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Speaker 1: Welcome to Worst Year Ever, a production of I Heart Radio. Definitely,

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Speaker 1: the high point for this movement was late to right

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Speaker 1: before the Charlottesville rally. Um, they actually brought people to Charlottesville.

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Speaker 1: That was part of the community is They're like, hey,

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Speaker 1: we're getting together. We're gonna march with all our brothers

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Speaker 1: join us in Charlottesville. So I personally saw a major

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Speaker 1: increase around of just hateful messages, UM groups trying to

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Speaker 1: shut down events because they didn't like that there were

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Speaker 1: queer people there. Um, there was a lot of dock

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Speaker 1: sing um phone threats, people trying to get other people

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Speaker 1: fired from jobs. UM. The stolen Rocky Mountain fur Con

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Speaker 1: database was used to ducks hundreds of people and try

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Speaker 1: to get them fired for being gay or being furry.

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Speaker 1: So there was a pretty big escalation I would say

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Speaker 1: around the toteen time and throughout twenty seventeen, we figured

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Speaker 1: out strategies to get rid of it together. Everything so down, Down, Down,

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Speaker 1: Welcome back to our two part episode on the furry

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Speaker 1: community and how they've dealt with the rising Nazi threat.

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Speaker 1: I don't know what we'll title this yet, but that's

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Speaker 1: what it's about. This is part two of the series.

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Speaker 1: So if you haven't listened to part one, go back

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Speaker 1: and listen to it. Otherwise most of this will be nonsense,

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Speaker 1: so please do that now. The Midwest Profest chlorine gas

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Speaker 1: attack was big news online for a day or two,

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Speaker 1: but then it sort of faded off into the background.

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Speaker 1: One of the few relatively mainstream site to cover the

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Speaker 1: fall out at all was Vice in their two thousand

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Speaker 1: sixteen article c s I fur Fest. It was a

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Speaker 1: good piece and included valuable information from the local police

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Speaker 1: and the FBI, But that's basically it in terms of

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Speaker 1: long term coverage, uh, in terms of serious journalistic attention

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Speaker 1: being paid to the problem of rising extremism in the

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Speaker 1: furry community, try to put yourself in the shoes of

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Speaker 1: some of the people in this subculture. Some of your

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Speaker 1: friends were wounded or at least traumatized by a terrorist

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Speaker 1: attack launched by someone who is basically a Nazi. His

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Speaker 1: Nazi friends are making continued efforts to recruit young furries

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Speaker 1: all around you. What do you do? Stranded well outside

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Speaker 1: the main stream, the furies have had to develop their

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Speaker 1: own structures of support and self defense that includes their

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Speaker 1: own journalists Patch Oh fur that's his pseudonym, created dog

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Speaker 1: Patch Press, a furry news website, back in two thousand fourteen,

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Speaker 1: and for the last five years, it's offered daily updates

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Speaker 1: on furry culture and news, with a distinct emphasis on

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Speaker 1: tracking the rise of the alt furs and movements and

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Speaker 1: groups like the Furry Raiders. Patches work hasn't just informed

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Speaker 1: members of the furry community. His work is rigorous and

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Speaker 1: insightful enough that he's been sided by Rolling Stone, The

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Speaker 1: l a Times, Vice, Forbes, The Daily Dot, and Daily Costs.

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Speaker 1: He's also been cited by us here at Worst You're

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Speaker 1: ever because Patch is the reason we wound up at

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Speaker 1: Midwest FurFest in the first place. Patch reached out to

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Speaker 1: me on Twitter back in the fall of two thousand

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Speaker 1: nineteen when I retweeted some post about a certain alt

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Speaker 1: right grifter who we're not going to name against in

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Speaker 1: this podcast's attempt to register for the Midwest FurFest. We

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Speaker 1: started talking and he sent me over pages and pages

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Speaker 1: of archived conversations between alt furs who are fans of

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Speaker 1: that grifter discussing their plans to disrupt the convention. Patches

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Speaker 1: the first person who dug up Magnus Derridian's old deleted

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Speaker 1: but archived blog post about his stink bomb attack on

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Speaker 1: that bank. Over the years, he's done a really impressive

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Speaker 1: job of collecting and dispensing information about the Alt Fur

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Speaker 1: movement and its figureheads. Well. Patch worked to keep his

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Speaker 1: fellow Furies informed and get crucial information out to the

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Speaker 1: general population. Activists like Dio kept their head to the ground,

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Speaker 1: infiltrated fascist online spaces and gad their data. Well, for

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Speaker 1: a long time, I went around and I banged the

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Speaker 1: fucking pots and pans, and I'm like, I'm like, do

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Speaker 1: you see this ship that's going on? UM? And nobody listened.

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Speaker 1: And I also realized too that when I was infiltrated,

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Speaker 1: I couldn't. They had a public space called the lobby

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Speaker 1: that people anybody could enter in UM. To get out

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Speaker 1: of the lobby, you had to do your interview process

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Speaker 1: and stuff like that, and then you had to do

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Speaker 1: other things to get higher ranks, to see other rooms UM,

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Speaker 1: to get deeper in UM. So they knew the lobby

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Speaker 1: was compromised, but they didn't know the rest of it

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Speaker 1: was compromised. Because that stuff I had to keep quiet about,

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Speaker 1: because if they knew it was compromised, they would stop

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Speaker 1: talking or they would look for who it was. So

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Speaker 1: I collected thousands of screenshots and I used there's a

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Speaker 1: discord history history tracker UM, which we used as a

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Speaker 1: bot and it dogs all of the server. So we

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Speaker 1: used that. We would crawl the server a couple of

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Speaker 1: times a week. Um, keep the logs and files. I've

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Speaker 1: got those on my computer still record all of that.

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Speaker 1: You know, I was contacting like the SPLC, you know,

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Speaker 1: if I saw anything that was like a law enforcement issue. Um.

