The Furry Fandom's Fraud Fetish

Quote: "It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled."

- Mark Twain

A Preamble; I remember when I first joined the fandom, and decided I wanted to be a musician within it. No one was really making Pop music like I wanted to make, and the day I decided to abandon using my “human” name in my art was the climax of an internal months-long struggle. I also decided if I was going to put music out there for people to listen to, that I would fund it entirely myself. I didn’t want to start my time in this community by asking for money, or borrowing, or anything like that. Maybe it’s a symptom of how I was raised, but regardless I held true to that goal and managed to release 2 full length, studio recorded, mixed, and mastered albums. All I’ve ever had is a Patreon, and my supporters' names have been permanently etched into the inside cover of both physical CD releases. I had sought to make my work as professional as possible, and hoped that this sheen of professionalism would be appreciated by the community I was just beginning to join.

Skipping ahead over the dirge years of COVID in which most cons were frozen, things are relatively back to normal now (even if they really shouldn’t be). Thus the fandom carries on! But these past few years have been transformative for many of us, and brought to light the side of the furry fandom I had long heard about but was now witnessing in full view.

Kickstarter integrity

It first began when IndyFurCon and Midwest FurFest both selected Trio Menagerie as their guests of honor in 2024. I’ve long held that creators with unkept Kickstarter promises should NOT be celebrated, and this position remained true when Garden State Fur the Weekend picked Niic the Singing Dog as their GOH for this year. The former group raised $9k on Kickstarter 4 years ago for 2 albums, and only just delivered the first a month ago. While the latter doggo raised $13k 8 YEARS AGO for an album that, to date, has still not materialized. This sort of thing puts a pit in my stomach. While some events are deliberately selecting these acts to be provocative (and continually shutting out genuine fandom acclaimed and Kickstarter project deliverer Pepper Coyote by contrast *cough*MFF*cough*), I wondered where the line would be drawn. How far this internal bias would go, and what it would reveal. How little does professionalism, or even basic human decency, matter to this group of animals?

Then Texas Furry Fiesta 2025 happened. Now I have been a musical guest twice at this con before, in 2020 and 2022, but found myself rejected this year. No biggie, but when I looked at the actual posted concert lineup, things got…weird and uncomfortable.

Let me explain why

Last year I posted a video to YouTube that was the product of about 3 years worth of research and personal trauma. It was a video regarding a member of our community, and how they used a lie that they had 8 Grammy Awards (the highest normie award for sound recordings) as means to justify countless Guest Of Honor appearances at furry cons around the country. Literally having fur cons print their Grammy lie unchecked in convention books, websites, and other materials. They had also raised 10k on Kickstarter for a 10 track album that took 4 years to complete, and only had 5 of the 10 promised original songs on it. As someone not in those supposed “Popufur” circles where this person spends their time, I had no previous or personal relationship with the fraudster behind this bull (besides one time I was physically intimidated by them at MFF 2021), and thought this situation was pretty cut and dry. Dozens of people have since commented on the video with their own experiences with this guy, and the video itself has since amassed a whopping 25k views. I still get private DMs from people afraid to speak publicly about this guy, even from people who directly know his ex and what happened between them. Even without Flayrah buzz or Dogpatch Press seemingly giving a crap about a genuine case of deception in our community that falls apart with a simple Google search. How did not a single person in a decade of conventions even bother to do a background check on this guy?

So imagine my complete and utter shock when I saw on the TFF 2025 Concert lineup, playing mainstage, was the star of my video. I couldn’t believe it. He had been dead on most social media for months since my video dropped, and is not even a currently active furry creator (the full time Twitch streamer also not having gone live since May of 2024). Hell, even his BAND had broken up around the time their long overdue album finally dropped! His many victims in the comments of my video had thought his goose was finally cooked. But…there he was. Getting his hotel room, flight, and registration compensated by Texas Furry Fiesta like nothing happened. Like he had truly earned his place here and would not be going anywhere anytime soon. When I reached out to the convention’s musician booking director, I was told this:

Quote: “He is a good performer, kind person, and helps out the community by building people up. It would be nice if all individuals did that. End of conversation.”

