My 23 year old son is an aspiring filmmaker (he also has a music review channel, Radio Recall) and has quite a few music videos on his channel, iBolt07 at Youtube.com. I meant to post these earlier, but never got around to it.
In the first one (his most recent, made in December) there’s footage of his 2nd place (novice) performance in the fursuit dance competition at Midwest Furfest in Chicago, Illinois. (Here is my post about that). He says it’s much easier to dance without a fursuit. I wonder why that doesn’t surprise me. Since his second place finish, he’s been asked to join a dance troupe that travels in the Florida area, and they dance out of costume.
I don’t have any problems with my son being a furry. I’ve done a lot of research on this, and there are a lot of unfortunate misunderstandings surrounding the fur fandom. It’s really more akin to someone who attends Star Trek conventions than a sexual perversion and there are more geeks at these things than at a science fair. A lot of furries seem to have professions in one of the sciences or are computer nerds. There are also lots of female furries, which surprised me. I wrote an article back in September (which is still one of my most popular) about why it doesn’t bother me that my son is a furry.
I just Googled “my son is furry,” and that article is so popular it’s now at the top of Page 1 on Google! That wasn’t always the case. When I wrote it it was on page 8 or 9, and a month ago it was at the top of the 3rd page or bottom of the second. It’s continuing to get a lot of views so it’s moved to the top. (For some reason my Merrimints article is picking up some momentum too. I think a food site found it. It’s also getting a lot of shares on Pinterest.)
Here are two of his fur convention music videos.
He can be seen dancing out of costume at 2:20 and part of his performance is at about 2:40.
He also makes non-furry music videos. Here are two of them:
He acts in this video too, and does the lipsynching. This is a few years old, from 2010 or 2011.
Evacuees standing outside the Hyatt hotel in Rosemont, IL last night.
Last night there was a serious chemical leak at the Hyatt Hotel in Rosemont, IL, outside Chicago, hospitalizing 19 people and causing the entire hotel to be evacuated. Here is the news story:
The article contains a video of the evacuation and news commentary.
At the time this happened, Midwest Fur Fest is having its annual 4-day convention there. My son, who is a furry, attended and is staying at this hotel, but he was lucky and did not have to be hospitalized.
Authorities are looking into the matter, and they do believe there’s foul play involved.
Personally I think it was a deliberate act of hate against furries, who are tragically misunderstood by the media and ignorant people who really haven’t researched what the furry fandom is really all about (hint: they are not sexual perverts.)
I wrote this article about furries a couple of months back, and am linking to it if anyone wants more in depth information about furries and the reasons why I don’t mind that my son is one. This article is still one of my most popular and most shared, and it and still appears in my list of Top Posts (though lately it has been eclipsed by my Sam Vaknin articles, LOL).
Anyway, I am just so grateful my son is okay! 🙂 It could have been bad…
My son in his fursuit “Mex,” the hipster weasel, with some friends. He will be dancing in this suit today.
On a more positive note, my son was one of ten dancers out of 50 who made it to the finals of the dance competition they are holding today. He is going to perform any moment now (he tweeted me that he’s a bag of nerves). The Top 3 dancers win a prize and a trophy (plus it’s a huge honor!). I think he’s good enough to win third place, at least, but even if he doesn’t place in the Top 3, making the Top 10 is awesome and he should be so proud! I’ll post the Youtube video of his performance when it’s up.
1. It tells a story that promises to be a bit unusual and maybe controversial (a mom who actually approves of her son’s furriness).
2. Furry is controversial in and of itself — lots of people hate them or misunderstand what they’re about.
3. Furry is trendy and cool, especially among young people.
4. The title, I must admit, is great–it’s one of my best titles ever. It’s grabby and sassy and promises to be a little controversial and a little personal and maybe even a little juicy; and there’s also an implied challenge there too for those who dislike furries (got a problem with that?)
5. It includes a video and a cool original photo.
6. Furries are adorkable. (I love ’em).
7. The article is neither too short nor too long.
Now, all that being said, there’s another reason why that article got so many hits. I have a Twitter account which I use primarily to talk to my son, who spends a lot of time there. My son has close to 2000 followers, and most of them are furries, so when I posted the link to Twitter (I link all my articles to Twitter) a ton of his fur-riends wanted to see what I had to say about their friend and also what his mom thinks of him being a fur. It’s a built in audience. If you look at the Twitter button under the article you can see it was linked to Twitter again about 28 times by an army of furries clicking on the Twitter link so it has a huge presence there. It was also linked to various Facebook accounts a number of times too. My son is a little embarrassed by this endlessly circulating article but also seems tickled pink that he’s getting so much attention and has achieved a level of Twitter “fame,” at least among other furries. It gives him a presence in the fandom, and his dance comp video has received many more views now too.