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Speaker 1: You know, people talk about making bombs, people talking about

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Speaker 1: you know, meetups and training groups, that kind of thing.

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Speaker 1: And it's not coincidental that this all really got started

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Speaker 1: in because that's also the year and the rough time

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Speaker 1: of year that gamer Gate kicked off. If you're not

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Speaker 1: extremely online, you probably haven't heard about gamer Gate. It was,

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Speaker 1: in short, a far right reactionary movement among video game

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Speaker 1: fans who were angry that feminist video game critics had

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Speaker 1: started analyzing some of the troublesome gender issues in the

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Speaker 1: popular games. In a lot of ways, gamer Gate was

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Speaker 1: the inflection point of the modern alt right. People like

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Speaker 1: Steve Bannon and that guy we're not going to mention again,

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Speaker 1: jumped in to co op the movement because they saw

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Speaker 1: it as a potential source of new digital activists. Gammer

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Speaker 1: Gate wasn't just people getting angry about like video game

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Speaker 1: critics saying stuff they didn't like. It was a harassment

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Speaker 1: campaign that included hundreds of death threats against a number

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Speaker 1: of different critics, um dead animals and like letters written

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Speaker 1: in blood being mailed to people's doors. It got really

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Speaker 1: creepy and really out of hand really fast. Gamergate was

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Speaker 1: priming the pumping. Yeah, it got all these people ready.

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Speaker 1: It got them organized. They realized that they could have

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Speaker 1: some exert some force of power over others. They realized

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Speaker 1: that they could use fear and that they could terrorize

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Speaker 1: people into silence, into submission. They could get their way,

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Speaker 1: and if they banded together, if there were enough of them,

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Speaker 1: none of them would get caught because there were too many.

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Speaker 1: So you get hate mobs like that. And they learned

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Speaker 1: um and your constantly constantly seeing an evolution and adaptation

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Speaker 1: where they learned what works and what doesn't. They try

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Speaker 1: anything like that didn't work, or they see somebody else

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Speaker 1: do something and that was very effective. They pick up

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Speaker 1: the method, they move on. It took a while for

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Speaker 1: any of this to percolate out into mainstream culture. Because

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Speaker 1: the furry fandom is so deeply tied to the Internet,

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Speaker 1: they were kind of the canary in the coal mine

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Speaker 1: for all of the Nazi stuff that we're dealing with

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Speaker 1: today in America. Choope was there for the start of

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Speaker 1: it all, and he watched as his community mobilized itself

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Speaker 1: to combat the fascist creep. I think one of the

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Speaker 1: most effective ways was to uh use something like blockchain

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Speaker 1: on Twitter basically and start blocking these people, um that

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Speaker 1: had form groups intentionally targeting others. The alt furs, the

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Speaker 1: furry raiders had specific groups to say, Hey, here's someone

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Speaker 1: on Twitter we want to harass. Let's harass them constantly

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Speaker 1: for this whole year, and they would docks them harass

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Speaker 1: that specific person as much as possible, and they had

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Speaker 1: a chat room full of two to three people to

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Speaker 1: constantly harass all day long. So the blockchain on Twitter

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Speaker 1: worked pretty well. Monitoring their chat rooms, of course, is

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Speaker 1: something we've always had to do just to keep our

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Speaker 1: events safe from that kind of abuse. All of this

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Speaker 1: came to a head for the furries in around an

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Speaker 1: event in Colorado called the Rocky Mountain Fury Con. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So Rocky Mountain fur Con is my local convention in Denver,

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Speaker 1: And basically it had issues because they had furry raiders

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Speaker 1: or all to write people on the board, and the

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Speaker 1: board wanted to give priority to these all right groups

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Speaker 1: to get the first booking of all the hotel rooms,

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Speaker 1: and and the other people on the board couldn't get

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Speaker 1: enough votes to vote these people off the board. So

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Speaker 1: it ended up causing a lot of frustration among the community,

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Speaker 1: like why does this alt right group get all the

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Speaker 1: rooms and no one else gets the rooms? Um, And

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Speaker 1: so there's a lot of I don't know, upset people

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Speaker 1: around that situation. Calls erupted from within the Colorado furry

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Speaker 1: contingent too. At the very least, band Nazis like Foxler

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Speaker 1: from attending the event. The convention organizers released a statement

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Speaker 1: that was basically the furry equivalent to President Trump's both

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Speaker 1: side speech after Charlottesville. Rocky Mountain fur Coon does not

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Speaker 1: support or condoned discrimination or violence in any of its forms,

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Speaker 1: and is saddened by the hatred and division that has

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Speaker 1: been caused by a small minority of our community on

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Speaker 1: both sides of this issue. Our sources aren't lying when

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Speaker 1: they say that the organizers of Rocky Mountain Fur Con

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Speaker 1: had a complicated history with the far right. The nonprofit

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Speaker 1: that officially managed the convention was Mid America Anthropomorphic and

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Speaker 1: Art Corporation. It was headed by Kendall Emory, also known

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Speaker 1: as Cahoky Learu, who, in addition to being a furry,

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Speaker 1: was a sovereign citizen. Sovereign citizens are a special corner

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Speaker 1: of the far right. They have bizarre and arcane beliefs

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Speaker 1: about the law, and in short, believe they don't have

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Speaker 1: to pay taxes or listen to cops. Law enforcement officers

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Speaker 1: regularly consider them one of the most dangerous groups in

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Speaker 1: the country because of all the shootouts they instigate. Kendall's

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Speaker 1: sovereign citizen beliefs likely influenced his sympathy for the alt

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Speaker 1: furs and furry raiders. It's also probably why Rocky Mountain

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Speaker 1: Fur Con failed to pay any taxes from two thousand

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Speaker 1: and eight to This was first reported as far as

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Speaker 1: we can tell, on another furry news site called flav Rock.