Unbelievable nonsense given his history of public intimidation of more successful acts within the furry music space. Not even mentioning how he traumatized his ex into silence, who now lives in constant fear of his retaliation should she speak out. Oh, and to make matters worse, Pepper Coyote was at TFF 2025 as well. With a concert! What’s so bad about that? Well, the event didn’t even do him the dignity of listing him on their concert playbill, or listing him as a guest musician on their website. And yet I’m being lectured about how a guy who LIED about his industry cred for a decade is “lifting people up”, when the guy who actually creates spaces for new or upcoming furry musicians, Pepper Coyote, isn’t even given a modicum of respect by the con. One of these two people threatened me to my face at a con for having a crowd bigger than his, the other has collabed with me and invited me to perform on stage with him. This is an utterly maddening comparison, but let’s continue.

For added historical levity

This happened around the time that ALL of the brony musicians from the final Babscon walked out in solidarity with a former staff member after they were fired for hiring a particular musician a con executive didn’t like. I never would’ve imagined the pony music scene would actually have the fortitude to make such collective action. To take a public stand against an event that was paying all of them in some way to perform and attend. What did the musicians do instead? They pooled resources to put on their own FREE pony music concert just down the street from the convention center, DURING the con. Wow.

If such a thing was attempted in the furry fandom, I think it’s safe to say that every musician who walked out would be blacklisted indefinitely from all cons, or at least the con they were supposed to perform at. There have been attempts at furry music festivals, but they’ve all been busts that were more dream than budget. I’ve made a separate video on my YouTube channel about the fraud that was the Aural Alliance Festival in Germany last summer. Another great case study of the fandom’s love for big ideas that fail on execution, yet no one who platformed the con artist behind it ever had to apologize for endorsing the endeavor, or doing free marketing of it to their young impressionable audience (i.e. Misha B. Barkin’s 3 positive videos on it). Go watch it!

I attempted to raise my concerns with TFF, apparently greenlighting the undeserved worship of this furry grifter, and was subsequently banned from all the con’s online groups. I’m sure the con will come up with some perfect excuse for this behavior to throw me under the bus rather than actually publicly state why they rolled the red carpet out for the fandom’s most famous fraud musician. We’re in a truly unique situation where con staff are seen as unquestionable and infallible, simultaneously choosing to stand by problematic people they platform for seemingly no tangible reason other than personal bias. Something is deeply and horrifically wrong with this community when complaining about an apparent “staff favorite” furry is cause for a ban. I began to wonder what it could be, and why fraud was given such a pass on seemingly every level by this community. Why everyone seemed so deeply incurious or uninterested in knowing the follow up to proposed events, solicited donations, and more.

One shining example is the Harvest Moon Howl Fest debacle that raised thousands, but the con never happened and all the money vanished. So I find it fascinating that one of the furry fandom’s most popular people to make a Guest of Honor nowadays, Chise, is the one who’s literal NAME is on the papers for HMHF’s nonprofit status. Why has no one had the balls to ask her what really happened to all that money? The most I’ve been able to get out of her was that she “handed the accounts over to someone that locked her out”, but who? Why has no one bothered to get her on the record officially about the event her legal name is on? Does the fandom not have any real journalists? Just people who enjoy taking the easiest, laziest shots imaginable? Forget following up, just keep making Guests of Honor out of people who over promise and don’t deliver. Apparently no one here cares about that. Even our community’s most famous so-called “journalist” Dogpatch would rather block people for bringing up this troubling trend than actually put the work in to expose it. Too busy getting clicks for personal vendettas on his blog, it seems.

Anyway, I digress

I’ve previously mentioned in my YouTube videos that I believe the fandom should recognize creators not for the quantity of output, but for the quality and support behind it. You could be a musician who releases a song a day everyday for a year, but if your listenership never passes 100 people for the whole year, that’s probably reflective of a lack of interest in the work, no matter how plentiful. But let’s say you release 1 song and it absolutely does gangbusters, everyone’s jamming out to it, etc. Is that to be seen as less than by our convention leadership because they’re more impressed by output than engagement? Or to put it another way, what if you put out some music a decade ago with nothing since, do you deserve a mainstage spot before a newer artist who has more than eclipsed your numbers in far less time? Or does it boil down ultimately to just being the kind of person the con staff like?

