual slur.
Well, I called the guy who run's bo out on it. I screencapped my post and Tweeted it, since the forums are available only if you have an account (don't get an account; you probably don't want to be there, we probably don't want you there). Anyway, there's a silver lining here; I didn't get any negative "red bulbs" (it would take forever to explain why down and up votes are called bulbs there, and be boring) and got enough "bulbs" to reach "!!!" status. The point is, since I'm a furry, I'll always be a bit of an outsider there. I can see things they may not be able to. Things they may not want to admit.
Likewise, sites like Crush!Yiff!Destroy! or Vivisector or even those old-timey furry boogeymen, the Burned Furs, (or even, you know, me) because they came out of the Portal of Evil school, they are always a bit on the outside of furry. And we can see things. Example, film critic Jen Yamoto's take on Fursonas, in which she compared Uncle Kage to the guy currently running Scientology in the headline. I mean, on the face of it, that's laughable, but only because she's overestimating Kage's power. You may bristle at the idea that furry looks sort of like a cult to an outsider, but as a pseudo-outsider myself, I'd been reading some pretty creepy, culty stuff on sites like [a][s] and Ask Papabear for years.
But even most of this cultiness is just a deep-seated secrecy, which is just those old scars still acting up.
Anyway, I got this reply:
It's not exactly an apology, but it's not not exactly an apology, either. Oh, well.
I forgive a lot of it but probably not as much as he'd like.