Outside of that, my most popular articles are the ones about narcissists and psychopaths. That’s understandable, given that’s the focus of my blog, and most of my followers are people coming out of abusive relationships with narcs and psychopaths, or just people interested in the ugly and soulless side of human behavior.
But the only other article that received anywhere near the amount of attention my furry article did was my “I’m Frustrated” noobie manifesto which OM was kind enough to reblog and as a result I was so busy with likes, new followers, and comments that day I could barely find time to go to the bathroom! Things have died down a bit, but due to his kindness I never again have logged on in the morning after posting a new article only to find nothing but crickets and tumbleweeds.
Third in popularity was my rant, “Don’t judge me because I’m poor.” Now, I’ll be honest–I didn’t expect that to be a popular article. It’s a depressing topic and I used a sad picture. But I guess a lot of bloggers can relate and poverty, like narcissism and furries, is a hot topic these days I guess. And it has a sassy title that contains a challenge.
The biggest lesson from all this I’ve learned is that titles do matter. A title that is short, a little sassy, a little controversial, and promises a personal confession of some sort seem to get the most hits and likes.
It helps if the article lives up to its grabby title too.
I also have to admit I’m hoping the reference here to furries gives me another little Twitter boost.
So far my blog has been pretty inoffensive. Well, I like to think so anyway. But I knew the time would come where I’d have to post about something controversial and now is that time.
My son is a furry. And not only do I not have a problem with it, I’m damned proud of him. Yes, I really did just say that.
I know what some of you are probably thinking.
“What kind of a ‘parent” are you?”
“Furries are a bunch of perverts! How can you accept your own CHILD being one?”
“You are depraved to be writing bragging about that.”
“Ewwwwwwwww!!!”
“You are going to hell and so is he.”
“You are SICK!!!ELEVENTY!!111!!
*puking sounds*
“MAKE HIM STOP!!!”
Let me explain. My son, now almost 23, was, along with me, his father’s scapegoat during most of his childhood and teen years. Like me, he’s a HSP (highly sensitive person) and HSPs and psychopaths as parents do NOT mix.
His father, Michael (not his real name), nearly destroyed my son’s self esteem. As a child, he was easily hurt, withdrawn to the point I thought he was autistic (he isn’t though your truly is), and was told (and began to believe) he couldn’t do anything right. Michael called him stupid, sissy, a wuss, and constantly told him he’d amount to nothing. Like me, my son had few friends in grade and middle school. He was bullied. I identified with him (and tried to protect him from Michael’s narcissistic rages) because well, he was so much like me.
I already told you earlier how Michael’s flying monkeys bullied him just prior to the divorce. Ethan (not his real name) was about 12 during this time and that’s a vulnerable age for even the strongest, most confident kid.
Fortunately, Ethan decided to live with me instead of his father after the divorce (my daughter chose her dad, and that’s another story I’ll get into in my next post). I don’t like to toot my own horn and I certainly wouldn’t have qualified as “Mother of the Year” but I like to think I did a pretty good job as Ethan’s mom, and some of the damage that Michael and his team of flying monkeys had done on my son was repaired. Or at least kept him from becoming one of those hardcore emo kids who writes freeverse poetry about suicide, rain and darkness and may even attempt the ultimate self destructive act. Or kept him away from drugs and early drinking. Or becoming a Narcissist himself. He never became any of those things, and in fact was always pretty straight edge. He told me (and I believe him) he never tasted alcohol until he was of legal age. He never liked pot and certainly never touched anything harder. He always did his homework. In high school he was one of those computer geeks and found he had a fascination with photography and art, something I also was involved with when I was his age.
Ethan wasn’t popular and seemed to have no interest in girls. He had a few friends he hung out with to play Age of Empires,” “Legend of Zelda” “Black and White,” and other video games. He was really good at the games and started his own forum about auto racing (something he’s still passionate about). But he was still painfully shy and lacking in confidence.
Two things helped to improve Ethan’s self esteem: Outward Bound and Kung Fu. His 8th grade graduation trip, instead of the usual “fun” trip to New York City or Washington DC, was a physically and mentally challenging 4 day Outward Bound expedition to the mountainous wildnerness right here in western North Carolina. I won’t get into detail about his trip (that’s a story he can tell), but he came back a little different, a little more mature, a bit more confident. When I asked him if he had fun, he said not really, but it was a trip he would never forget and that taught him a lot of things about himself.
When Ethan was 15, he decided to take Kung Fu classes. He was pretty good, and stuck with that for 3 years, advancing to Green Belt, which is more than halfway to Black Belt.
