As many around the world continue to practice social distancing during this viral moment in humanity, it is of little surprise that some are engaging in unusual behaviors. From collective mooing or howling from their homes, or telling comedy from their backyard, people are finding ways to try and engage with their neighbors from a safe distance. Then there are late show leads Samantha Bee and John Oliver, both known for their time as Daily Show correspondents before getting their own shows on TBS and HBO respectively, who have in a strange turn of events set their sites on the furry fandom in very different ways.

Both have done segments or furry hijynx in their shows, giving our fandom some unusual mainstream attention.

Samantha Bee - A wholesome frontal

In an evergreen segment recorded at a furry convention, the Full Frontal with Samantha Bee’s segment showcased the wholesome side of the fandom, with a brief interlude to the politics with the upcoming US elections. It never really covers anything too raunchy, which is ironic for a show with a name like “Full Frontal”.

The footage was clearly going to be its own thing and not related to COVID-19, but the opening was directed toward that situation. It makes me wonder how they would have opened the segment had it released in a more normal time and what angle the segment would have taken under those circumstances.

There was even a portion of one of my videos utilized. Which is somewhat amusing since it had less than 3,000 views at the time the segment aired, and to my knowledge would be the least viral video to be featured on mainstream television. It’s also odd to think that at least 1 of the viewers is someone from mainstream television clipping the part for their show.

If you like a wholesome clip covering furries you will find enjoyment here. But what if you’re looking for something a little more risque? Well, then John Oliver may be more of what you are looking for.

And unfortunately for Samantha Bee, for as much effort and editing went into her furry segment, she would find her work eclipsed by his more simple segment revolving around rat erotica. Ain’t that just how it is Samantha? A woman puts so much work into a wholesome piece and she is instantly overshadowed by a man throwing money around for smut.

Looks like the ‘sex sells’ issue clearly isn’t only a furry problem.

John Oliver’s rat erotica obession

Well, it is the Year of the Rat. And it was bad enough for those rats that this year, of all years, had to be the one where we have a plague. Sometimes stereotypes refuse to be shaken. So in yet another odd coincidence for their species this year, an infamous piece in the fandom ended up being discussed on Last Week Tonight.

For those unaware, back in the 1990s, and before the prevalence of the internet, furries utilized other networks to distribute their art pieces. And also, you had to be a bit more bold than going onto a private internet site to get some provocative images. This is where the collection by Biohazard comes in, as they were being sold at a fundraising event on local television in southern Pennsylvania.

This was certainly not furry art made for a general audience in mind. These pieces showed naked rats in sultry embrace with unaroused male genitalia exposed for the whole world to see. They were there and into derrière. In the 1990s this was certainly a bold move, and obviously couldn’t last after the boundaries finally got pushed to the point where the station had to make a rule against such pieces in fear of losing their FCC licensing or isolating their audience.

A few decades later, John Oliver somehow caught wind of this cheeky moment in furry history and made a request for the piece “Stay Up Late” featuring the two male rats on a bed clearly about to start a night of jamming out with their joysticks. In exchange he promised to pay the owner $1,000 for the piece along with a donation of $20,000 to York County food bank. Clearly Mr. Oliver wanted to continue the proud tradition of British men putting a price on the artifacts of exotic culture pieces.

Despite the stress caused to those food banks in worry that the piece would never be found and they would be left in the cold, in a letter episode the piece showed up on Mr. Oliver’s desk to show that his desire for the piece of rat ertoica had been successful.

A protest of matters with otter-phallus

More recently, Mr. Oliver delved back into the furry world as he covered the protest of the hashtag #WhiteLivesMatter on social media. In this segment he discussed how some were co-opting the hashtag in order to troll individuals who were utilizing it to make grievances about biases against white people in a moment where Black Americans were protesting ex-judicial killings that disproportionately targets them.

Video in Tweet in NSFW: Text description below

Among these troll posts was an otter character by the name of Radiant Otter. In the tweet, which went on the HBO show uncensored, he used the text “Hey #WhiteLivesMatter racists look at my knotted otter cock. Thanks :)”. The picture attached to this tweet had his tan-furred character with his lime green male-bits fully erected for the world to see. Clearly John Oliver has evolved his tastes from erotica to straight up pornography. Luckily his show is on HBO and not PBS.

Radiant Otter was not prepared for this at all, and when they learned that their tweet had made national television they were quick to lock down their account from public view. They had made a post on Reddit of their feelings and experience around the whole ordeal. In summary, they had not been informed that their content would be put on the HBO platform, so they were a bit taken aback and stressed by the ([lie] no pun intended [/lie]) “exposure”. However, they stand by their messages and actions taken and have no regrets.

Duality of a community

The furry fandom is a community, one that can be a little open about expression of adult features and sexuality, but also it is composed of those that have little to no interest in that but still find enjoyment in the company of nerds and animal allegory.

If we were to look at Samantha Bee’s interest in this community, you’d get the more wholesome side, a community looking to have people express themselves in a world that can be harsh toward those expressions. Or, on the other hand you have Mr. Oliver, who clearly has taken a shine to talking about the adult side of the fandom.

Neither were in a demeaning way as their predecessors in the media have been, but in a tongue-in-cheek manner that promoted causes and charitably. Both taken together paint a broad picture of the fandom and highlight some of our most eccentric moments for entertainment and thought.

Will others follow suit with their own takes as the isolation from their audience causes more bizarre online interaction between fur and comedians? Only time will tell. But hopefully if it does continue to occur, that it will keep us entertained in a time where miseries of the world about us are at an all time high.

Or in the words of one thieving fox, “Keep your chin up. One day there will be happiness again.”