Day: December 18, 2015

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKbIFrla3uE

as originally posted on healthynotnuts.com

DECEMBER 6, 2015 ~ HEALTHY NOT NUTS
As you read through this please try to put any pre-conceived notions to the side for a moment. The Midwest Fur Fest takes place in December in Chicago at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare. Allan and I happened to be at the hotel on business. We watched the hotel literally transform right before our very eyes and had the opportunity to mingle with the Furries and find out a little bit about them.

When we arrived at the hotel on Monday it was business as usual, Tuesday was the same. On Wednesday, some very different “characters” started to appear. At first it was just a few and by 4pm it was apparent that we were becoming out numbered.

It seemed like the Non Furries either loved them or hated them. I was really impressed that some of the people in my group who I thought would have a very low tolerance, were actually enjoying the Furries. They were taking pictures and videos of them and with them, I was so surprised. I mean, really, how can you not love these creatures that look so cute, cuddly and happy all of the time?

Well, they do get kind of a bad rap, generally speaking. I think with any group of people you get all kinds, so as an individual you decide how far you want to go with it. Whether you are on the Rock Scene, the Punk Scene, the Metal Scene, the Investor scene, an Actor, a Doctor, a High Faluten Lawyer, a Bartender, a Hairdresser, a Waitress or what have you ~ within any situation or group we find ourselves there are several different paths to take. You and only you make the decision on what path to follow within that group. In case of any trouble, there was this Furry: see photo on original post

We only had good experiences with the people we encountered and we really had a very good time so we wanted to share it with all of you. I may make some generalizations as I go along but these come from our experience with the Furries who were kind enough to take the time to have their picture taken or to have a conversation with us and answer a lot of our questions.

The first thing we noticed was that we were the oldest people around. This was on Thursday. I spoke with the hotel and 140 Fur Fest attendees checked in on Wednesday. 700 checked in on Thursday. So we now have quite a few costumed people walking around. We were told that the Furries literally take over the hotel, and, they did. The Hyatt Regency O’Hare really got into the whole thing, too. At first, I thought, how inappropriate but then I changed my mind and realized that they were embracing this whole thing, joining in on the fun and making everyone feel welcome.

My impression of the Furries is that they all want to be seen, they love to interact with you if you are open to it, they love to get their picture taken and they love to talk about why they are there and about their Furry Lifestyle.

Allan had a conversation with one of the promoters of the event and found out that there are Furry Conventions like this one that take place all around the world. There are about 300 of them a year. The Midwest Fur Fest is now the second largest event for Furries. Last year, there were 4700 attendees and this year they are expecting between 5000 and 7000 people. There are Furry events held in Japan, Australia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Ukraine, Germany, England, Finland, Sweden, Canada and Brazil just to name a few with convention names like Furry Fiesta, ConFurgence, Furnal Equinox, VancouFur, Fur-Eh!, What the Fur, Eurofurence and Anthrocon (in Pittsburgh, Pa and the largest attended event).
What is a Furry?

A Furry is a little more complicated than I originally thought. I guess I thought they were just weird people who dressed up in animal costumes and I don’t know what they did, something to do with weird sexual tendencies. I am not sure why I thought this, I think I saw something on TV about it even though I can’t actually place it. So, when they first started showing up, I was a little wary. They do seem to be a rather young crowd for the most part and perhaps I had forgotten that I was young once, too, so my tolerance for young people having fun might have been a little low in the beginning. They grew on me, though.

The second thing we noticed was that they were surprised that we were nice to them. Actually, I was surprised that they were so polite to me, on several occasions when I ran into them in the elevator or what have you, they held it for me or just expressed general courtesies that other Non Furries during the earlier part of the week didn’t even do. In fact, I remember some pretty crude comments directed my way in the bar BEFORE the Furries even arrived. Anyways, Allan offered our group of young Furries next door some coffee and tea for the Kurig that’s in the room that we weren’t using and I was waiting a little bit down the hallway when I heard one of them comment that they weren’t used to people being so nice to them. The same surprise was expressed when Allan offered the room of Furries across the hallway from us some extra bottled waters we had. Maybe we also showed them that not all Non Furries are totally judgemental (well, maybe we were at first, our bad!), depends on the individual person you encounter which can be applied to just about every situation.