A former con running friend of mine said this regarding the situation:

Quote: “Good cons don’t care about draw. You’re confusing popularity with value to the convention.”

This stung, honestly. It’s just a fact that a musician like Pepper Coyote dwarfs just about everyone else in the fandom. So when he’s not treated with respect I wonder how much worse it’ll get for everyone else, and I’m never that surprised anymore. Numbers aren’t everything either, of course, but to add to that, Pepper averages around 140k monthly listeners on Spotify right now. I float around 4k, and the Grammy liar with over a dozen con GOH spots getting free hotel, flight and reg for TFF? 200. Not thousand, just 2 of the hundred variety. Yeah. So it’s clear cons do NOT care about pull, and are actively working to reject the idea of coordinating a music focused showcase that selects people based on the quality and quantity of their work in addition to their numerical following. We could absolutely be running furry music festivals that treat the performers with the dignity they deserve, but this selective respect is not the way. The cliquishness of the community is actively hindering itself from becoming the true space for furry creatives it could be. And no amount of public damnation of one’s character or integrity is enough to shake a con staffer’s unwavering support because con staff are always right. It doesn’t help that our community tends to categorize all “drama” as being of equal harm. Take me for example, I’ve never defrauded or over promised ANYONE ANYTHING in this community. Yet people think I should be treated worse than Foxler. Could it be simply because I share opinions while not having the built in support from the majority demographic of the most vocal online sects of the fandom? Well that’s too bad, because to be a furry, I don’t need to be loved by every other furry! Thank God. I love and respect the potential of what this space could be too much to actively play a part in its already advanced destruction. So I’m devoting my time to calling it out.

Quote: “Never realized furries hated Cassidy Civet more than Foxler.”

What happens now, then?

Well, obviously nothing. Cons are staffed by people who are set in their ways and not interested in critique. Honestly just writing this opinion piece might get me banned from an event or two, but to set the wikifur straight, I am not permanently banned from ANY furry events. And if I have been, the events haven’t had the courage to tell me about it. I learned how low the professionalism standards of this fandom were when IFC jerked me around for 8 months without a contract after announcing me as their Guest of Honor only to publicly rug pull me. I can only hope continuing to talk about the fandom’s incessant failures will result in them eventually being fixed by new staff in these critical decision making roles. But hey, if I wasn’t a dreamer, I wouldn’t have run for office twice in the last three months!

Quote: “No one gives a fuck, otherwise your video would be like #1 on Flayrah.”

Larger picture? Sadly, I think this is the long awaited culmination of the American mentality leaching into the fandom. Specifically the complacency that has set in more broadly with the culture of the progressive west. A lot of folks, elder queers in particular, saw the achievement of same sex marriage as the flagship achievement of the movement. But what’s happened since? I think we all know about how the last presidential election went. This is where I get to play my “I’m a Canadian” card, because a common global sentiment about this historical situation was that the first time he was elected, we felt bad for America. The second time, now we’re angry. You did this to yourself. And not only are you going to continue doing it yourself, you’re now bringing this lackadaisical attitude into the furry fandom. It appears that no lessons have been learned by the world’s biggest market, which is why many of us are now bracing for a recession, perhaps even worthy of being called a Depression. With the left continuing to fight itself instead of coming up with a coherent message to appeal to those disenfranchised by the system.

Furry convention leadership is much the same as the current Democratic party establishment in my eyes. A group of people who are becoming increasingly out of touch with the fandom they run events for, letting personal relationships, biases, and emotions take over decision making instead of using logic and reason. Ignoring the success of people they have vendettas against in order to glaze well known bullies. Staff more interested in lying to cover up for a friend than to face down the ever growing corruption tainting the inner workings of cons around North America. If the con establishment is Hilary Clinton, it’s clear folks like Pepper Coyote are Bernie Sanders. So it makes sense why they seem to hate him and others like him so much. We’re not interested in playing by the rules of people who appointed themselves kings of the cons they create. You are supposed to make spaces for ALL OF US, not just your friends, and not just the furries you like. The leadership in our community has done nothing to represent anyone that isn’t just another version of themselves. Furries have to start realizing that policing this space is dangerous and opens the door for much more intense forms of exclusion and division.