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Speaker 1: They note that Kendall slash Cohoki was forced to step

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Speaker 1: down as chairman of the convention in two thousand and eight,

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Speaker 1: when it was found out that he'd been convicted of

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Speaker 1: criminal sexual contact with a minor back in nine. Weird

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Speaker 1: how that keeps happening with these alt right guys? Huh. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: so this pedophile sovereign citizen and his buddies insisted on

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Speaker 1: making Rocky Mountain fur Con a say space for Nazis.

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Speaker 1: This understandably riled up folks like Deo Together Everything down.

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Speaker 1: From January two seventeen, Deal got on Twitter and commenting

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Speaker 1: on their upcoming Rocky Mountain fur Con, tweeted, can't wait

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Speaker 1: to punch Nazis. This was followed up by a response

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Speaker 1: from someone named Olivia Melas, who said watching you get

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Speaker 1: shot by someone defending themselves from unprovoked assault will be

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Speaker 1: far more entertaining. The discussion continued until someone asked Olivia

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Speaker 1: if she was really planning to bring a gun to

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Speaker 1: the convention. She said, in essence, maybe, oh god, yeah,

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Speaker 1: this was what threw me into the public eye. Deal

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Speaker 1: reported the threat both to Twitter and to law enforcement,

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Speaker 1: and this prompted a response from Kendall Emery and I

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Speaker 1: thought at first it was a troll. I'm like, what

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Speaker 1: the fuck is this thing? And it's like, we're gonna

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Speaker 1: seize your house, and we're gonna seize your wages, and

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Speaker 1: we're gonna put you in prison. You've been very bad.

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Speaker 1: We know you're on Twitter, and I'm like, okay. They

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Speaker 1: listed a couple other furry conventions as part of and

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Speaker 1: the furry writers as other people who were harmed by

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Speaker 1: my actions. I actually had to talk to like one

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Speaker 1: of the other heads of another convention. I'm like, were

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Speaker 1: you part of this letter? He's like, no, please never

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Speaker 1: contact me again. That looks really bad for legal and like,

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Speaker 1: that's fine, I'll never contact you again. Bease, don't contact me.

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Speaker 1: He's like, that's great. By So I got into trouble.

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Speaker 1: So the letter came to me. I google the name

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Speaker 1: signed to it because I'm like, this has to be

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Speaker 1: complete bullshit. Nobody would send you a sovereign citizen pants

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Speaker 1: on head crazy letter with a bloody thumb print. I

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Speaker 1: actually found a really fun analysis of this letter on

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Speaker 1: the legal blog Lawyers in Liquor. The author analyzes the

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Speaker 1: letter and calls it proof that quote some people have

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Speaker 1: insanity so strong it can bleed right the funk through

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Speaker 1: a first suit. Here's how he explains the red thumb print,

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Speaker 1: which he thinks was ink rather than blood. To this

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Speaker 1: sit the red ink and the thumb print add some

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Speaker 1: special magic because it shows they are a flesh and

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Speaker 1: blood person and not the corporate entity known as fur pants,

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Speaker 1: McGhee or whatever the funk this guy calls himself. This

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Speaker 1: whole incident wound up blowing into the mainstream media almost

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Speaker 1: as much as the chlorine attack on Midwest FurFest. In February,

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Speaker 1: Vice wrote an article title even Furries are Fighting Fascists.

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Speaker 1: It interviewed members of Furry Antifa, a loose organization that

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Speaker 1: had just started to coalesce around the resistance to people

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Speaker 1: like Foxler and the alt furs. In April, Rolling Stone

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Speaker 1: wrote that does the furrier community have a Nazi problem? Article,

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Speaker 1: and in May The Daily Beast published Nazis are tearing

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Speaker 1: the furry world apart. The police wound up investigating the

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Speaker 1: threats and determining that there was some danger to the community.

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Speaker 1: The hotel demanded the organizers of the con shell at

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Speaker 1: an extra two dollars for off duty cops to provide security,

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Speaker 1: and in the end Rocky Mountain fur Con had to

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Speaker 1: shut down. Eventually, they decided they couldn't deal with it anymore.

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Speaker 1: There's no way to get rid of the alt right

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Speaker 1: people on the board. So they shut down the convey

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Speaker 1: mention entirely. But that didn't end the fighting. Of course,

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Speaker 1: Foxler and the Furry Raiders were piste now, so in

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Speaker 1: the Colorado furry community organized a new Nazi free event Denver.

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Speaker 1: They decided they had to funk with it our first year.

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Speaker 1: The alt right group, the Furry Raiders decided, we're gonna

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Speaker 1: call the hotel book all the rooms at once with

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Speaker 1: a database of stolen identities from the previous convention. So

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Speaker 1: they booked for of the rooms. I think it was

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Speaker 1: a mounting close to sixty eight thou dollars worth of

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Speaker 1: revenue lost. And we had to try to convince the

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Speaker 1: hotel those were stolen identities from the last convention that

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Speaker 1: they used against our convention. This was a serious crime,

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Speaker 1: or at least it would have been if again, the

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Speaker 1: victims and perpetrators hadn't been people who like to dress

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Speaker 1: up as animals. Yeah, we actually called, uh, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: the Colorado bu Or of Investigation. UH, there's a division

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Speaker 1: for financial crimes. And once I told them it was

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Speaker 1: a Furry Convention, they stopped returning our calls. Fixing the

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Speaker 1: situation required Chip and his fellow organizers to spend dozens

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Speaker 1: and dozens of hours investigating the crime for themselves. He

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Speaker 1: sent us an enormous itemized folder filled with eyewitness testimony

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Speaker 1: from those who had heard Foxler discussed the plan, as

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Speaker 1: well as lists of all the fraudulent reservations that have

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Speaker 1: been posted inside a telegram group used by the Furry Raiders.