This is what we gleaned from our conversations with some of the Furries. They are acting out what they think animals would be like if they walked upright and had human qualities. They refer to this as anthropomorphic which means attributing human characteristics to non human things. Honestly, I thought if humans actually treated each other as well as what I saw in this crowd, the world would be a very friendly, understanding and loving place. Well maybe that it what they are looking for even it’s only one weekend. Who wouldn’t want that? Each person identifies with a certain animal like a Hyena, a Wolf, a Dog, a Bird, a Tiger, a Panther or whatever you can think of. They also have names other than their real names and they pick those themselves so each name has some kind of meaning to each person. The names sounded very technical, almost, to my ears. Something I am not is technical so the names were a little hard for me to understand, at least the ones that I came across.
We also learned that you don’t just go to Amazon and buy a Furry suit. One young man aged 21 we talked to explained that he didn’t have a suit yet because he was working on paying off his college education before he forks out $3000.00 to have his suit made by the designer he has already picked out. He is a young IT professional who is head of the IT department of a rather large city law enforcement establishment. He was from out of town.

Another young man aged 28 told us his Furry suit cost $2700.00. He hired a designer as well and he knows someone who paid $20,000.00 for a Furry suit that lights up, has fans in the head piece and some kind of water cooling system that runs through the costume because they get very hot very quickly. This same young man was the first Furry encounter I had. He had his Hyena costume on and took a picture with me. I could feel the heat coming off his back. Later, this same young man sat next to me at the bar dressed as a human and asked me, “don’t recognize me without my ears, huh?” True, I didn’t recognize him and we asked him if he was the Moose.

Another young man aged 26 we talked to was also was in the process of saving for and planning his costume, he had also already picked out a designer. He explained to us that a lot of Furries donate, as a group, quite a bit of money to animal shelters or different causes whether for animals or humans. One example he gave us was of a small restaurant (where a lot of Furries liked to eat in a certain city) that was going to close because they were losing too much money. The Furries raised $20,000 so the owner could stay open. This amount was a lot more than they even expected to raise. They saved someone’s business and allowed them to continue in their livelihood. That’s pretty cool.
This same young man also explained what they do at these furry conventions. They have different booths with artists. We actually had met one woman, earlier, who draws portraits of people’s pets. They have workshops on how to take care of your Furry suit, you can’t just throw it in the wash. They have dance competitions. I saw two Furries practicing earlier in the day. Not only did they have a good choice in music but their moves in those suits were pretty good, too! They have a Furry parade, a Charity Auction, a Suicide Awareness Workshop, a Poker Tournament, a Hockey Game, quite a few workshops on writing and art, workshops on how the fur suits are made, fur suit safety, among a whole bunch of other topics they offer including one on attending your first furry convention. The list of workshops goes on and on and they look like QUALITY workshops. Let’s also not forget the midnight howl on Saturday night where everyone comes out of their room and howls, that’s got to be cool!

We did notice that there seemed to be a lot more males than females attending the convention but once they put on their suits it’s hard to tell who is male or female, what race they are, what they look like, all of that goes away and the one thing that is obvious is that everyone just seems happy and to be having a good time. Allan and I will probably attend another event at some point. My secret guilty pleasure would be to watch the dance competition, I would love that! Or better yet, I would love to compete! As you can see from the pictures, I’m about 1/10 of the way there with my Owl Sweater! LOL! That was an accident, too.

All in all, I have to say, we were so glad that we got to experience a small part of the Midwest Fur Fest. It was a pleasure talking to people, the Furry suits are so different and interesting to see, the encounters with the Furries was fun and we wish them all the best. We can’t wait for our next encounter, we might even try a Comic Con, you know, go have dinner and drinks and just people watch. You never know what you will learn!

Additional by Ahmar Wolf

I ran into a furry who spoke when them at MFF. It seems they are planning to be apart of MFF next year. How utterly delightful.