I get that the fandom is an escape from the real world, and I’m certainly no advocate for politics here, but is turning a blind eye to blatant fraud really where it’s gotten us? While many queer folk have fled to more liberal states, the attitude of isolationism and self righteousness prevails. The refusal to even acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, some of the people who really want to make a living sitting at home playing games with friends on Twitch aren’t actually the bastions of furry creativity they think they are? It’s time to wake up to the fact we have bad actors deeply embedded within the spaces we think are free from grift.

As a Canadian who is also visibly BIPOC, in addition to being asexual and trans femme, I’m going to be limiting my trips to the USA for the time being. Yes our furry conventions have just as much staff drama as down south, but the difference is our community is smaller up here. Even my home con VancouFur had multiple staff members this year that returned after years of absence because the con simply needed the help. Nevermind those people had spent their years away from VF badmouthing it on social media whenever they got a chance, I guess forgiveness is really only for the majority stakeholders in the community and for nobody else. But in America, participatory ignorance is almost a goal. A felon was just elected president, and things are already heating up, from the stock market turmoil to the illegal deportations. From the highest office in the land to the people who power trip at our conventions, corruption and cronyism are the words to learn and look for. I truly have not felt respected or acknowledged by the vast majority of furry convention staff I have dealt with in my life, and I’ve been to over 50 cons all over North America. These are deeply rooted systemic issues that must be confronted through blunt public dialogue, period.

It sucks knowing I don’t fit demographically with the majority of the cis-male gay white men that make up like 85% of our community (as per furscience.ca’s findings), especially since they so vehemently defend each other, but I know I can find it in myself to continue being a furry creative separate from the biggest market for furry content globally. Without contributing to the endlessly growing American con scene. But lines can’t go up forever, and we’re already seeing some of the biggest events stagnate, plateau, or even decline. We desperately need more spaces that aren’t simply overgrown echo chambers unfriendly to outsiders who don’t subscribe to the ruling group's way of thinking. I know the right wing tried a con briefly before; the infamous Free Fur All. But that event was largely hindered by its own chair person who after 1 successful year tried to transform the con from a conservative coded event to a personality cult which resulted in most everyone on staff quitting. But the first year? FFA broke charity records. And one look at furry social media will tell you there are a LOT of straight, Christian, or even right wing furries that don’t feel welcome in the spaces the fandom currently has. So do we wait for them to create a worthy rival or do we look inward? What will the champions of furry progressiveness do when the recently established voting majority of America makes a con for their own people? Because what was truly the root of all furry? The love for anthropomorphic animals. Yet now, without the proper politics, sexual orientation, or skin color, many are finding themselves on the outside of this once accepting fandom. With how voraciously the left eats their own, it may be inevitable that furry cons and the fandom more broadly pivot to the right, but that’s an opinion for another time.

I'll end on this

This fandom has a famous aversion to becoming mainstream. Repeating cope mantras like “Keep Furry Weird!” while making the space hostile for anyone that isn’t a white twink with sexual quirks. But clearly hiding in the shadows isn’t making this any better of a space for holding people at the top accountable, so I think it’s time to take the furry fandom kicking and screaming into the spotlight. Maybe we’ll start getting some people with actual morals and values that aren’t entirely based on who they’d most like to mooch off of! I don’t know how many people joined this community because they wanted to create genuine furry content, but it feels like less and less aren't motivated by anything other than the clout big numbers can bring. I joined this fandom because furry was how I wanted to express myself through my art. What the fandom is now, is a cesspool of lust driven, clout chasing bullies. This is not what furry is about, and damn sure isn’t what it was founded to foster. Communities live and die by their ability to collaborate within themselves. Ostracization of furs for not being on a given side of an issue is how you get fragmentation while missing the heart of what truly brings us together. It’s a sad state of affairs, but our very isolated community isn’t going to be able to save itself from internal collapse if this keeps up. And until the community starts creating spaces for the innovators instead of the nymphomaniacs, it will only continue to deteriorate.