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Speaker 1: All this was necessary to convince the hotel to reverse

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Speaker 1: the charges so that they could, you know, hold the

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Speaker 1: event without having it booked up by fake people. They

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Speaker 1: also archived conversations from within that group, including one where

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Speaker 1: alt Furs discuss how to infiltrate the chat channels, where

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Speaker 1: Chip and his friends planned den for oblivious to the

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Speaker 1: fact that their own channel had been infiltrated. Car rights.

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Speaker 1: I would just use my old forsona since I haven't

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Speaker 1: been involved in fur in a long time anyway, Someone

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Speaker 1: named Bluemier responds, old forsonas are actually great for this,

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Speaker 1: they have established history. A little later in the thread,

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Speaker 1: someone named Husky Jack and he two suggests, if anything,

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Speaker 1: get connections to h Chan. Let the heat seem like

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Speaker 1: it's coming from the outside. Version the channel complain that

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Speaker 1: s g w's just want to shut down anyone who

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Speaker 1: happens to be a little right wing, and then one

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Speaker 1: of them drops in a quote from George Lincoln Rockwell,

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Speaker 1: Oh good, here it is by being a national socialist

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Speaker 1: with the swastika, I would also gather the only kind

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Speaker 1: of people I wanted around me, the tough, dedicated idealists

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Speaker 1: ready to fight for those ideals and give their lives

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Speaker 1: if necessary. And even more important, I would automatically scare

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Speaker 1: off the millions of blabber mouths, cowards, fools, and crackpots

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Speaker 1: which infests the rest of the movement. The swastika would

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Speaker 1: probably not bring me many supporters, but those who came

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Speaker 1: would be men. In other chat logs, help first discussed genocide,

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Speaker 1: extermination of transgender people, and a bunch of other horrible

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Speaker 1: stuff we are not going to read at length. The

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Speaker 1: point is that all of this documentation proves the central

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Speaker 1: point di O Chip and other furry anti fascists have

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Speaker 1: been making for years. These people are danger and allowing

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Speaker 1: them to participate in events like Midwest FurFest is also dangerous.

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Speaker 1: At least one alt for actually marched in Charlottesville alongside

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Speaker 1: a small army of fascists, one of whom committed a

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Speaker 1: terrorist attack by ramming his car into a crowd of

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Speaker 1: anti fascists and killing a young woman. Heather Highed. Welcome

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Speaker 1: Together Everything. In the very next year, two thou eighteen,

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Speaker 1: Magnus Deridian, the Confederate first suitor and the presumed corpriate

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Speaker 1: of the chlorine attack, showed up at Midwest Verfest. Again.

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Speaker 1: He was already banned from the convention and was not

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Speaker 1: supposed to be here. Um, so when he came, he

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Speaker 1: was trespassing. So he shows up. He is wearing a

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Speaker 1: first suit based on World War One, which is a

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Speaker 1: great way of not quite not quite being a Nazi,

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Speaker 1: but definitely scaring people who are already on edge. And

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Speaker 1: then he's throwing Nazi salutes in me the lobby and

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Speaker 1: yelling racial slurs. Security came up to him, which was

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Speaker 1: when he punched one of our pregnant security workers, and

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Speaker 1: she is by far one of the toughest people I've

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Speaker 1: ever met, despite her being nine months pregnant at that time. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so she chases him, he runs flees the hotel, and

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Speaker 1: he's running, she's running after him. The cops nabbed him.

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Speaker 1: They have to take him out of first two. Well,

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Speaker 1: he's not wearing anything underneath, So the hotel donates a sheet,

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Speaker 1: and then you have a few hundred furries taking videos

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Speaker 1: and photos of this man in a sheet getting shoved

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Speaker 1: into a cop car and he spent the weekend in jail.

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Speaker 1: In wider American society, the years since the bloody Charlottesville

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Speaker 1: rally have been years of steady growth and regular attacks

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Speaker 1: by members of the fascist right. In two thousand, nineteen eight,

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Speaker 1: Chan Birth, originally by Gamergate, inspired no less than four

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Speaker 1: white nationalist terrorist attacks and three nations. The Proud Boys

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Speaker 1: have been allowed to work security at Trump rallies. A

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Speaker 1: neo Nazi terrorists social network called The Base has started

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Speaker 1: putting up flyers offering weapons, training and camaraderie to other

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Speaker 1: interested fascists. But over in Furreedom, the story has been

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Speaker 1: really different, and that is why we think non Furrey

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Speaker 1: Americans need to pay attention to folks like Deo and Chip.

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Speaker 1: They and their fellow furry anti fascists have been extremely

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Speaker 1: effective at shutting the Nazis out of their community, and

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Speaker 1: they did it on their own without the police and

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Speaker 1: largely without the media. All it took was sustained activism

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Speaker 1: and a broad commitment to keep Nazis out of their community.

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Speaker 1: I think that the phrase have done the bus they

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Speaker 1: can and I am proud of the way the community organized,

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Speaker 1: the way everyone is aware. Um Like here, people were

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Speaker 1: worried about the Proud Boys coming up. So I watched people.

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Speaker 1: Nobody told them to do this, Nobody asked them to

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Speaker 1: do this, but people went around and they said, Okay,

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Speaker 1: what I'm gonna do is they're gonna check on my

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Speaker 1: friends and make sure that all of my friends get

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Speaker 1: to their hotel room every night and that they're safe.

