Unfortunately far-left extremists have ended up in many positions of power and influence.
If you cross the wrong one, then you too might well end up bullied, harassed, threatened and blackmailed into leaving the furry subculture.
For anyone who sees this, please read the PDF about what has happened to me, if you can find it.
Furry used to be about expression. It was a rather wonderful subculture, mostly based on the internet, where people could come who didn't entirely fit in and didn't entirely understand themselves. Furry was a refuge for the lost, bulled, outcasts of society at large. Those who couldn't, or didn't have the opportunity to, be true to themselves when they were out and about. Due to this, it was also greatly welcoming to the greater LGBTI community, those who, due to upbringing, location, family or other issues, couldn't be open about themselves.
In furry what mattered is WHO you were, how you interacted with others, the kind of things you contributed, your own actions. WHAT you were meant nothing, the happenstance of your birth didn't matter or impact on others. Rich, poor, black, white, brown, gay, straight, bi, trans, none of WHAT YOU WERE outside of furry mattered. WHO you put forward, often times your character, your external representation of self, THAT was what truly mattered. Through that character, through your representation, you could test things, you could try to find yourself, try to be true to who you truly were, try to be honest with others and then, eventually, yourself. This was especially useful and helpful for members of the LGBTI community, the ability to safely 'test' aspects of themselves, where they could do so without being chastised, harassed or bullied, was integral to becoming more true to themselves and feeling more at ease going forwards through life due to understanding themselves better.
It was a means of finding you. Finding aspects of yourself, through self expression, through communication, through, art, through text. That is what furry used to be.
It most definitely is not that way any more.
Now about me. I found furry when I was 12, back in the year 2000, I've been a furry for over 19 years now. My mentor, the one who slowly encouraged me, helped me, got me into art and self expression to start on that journey of trying to be true to myself was Gene Catlow. Gene might be able to be called an 'oldschool' furry, as what mattered to him was the art and helping others find themselves and be true with themselves. His comics dealt with deep issues of bigotry, hatred, overcoming what you had been taught how to think and believe. It was all about acceptance, of self and others. He was my 'furry dad' in many ways and I miss him deeply. Unfortunately he passed in 2017 at the age of 60. Far too young for someone so kind.
Furry became my refuge. I am left-leaning politically, libertarian, a part of the LGBTI community and I have mental health issues, being diagnosed with clinical depression and suicidal tendencies years ago. I strongly oppose ALL authoritarian regimes, I'm anti-fascism, anti-communism and anti-nazism.
Furry was the only place I can be open about my sexuality and sense of self. It is the only place where I have been able to communicate, express, enjoy the company of others. It was a way of dealing with the extremely invasive depressive thoughts, doing artworks, interacting with others, trying to externalise it and not give it power was what allowed me to continue to exist for so long now.
During my time of exploration of self, trying out who I am, trying to find the truth of my self and existence through the art and interactions in furry. I met Marko the Rat. He was the first furry I met in real life and not just on the internet, he was also the first fursuiter I ever met and interacted with. I remained friends with him for over a decade until his passing in 2018.
Now, in 2019, I have been targeted with bullying, harassment, threats of all kinds and even blackmail for well over a year now to force me to leave the subculture of furry forever.
My name is Zelox Quo, though for the last year or so I've often been going by Master Zelox. If you have heard of me before, it is most likely through misinformation purposefully spread by my harassers and bullies. This is my last artwork, and the last thing that I will produce in and for furry.
Furry used to be a place to express yourself, find yourself, meet with others and interact with other folk who didn't entirely fit into 'normal' society. Now, furry is a place where you must comply with the mentality of those who are in positions of power and influence, those who are popular in furry, or 'popufurs'. If you do not comply, then you might well be targeted with extreme harassment and bullying.
I only have a little over 500 followers on Twitter, 300 subscribers on YouTube and a handful of people who look at my uploaded artworks. I am, essentially, a nobody. I have no impact, I have no following, I have nothing that could threaten these people who have positions of power and influence in furry.