Ethan was keeping some secrets though, and admitted later on he was still deeply unhappy. I didn’t know this at the time, but I did know there was something he wasn’t telling me, and I could have guessed what it was. But I had to wait for him to say it.
At age 17, Ethan came out as gay. He was afraid to tell me, but I told him I had known for a long time but was waiting for him to say it. Ethan was relieved, and now that he was “out,” his confidence level went up a little more, and suddenly at school he was considered “cool,” something he had never been.
It’s so funny how kids will bully another kid they suspect of being gay but who isn’t “out” (and he was definitely bullied about that), but as soon as they’re “out,” they become accepted and cool. It’s a paradox, but it really isn’t–because it’s really not about gay vs. non-gay, it’s about self esteem. Bullied kids are kids who are too outwardly sensitive and have little self confidence. A kid with confidence, even if different from the other kids, is accepted, or at least respected. And I think that’s what happened with Ethan when he came out as gay.
After Ethan graduated from high school in 2010, he came out as “furry.” At first I didn’t even know what that meant, and Ethan didn’t want to explain it to me so I had to go online and do some research myself.
There’s been a lot of negative publicity about “furries,” especially since an infamous episode of the TV show CSI, in which a serial murderer was a furry who liked to kill wearing an animal costume. But this negativity isn’t deserved or even valid. Most of the criticism of furries is related to their alleged depravity–furry detractors insist furries engage in bestiality, or at best, have a fetish about having sex dressed up as animals.
While I won’t deny there is a subset of the furry community that may have a sexual “fursuit” fetish, it’s a small subset from what I’ve seen (and I know a lot about furries now) and the idea that they’re into bestiality is a ridiculous claim with nothing to back it up.
My intention here isn’t to give you a history of the furry fandom (there’s plenty of other places to read up on that). But a little background is required. The furry fandom grew out of the science fiction community back in the early 1980s. Most furries are geeks–comic book geeks, computer geeks, sci-fi geeks, Dragoncon geeks, art geeks, and among Millennials, animated cartoon geeks. Millennials grew up inundated with a huge array of the best made animated films and shows Disney had to offer; and because their stressed out parents were often working or busy with other things, cartoon animals like Mufasa, Timon and Pumba from “The Lion King,” CatDog, Bolt, and the Animaniacs were often left in charge as surrogate babysitters to entertain them.
Naturally a lot of Millennials developed a special affection for these cartoon critters who gave them so much laughter and comfort as children, and some of them continued this fascination into adulthood.
Enter the furries. The vast majority of them are Millennials (born from 1982 to 2000 or so) and there are a surprising number of female furries and heterosexual furries, and many of them are married. There are furry conventions that are becoming more popular every year, the most famous one being Anthrocon, which is held in Pittsburgh every year. Most furries are involved in art–either visual or performing art. I’ve talked to furries, and as a whole they’re a creative bunch. Furry isn’t a perversion; it’s a hobby, no different than someone who attends Star Trek or comic book conventions.
Being a furry has helped Ethan find his creative outlets. Ethan is naturally rather shy and reserved. Dressing up as “Mex” and his other “fursona” has allowed him to discover his outgoing and sociable side and that he has a love of performing (dancing and acting), which is something he might not have explored had it not been for the costume where he feels more comfortable experimenting with that side of himself.
He showed interest in photography and art at an early age, but has developed these abilities, and is now a fledgling filmmaker with a professional eye. He took up filmmaking in college and now has a degree. He makes his own music videos and has posted many of these on Youtube. Not all are about furries. Although none have gone “viral,” several of his films have received thousands of hits. He also is a competent artist, and draws well, although I think he’s more naturally talented at photography and filmmaking.
Here’s one of his videos from his music channel, Radio Recall.
What he’s proudest of is his dancing. He’s been training himself in street-dancing for two years. At the past two conventions he’s attended, he entered the fursuit dance competition. At the most recent one, he was one of the finalists, and he told me being accepted as a finalist was the happiest, most validating moment of his life and the high from it lasted for days. Now he’s working hard at getting even better so he can possibly win one of the Top 3 awards the conventions give out to the winners.
Here’s a video of his performance in the dance competition at a convention in Florida.
Ethan has shown me what can happen to a highly sensitive person who is able to escape from psychopathic abuse when still young, and then is given validation and encouraged to follow their own path, even if it’s not a path most of us would take. He’s shown me what I could have become had I been given such an opportunity (or taken advantage of it) when I was young. Not a furry or dancer or filmmaker, but someone who chased my dreams and never looked back. Ethan has shown me that none of us is a hopeless cause, and it really is possible to free yourself from the barbed wire prison of family psychopathy. Instead of being attacked by the flying monkeys and having your wings clipped, you can learn how to fly.
Lucky Otters Haven 