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Speaker 1: And if I walk alone at night, I'm not going

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Speaker 1: to do that. I'm gonna take a buddy. We're gonna

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Speaker 1: walk together. I watched people who were a little bit bigger,

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Speaker 1: a little bit more well built, are like, hey, you

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00:20:22,800 --> 00:20:26,080
Speaker 1: know you're small. Are you walking a little tonight? Can

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00:20:26,119 --> 00:20:29,320
Speaker 1: I come with you? I think you're fine, but just

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00:20:29,440 --> 00:20:34,040
Speaker 1: in case, And you see that community coming together. We

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Speaker 1: build each other up and we protect us. They don't

356
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Speaker 1: just protect us, they also try to dissolve the line

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Speaker 1: between us and them, going into hostility is high, Misinformation

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00:20:44,600 --> 00:20:48,119
Speaker 1: is everywhere, bad actors, global people, isolated kids looking for

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00:20:48,160 --> 00:20:51,639
Speaker 1: answers for their struggles and often finding those answers from liars. Well,

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00:20:51,680 --> 00:20:55,480
Speaker 1: the furry community doesn't necessarily focus on the radicalization. They

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Speaker 1: are conscious of the radicalization pipeline and they try to

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Speaker 1: stop it in its tracks. I found that personally. My

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Speaker 1: belief is that inoculating people with hey, do you recognize

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00:21:06,760 --> 00:21:11,080
Speaker 1: what this is before it takes what? So if some

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00:21:11,280 --> 00:21:13,359
Speaker 1: you see your friend who posts a weird meme, you're like,

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Speaker 1: do you know what that's referencing? Do you understand what

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00:21:16,920 --> 00:21:20,520
Speaker 1: you're going with? And they're like, I don't what what

368
00:21:20,560 --> 00:21:22,760
Speaker 1: do you mean? I thought it was just funny, And

369
00:21:22,760 --> 00:21:27,720
Speaker 1: you're like, well, actually that reference is about something else,

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Speaker 1: Like that's a reference to, you know, the white genocide theory.

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Speaker 1: That's a reference to the Turner Diaries. That's a reference

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Speaker 1: to the unflush shooter, you know. And people go, oh,

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Speaker 1: I didn't know. I thought it was just funny. My

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Speaker 1: friend posted it to me, And you're like, well, you

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Speaker 1: might want to be very careful about what that friend

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Speaker 1: shares with you, and maybe you can help pull them

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Speaker 1: from the brink. I pull you from the brink. You

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00:21:54,720 --> 00:21:57,320
Speaker 1: pull them from the braink we pull each other. There

379
00:21:57,320 --> 00:21:59,639
Speaker 1: have been mixed results in the community, but some results

380
00:21:59,640 --> 00:22:02,399
Speaker 1: are still good results. They look for people and provide

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00:22:02,440 --> 00:22:06,840
Speaker 1: space to discuss certain ideological pools or in some cases

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Speaker 1: straight out racism, and then we moved to a better community. UM.

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Speaker 1: I tried for a while too. I made a chat

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Speaker 1: group and we pulled people out of these larry groups,

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00:22:16,440 --> 00:22:26,520
Speaker 1: and with mixed success, tried to I'm not life after hate,

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00:22:27,040 --> 00:22:32,119
Speaker 1: I will pipe for a living. I'm not a therapist. UM,

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00:22:32,200 --> 00:22:34,119
Speaker 1: but we tried to offer them a group where it

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00:22:34,240 --> 00:22:38,640
Speaker 1: was had some control of moderatorship. So we're like, okay,

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Speaker 1: we understand that you are coming out of this toxic culture.

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00:22:42,880 --> 00:22:47,360
Speaker 1: We understand that you are not going to be okay immediately.

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00:22:48,000 --> 00:22:50,840
Speaker 1: You are going to carry this baggage and we're going

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00:22:50,920 --> 00:22:53,480
Speaker 1: to help you unpack it. So you're gonna come into

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00:22:53,520 --> 00:22:57,600
Speaker 1: this group. We're gonna decompress. You can talk about this stuff,

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00:22:58,680 --> 00:23:01,040
Speaker 1: you know, but if you throw at a racial slur,

395
00:23:01,080 --> 00:23:04,520
Speaker 1: we're gonna say, hey man, why are you using that

396
00:23:04,600 --> 00:23:08,080
Speaker 1: kind of languish? Does it really need to be said?

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00:23:09,080 --> 00:23:10,840
Speaker 1: You know? Why are you why are you using it

398
00:23:10,880 --> 00:23:14,200
Speaker 1: are you angry? And usually it's like, yeah, man, I'm sorry,

399
00:23:14,160 --> 00:23:16,840
Speaker 1: I just lost my head. I was upset, and you know,

400
00:23:16,880 --> 00:23:19,040
Speaker 1: I threw it out there. It's a knee jerk reaction

401
00:23:19,080 --> 00:23:22,720
Speaker 1: I have. But sometimes, and this right here is so important.

402
00:23:22,800 --> 00:23:26,000
Speaker 1: For the worst year ever, it's overwhelmingly more helpful to

403
00:23:26,119 --> 00:23:28,880
Speaker 1: interact with somebody in person, human to human and show

404
00:23:28,920 --> 00:23:32,399
Speaker 1: them some kindness, give them an opening. Dio mentioned a

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00:23:32,520 --> 00:23:37,760
Speaker 1: kid who was in the group the Main Chat, which

406
00:23:37,840 --> 00:23:41,159
Speaker 1: was led by the people directly trying to funnel people

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Speaker 1: into the alt right, and she told this wonderful story

408
00:23:43,920 --> 00:23:46,280
Speaker 1: that I think speaks so well to how young people

409
00:23:46,400 --> 00:23:49,480
Speaker 1: men specifically, are desperate for any community and can easily

410
00:23:49,480 --> 00:23:52,639
Speaker 1: get swept up and manipulated and brought into groups of hate.

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00:23:53,000 --> 00:23:55,560
Speaker 1: But how a little connection and understanding from someone who

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00:23:55,600 --> 00:23:59,679
Speaker 1: cares can change everything. Here's Deo. It's funny too. When we,

413
00:23:59,760 --> 00:24:03,320
Speaker 1: for I first saw him, he was welding a lead

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00:24:03,400 --> 00:24:07,399
Speaker 1: filled mace to club me to death. And when his

415
00:24:07,520 --> 00:24:09,800
Speaker 1: friend is like, hey, I gotta get him out of

416
00:24:09,840 --> 00:24:12,360
Speaker 1: this um, he thinks you're gonna murder him, So I'm

417
00:24:12,400 --> 00:24:14,399
Speaker 1: gonna like bring him to you, and you say hi,

418
00:24:14,600 --> 00:24:16,280
Speaker 1: and then he'll realize that you're not going to murder

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Speaker 1: him because he's been told by these alt right groups

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00:24:18,840 --> 00:24:21,760
Speaker 1: that you're a violent, sadist who was going to murder

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Speaker 1: him on sight. So we meet and this poor kid

422
00:24:25,440 --> 00:24:28,280
Speaker 1: is shaking like a leaf. He's like, oh, shoot your deal.