So, I did what I always do, and was true to myself and expressed myself freely. I spoke truth to power, but then, that power decided that someone, even as small as me, needed to be destroyed.
The bullying and harassment has gotten so bad that it has directly affected my health. My mental health has taken a dive, suicidal thoughts and plans are commonplace, I have put on weight and due to the stress of what has been happening to me, I've caught far more illness than I rightly should have. It has directly affected my ability to work and support my family, of which they are also in the LGBTI area, and still working out who they are, finding themselves as I support them in that.
I will write all of this as a warning. If you decide to speak truth to power, if you decide to look at these furries who are bringing hate, bigotry, violence and harassment to the subculture of furry, please look after yourself. If you have friends, I hope that they are true friends, and not like the 'friends' that I had who instantly sided with my harassers simply because they were more popular. Furry used to be a good place, but now it seems far more toxic and hateful than I've ever seen in my 19 years of being a furry.
My story starts in 2016, when I started to notice hate and promotion of violence against others in an unprovoked manner. I spoke out against this online, directly to the various artists creating these pieces. My position was clear and simple. I oppose violence against others, political violence is especially horrible, the only time that violence is acceptable is in self-defence, or when both parties have agreed and consented to it for the purposes of competition.
This is what first got me labelled as a 'nazi'.
Once I was started to get tarred with that brush, I started to look for others who were experiencing the same thing. I eventually joined the joke group called “AltFurry” on Discord. Even becoming a moderator there. Yes, in that group there are many with views that I disagree with strongly. However in furry there are many with views I disagree with strongly, and I despise the concept of guilt by association. There was one good thing about being the moderator there. It afforded me some level of influence on the members of the discord. Twice, during my time as moderator, a furry who had recently found the neo-nazi mindset and ideology came to me to discuss it. They were, rather obviously, trying to convert me to their ideology. I tried to break them out of the mindset, providing researched arguments and counterpoints to everything that they proposed. Unfortunately I was unable to convince them to leave the hateful ideology they found themselves in, and, they both did the same thing. They stopped being furries entirely.
The nazi ideology and furry are in direct competition. Furry is accepting and has a large volume of LGBTI folks who are finding themselves and trying to express themselves openly and honestly. Nazis consider this as degeneracy. To be a nazi and a furry is a contradiction. If one is actually and truly a nazi, one will not be a furry as well. I have seen it, and these two are the only true 'nazi furs' that I have ever met in my over 19 years of being an active furry.
Frankly, if I attempted to go through all of their lies about me, it would turn this into a book. It takes very little time to lie about someone, but it takes a long time to demonstrate the lie is false. This is, unfortunately, what they rely upon. They have influence, they have thousands of followers, their followers look at them as if they can and do only speak the truth, but in reality, it is a fiction. These two, and many other 'popufurs' essentially have cults of personality. Where what they say and do is truth, no matter if it is a contradiction or an obvious, if not blatant, lie.
Even though I'm mentally damaged, a part of the LGBTI community, left-leaning and strongly libertarian in values. That I believe everyone should have the right to decide what they want to do with their own body. This is apparently something that needs to be forced out of furry, using bullying and harassment.
Who knows. I am someone who is suicidal. What I've been putting up with for over a year now has pushed me quite badly into a negative headspace. I'm sure that even if I did kill myself due to this ongoing bullying, harassment, threats and blackmail. All that would happen is that far-left furries would stand on my corpse and use it as a soap-box to further push their hate. They might even say that I deserved all of this. That I am evil, that I should die because my views are horrible. That my death was justified. Most likely there would be some level of justification there as they use my death, or even just my leaving, as a means to further justify their ongoing hate campaign against others.
Goodbye.
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Published:
5 years, 7 months ago
09 Jun 2019 05:51 CEST
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