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Furries at San Francisco Pride 2013

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A historic U.S. Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage created intense emotions and record crowds at San Francisco's 2013 Pride celebration. I was informally told the parade drew 1.5 million. Imagine pushing through them in the hot sun with inch thick fur on!

Video by Mallius
For dozens of local furs, the great fun and positive vibes of Pride 2012 were small compared to this year's enthusiastic turnout. If it grows as much in 2014, it'll be awesome to see.

Opinion: Street fursuiting is the most fun furry experience

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San Francisco hosted the 14th annual How Weird Street Faire last weekend, with the theme "WEIRDI GRAS: Carnival of Peace." An informal fursuiter outing was organized through Meetup.com and its active Bay Area Furries group (independent from the mailing list), which runs many local events each month. I offered changing space at a nearby apartment, and scored a pair of "Disco Pants" for costuming, direct from the office of local web-based fashion startup company Betabrand. Afterwards, Betabrand was cool enough to post photos of modeling the pants on their "Model Citizen" section. (There's more photos on Reddit.)


Left to right: Kitten, Meerk, Patch. Background: Ty Cougar.

Any news media story that covers furries is likely to focus heavily on fursuiters, and their striking visual appeal and fuzzy glamor. Fursuiters can't represent the whole of furry fandom, when "furry" is a vague and broadly defined umbrella over anything related to anthropomorphic animals- but I think it's OK to consider fursuiters the expressive, theatrical soul of furrydom. There is an element of "ambassador" role to their hobby. Without the 15-20% of furries who wear fursuits and costumes for role-playing, you'd just have regular unglamorous nerds saying "meow! I'm a cat". That's what crazy people do.

Porcelain Joe 'killed in a car accident'

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Furry artist Porcelain Joe died last Friday in a car accident, according to a friend. He was 25. [tip: Rayne Van-Dunem]

Joe, also known as Josey Pearl on Second Life, lived in the San Francisco Bay Area where he attended Los Medanos College as an animation student. He had previously attended Diablo Valley College, and De La Salle High School in Concord, California.

Joe joined the fandom last year; his prior work was on deviantART.

Fursuiting at San Francisco Pride 2012

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The 42nd anniversary of San Francisco Pride happened this weekend. People from all over the world filled the city to celebrate. It was too large and fabulous for words, so I can only personally comment about fursuiting at some street parties. There was no organized furry event or mission, just a good opportunity to wear a costume.

The last organized furry participation was a float in the 2005 Pride parade, arranged via BAF and its mailing list. (I heard that there was some negligible drama about connecting furries + LGBT, but it stayed internal, with positive reactions elsewhere.) Due to logistics and cost, it hasn't reoccurred.

San Francisco Pride parade, 2005

However, one of the organizers posted on Facebook: "The SF Pride committee bugs me every year to bring the Furries back, and that's just what I am going to do for 2013! That's right, for the 2013 pride parade there will be a Furry float!" (Yay!)

In San Francisco, named for patron saint of animals, pet dogs outnumber children, and wild coyotes live among us

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Does anyone remember this story from a few years ago, about a coyote who wandered into a Quizno's shop, inadvertently starring in one of the best viral sandwich and drink ads ever?


"Roadrunner sandwich please, hold the mayo."

Across the world, wild and feral canines make cities their own.