423
00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:33,200
Speaker 1: And I'm like, hey, buddy, I saw your welding. He's like, oh,

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00:24:33,640 --> 00:24:35,560
Speaker 1: you saw the mace. I'm like, yeah, you know, I

425
00:24:35,560 --> 00:24:37,920
Speaker 1: don't really want to talk about the whole mace thing,

426
00:24:38,400 --> 00:24:41,320
Speaker 1: but I liked your welds. Where did you learn that?

427
00:24:41,680 --> 00:24:44,639
Speaker 1: He's like, oh, I had a little class in high school.

428
00:24:44,680 --> 00:24:47,680
Speaker 1: I'm like, that's a great skill. Are you doing anything

429
00:24:47,720 --> 00:24:49,880
Speaker 1: with it? Are you thinking about going into the traits?

430
00:24:50,200 --> 00:24:53,200
Speaker 1: Have you thought about apprenticeship? Are you thinking about college?

431
00:24:53,720 --> 00:24:56,240
Speaker 1: He's like, I actually I wasn't sure. You know, my

432
00:24:56,320 --> 00:24:58,919
Speaker 1: dad died a couple of years ago and I've been lost.

433
00:24:59,560 --> 00:25:02,400
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, that happens to a lot of people. Well,

434
00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:05,640
Speaker 1: if you're thinking about a trade, I'm a journeyman, and

435
00:25:05,800 --> 00:25:07,840
Speaker 1: I think apprenticeship is a great way to go. You know,

436
00:25:07,880 --> 00:25:10,879
Speaker 1: you don't have the college kind of debt, but I

437
00:25:10,920 --> 00:25:13,080
Speaker 1: like jo Wolves, I think you have really good potential.

438
00:25:13,119 --> 00:25:16,640
Speaker 1: Do you want to talk about steel. He's like, He's like, yeah,

439
00:25:16,640 --> 00:25:18,720
Speaker 1: that's that's actually been really nice. So we had a

440
00:25:18,800 --> 00:25:22,400
Speaker 1: nice little group check there in the lobby of the Hyatt,

441
00:25:22,680 --> 00:25:26,439
Speaker 1: and he let down his guard over time. You know,

442
00:25:26,480 --> 00:25:29,240
Speaker 1: we're talking about well, so I'm talking about he made

443
00:25:29,280 --> 00:25:31,960
Speaker 1: himself like plate armor. Like this happened a year before

444
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:34,840
Speaker 1: our interview, and just about twelve hours before we sat

445
00:25:34,880 --> 00:25:37,919
Speaker 1: down with Dio. He found me last night and he's like,

446
00:25:38,040 --> 00:25:40,920
Speaker 1: I'm really glad you got me out. I still don't

447
00:25:40,920 --> 00:25:44,359
Speaker 1: like you at all. I'm like, that's great. I'm so

448
00:25:44,440 --> 00:25:47,280
Speaker 1: happy for you. You look healthier. He's like, yeah, I

449
00:25:47,320 --> 00:25:49,040
Speaker 1: put on weight. Did you notice. I'm like, yeah, I

450
00:25:49,080 --> 00:25:52,840
Speaker 1: think he got taller too. He's like eighteen now, and

451
00:25:52,880 --> 00:25:56,480
Speaker 1: he's so little socially awkward. I had a couple of

452
00:25:56,480 --> 00:26:00,160
Speaker 1: friends came up to me and he takes a will,

453
00:26:00,160 --> 00:26:02,119
Speaker 1: sat back and he stares at the group. You know,

454
00:26:02,240 --> 00:26:03,800
Speaker 1: he wants to be in on it. You know, you

455
00:26:03,920 --> 00:26:07,080
Speaker 1: try to involve people like that. Like we said, they

456
00:26:07,080 --> 00:26:10,040
Speaker 1: don't focus on the radicalization because they're more worried about

457
00:26:10,080 --> 00:26:12,919
Speaker 1: protecting their community, but the love and compassion they have

458
00:26:13,160 --> 00:26:16,560
Speaker 1: within the fandom, their own animal instincts, if you will,

459
00:26:16,880 --> 00:26:19,440
Speaker 1: are still effective in reaching out and helping people who

460
00:26:19,440 --> 00:26:22,720
Speaker 1: are lost something to remember. They want to be in

461
00:26:22,800 --> 00:26:26,080
Speaker 1: on it, and I don't think this conversation is complete

462
00:26:26,119 --> 00:26:29,160
Speaker 1: without taking time to examine what the furry fandom means

463
00:26:29,200 --> 00:26:31,080
Speaker 1: to the people who are a part of it. Some

464
00:26:31,160 --> 00:26:33,560
Speaker 1: of you may remember from the audio diary that we

465
00:26:33,680 --> 00:26:36,720
Speaker 1: released back in December, the story of us taking a

466
00:26:36,720 --> 00:26:39,680
Speaker 1: break from interviews to grab lunch at a fancy restaurant

467
00:26:39,720 --> 00:26:42,800
Speaker 1: near the convention center. One of us wanted to be there,

468
00:26:42,840 --> 00:26:45,119
Speaker 1: but we were tired and it was the closest option.

469
00:26:45,520 --> 00:26:49,879
Speaker 1: And I remember sitting there, Robert had just been shamed

470
00:26:49,880 --> 00:26:52,040
Speaker 1: by the Major d for not using the right soup spoon,

471
00:26:52,600 --> 00:26:56,760
Speaker 1: and just feeling floored by the juxtaposition between this fancy

472
00:26:56,920 --> 00:27:00,399
Speaker 1: restaurant and the welcoming, non judgmental community we had just

473
00:27:00,440 --> 00:27:04,080
Speaker 1: spent two days with. The difference was palpable. This is

474
00:27:04,119 --> 00:27:07,760
Speaker 1: from Lucky. Cons have always been kind of that um

475
00:27:07,960 --> 00:27:11,600
Speaker 1: avenue of self expression for me. You know, Um, I

476
00:27:11,800 --> 00:27:17,160
Speaker 1: was a closeted bisexual man and have now flourished, i'd

477
00:27:17,160 --> 00:27:21,160
Speaker 1: say in discovered myself thanks to this fandom, and these

478
00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:24,240
Speaker 1: cons kind of allow me to feel okay with that,

479
00:27:24,359 --> 00:27:27,200
Speaker 1: you know, and I meet a lot of nice people

480
00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:30,560
Speaker 1: who are also okay with me being who I am,

481
00:27:30,680 --> 00:27:33,440
Speaker 1: and and that's what it means to everyone. Each person

482
00:27:33,520 --> 00:27:36,480
Speaker 1: we spoke with mentioned in their own way just how

483
00:27:36,600 --> 00:27:39,840
Speaker 1: the furry community allowed them to truly be themselves, to

484
00:27:39,960 --> 00:27:42,520
Speaker 1: be open, to be accepted, most of them for the

485
00:27:42,560 --> 00:27:46,359
Speaker 1: first time without judgment. I think the furry fandom means

486
00:27:46,359 --> 00:27:50,600
Speaker 1: a lot to me. It's unlike a church. You can

487
00:27:50,680 --> 00:27:53,080
Speaker 1: kind of define what it is on your own, so

488
00:27:53,160 --> 00:27:55,520
Speaker 1: you can say, you know, this is what the fanom

489
00:27:55,520 --> 00:27:59,800
Speaker 1: means to me. It's a personal presentation of myself, where

490
00:27:59,800 --> 00:28:03,640
Speaker 1: as a religion says you have to follow these guidelines

491
00:28:04,040 --> 00:28:06,920
Speaker 1: to be in our religion. And I saw it as

492
00:28:06,960 --> 00:28:11,359
Speaker 1: a replacement for religion, where I could have a loving

493
00:28:11,400 --> 00:28:15,400
Speaker 1: community and I could express my creativity and I could

494
00:28:15,440 --> 00:28:18,040
Speaker 1: be myself in the furry fandom. Wearing one of my

495
00:28:18,119 --> 00:28:24,399
Speaker 1: first suits is representing some personalities, some attitude, some type

496
00:28:24,440 --> 00:28:28,359
Speaker 1: of flair that when I'm just in plain clothes while

497
00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:32,600
Speaker 1: I'm on the street with my family at work, I repressed.

498
00:28:32,920 --> 00:28:35,959
Speaker 1: But with my friends who are best majority of the furries,

499
00:28:36,040 --> 00:28:40,160
Speaker 1: it's I can open up and be candid and very spontaneous.

500
00:28:40,600 --> 00:28:42,640
Speaker 1: That last one was from Goku, who opened up to

501
00:28:42,720 --> 00:28:45,800
Speaker 1: us and shared that the Free Community had quite literally

502
00:28:46,000 --> 00:28:48,000
Speaker 1: saved his life. To tell you the truth, if I

503
00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:50,080
Speaker 1: hadn't find this fandom, I would have killed myself when

504
00:28:50,080 --> 00:28:52,960
Speaker 1: I was five years old. Between the death of his

505
00:28:53,040 --> 00:28:55,440
Speaker 1: father and mother and the loss of his home, Goku

506
00:28:55,560 --> 00:28:57,920
Speaker 1: was lost. He needed a reset, so he moved away

507
00:28:57,960 --> 00:29:00,800
Speaker 1: from New York and discovered the Free Fandom and phil Ladelphia.

508
00:29:00,960 --> 00:29:06,440
Speaker 1: That reset has been exponentially beneficial to me. Since I've

509
00:29:06,520 --> 00:29:10,760
Speaker 1: joined the Fury fandom, I found individuals who have changed

510
00:29:10,840 --> 00:29:13,400
Speaker 1: my life. You who have been friends since I've joined

511
00:29:13,400 --> 00:29:17,680
Speaker 1: this fandom, who are like family to me. I unfortunately

512
00:29:17,760 --> 00:29:21,120
Speaker 1: don't have much family left. And I say this very

513
00:29:21,120 --> 00:29:23,800
Speaker 1: often when I'm with close friends, that we may not

514
00:29:23,920 --> 00:29:28,680
Speaker 1: be related by blood, but for treating me as a

515
00:29:30,120 --> 00:29:34,880
Speaker 1: with respect, with dignity, um by listening to my stories,

516
00:29:34,960 --> 00:29:39,520
Speaker 1: and you are my family. And when someone tries to

517
00:29:39,560 --> 00:29:43,720
Speaker 1: break up your family, and I will not let negative

518
00:29:43,760 --> 00:29:49,960
Speaker 1: influences who are poisonous like the alt Right into a

519
00:29:50,040 --> 00:29:53,400
Speaker 1: family that I love, and I will do whatever I

520
00:29:53,440 --> 00:29:57,160
Speaker 1: can to prevent it. I'm not a violent individual. But

521
00:29:57,320 --> 00:30:00,479
Speaker 1: I will always raise my fist, raise a bet and

522
00:30:00,560 --> 00:30:03,400
Speaker 1: speak quite loud mouse. I think what Goku is expressing

523
00:30:03,400 --> 00:30:06,640
Speaker 1: here is something that like we all actually need very

524
00:30:06,800 --> 00:30:10,320
Speaker 1: badly deep down, which is a community of people that

525
00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:14,120
Speaker 1: we would be willing to like, fight and die for. Um.

526
00:30:14,160 --> 00:30:16,800
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people's problems and a lot

527
00:30:16,840 --> 00:30:18,800
Speaker 1: of the problems we have the extremism in this country

528
00:30:18,880 --> 00:30:22,200
Speaker 1: is that most people don't really have something like that

529
00:30:22,240 --> 00:30:24,920
Speaker 1: in their lives. And that's part of what makes violent

530
00:30:24,960 --> 00:30:27,720
Speaker 1: extremism so easy. It's what makes people so vulnerable to

531
00:30:27,760 --> 00:30:30,560
Speaker 1: being recruited by some of these groups because they give

532
00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:34,760
Speaker 1: you that the illusion of having that kind of a community.

533
00:30:35,120 --> 00:30:38,120
Speaker 1: And if you don't have real caring people around you,

534
00:30:38,200 --> 00:30:41,120
Speaker 1: a group that you identify with, that you feel safe with,

535
00:30:41,200 --> 00:30:44,080
Speaker 1: and that you're willing to protect, you can be pushed

536
00:30:44,120 --> 00:30:48,240
Speaker 1: to doing some pretty terrible things. Honestly, what I really

537
00:30:48,240 --> 00:30:52,080
Speaker 1: listened to him telling us this story, it gave me chills.

538
00:30:52,600 --> 00:30:55,040
Speaker 1: Over the course of this weekend, it became quite clear

539
00:30:55,080 --> 00:30:57,320
Speaker 1: to all of us that between the lessons they learned

540
00:30:57,320 --> 00:30:59,680
Speaker 1: protecting their subculture from the infiltration of the alt right,

541
00:31:00,040 --> 00:31:04,040
Speaker 1: there's successful efforts at de radicalization and their unwavering commitment

542
00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:06,680
Speaker 1: to protecting this fandom, which means so much to them.

543
00:31:07,080 --> 00:31:10,880
Speaker 1: The furry community is actually a perfect example of how

544
00:31:10,960 --> 00:31:13,920
Speaker 1: we can all survive the worst year ever. I love

545
00:31:14,040 --> 00:31:19,240
Speaker 1: that for our first real episodes. Yeah, it was not

546
00:31:19,280 --> 00:31:22,200
Speaker 1: what we expected, not at all to find, but it

547
00:31:22,280 --> 00:31:26,680
Speaker 1: was overwhelmingly positive the entire time. Yea. Yeah, we kind

548
00:31:26,680 --> 00:31:30,360
Speaker 1: of went into this project wanting to look at these

549
00:31:30,400 --> 00:31:33,440
Speaker 1: different subcultures to see how they were weathering and honestly,

550
00:31:33,440 --> 00:31:36,640
Speaker 1: how they were being warped by this this horrible thing

551
00:31:36,720 --> 00:31:39,400
Speaker 1: politically that is continuing to happen in this country, and

552
00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:43,000
Speaker 1: that will be so far, I'm certain the worst example

553
00:31:43,080 --> 00:31:46,360
Speaker 1: of And we didn't come across a community that had

554
00:31:46,360 --> 00:31:48,440
Speaker 1: been warped. We came across a community that had been

555
00:31:48,480 --> 00:31:51,800
Speaker 1: like battered and attacked and and damaged in some degrees

556
00:31:51,880 --> 00:31:54,920
Speaker 1: by all of this, but a community that had found

557
00:31:54,960 --> 00:31:57,080
Speaker 1: a way to survive and come out on the other

558
00:31:57,160 --> 00:32:00,320
Speaker 1: side stronger as a result of it, healed and forest

559
00:32:00,400 --> 00:32:04,640
Speaker 1: and ready. Yeah, and that's that's where the lessons life

560
00:32:04,720 --> 00:32:09,000
Speaker 1: for all of us. I actually think do said it

561
00:32:09,080 --> 00:32:12,720
Speaker 1: best and I can't think of a more fitting way

562
00:32:12,840 --> 00:32:15,760
Speaker 1: to end this episode. We all realize that we're on

563
00:32:15,800 --> 00:32:19,280
Speaker 1: the outskirts, that we're a little bit strange, but we're

564
00:32:19,320 --> 00:32:24,240
Speaker 1: strange together, and that solidarity makes us stronger. It makes

565
00:32:24,320 --> 00:32:27,640
Speaker 1: us more ready for trouble, It makes us more aware,

566
00:32:28,560 --> 00:32:30,680
Speaker 1: and it helps us if we need to talk to

567
00:32:30,680 --> 00:32:33,800
Speaker 1: each other. You go, hey, man, I saw you post

568
00:32:33,880 --> 00:32:37,400
Speaker 1: a weird meme. I don't think that's really healthy. Are

569
00:32:37,440 --> 00:32:39,520
Speaker 1: you feeling all right? Are you're having a hard time.

570
00:32:39,600 --> 00:32:42,680
Speaker 1: Let's talk about it, you know, come back from that brink,

571
00:32:42,920 --> 00:32:45,560
Speaker 1: come back into our group. I see you're not posting

572
00:32:45,600 --> 00:32:49,080
Speaker 1: a lot in the group chat, you know, or like, hey,

573
00:32:49,120 --> 00:32:51,720
Speaker 1: I made you a drawing of your first sauna. You know. Look,

574
00:32:51,720 --> 00:32:55,480
Speaker 1: it's us hugging. We're friends. You have friends, remember that

575
00:32:55,720 --> 00:33:00,240
Speaker 1: they'll feel lost and alone. Worst Year At is a

576
00:33:00,280 --> 00:33:02,880
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my

577
00:33:03,000 --> 00:33:06,040
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

578
00:33:06,120 --> 00:33:13,160
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Everything Everything

579
00:33:13,480 --> 00:33:19,840
Speaker 1: so dum again. I tried Daniel Lovely