rDrama's Largest-Ever Meetup: The REAL Anthrocon Story

A little bird told me anthrocon effortposts have been a hit here, so I guess I ought to share my own. kinda rude of @Marco to not even say hi while we were both there, but you know how he gets about these things.

Marco's two posts, for those who missed them:

https://rdrama.net/post/186205/effortpost-marcos-tales-from-anthrocon-part

https://rdrama.net/post/187534/effortpost-marcos-tales-from-anthrocon-part

Marco already mentioned most of the weird stuff, so I'll focus more on the Regular Furry Experience my dramafur friends and I had

It's true, I must confess: I am a furry

anyway I had never been to a furry convention aside from one brief experience helping my friend hawk his goods, but last year, a certain crow in the dramafurcord started getting enthusiastic about an in-person meeting—and what better location than furmecca itself, Anthrocon?

it seemed like a lot more effort than I usually cared to put into the whole furry thing, but when I realized I'd be moving to Philadelphia right before the convention—hey, why not? after all, it would just be a brief cross-state drive. And it turns out flying into Philly was much cheaper than flying into Pittsburgh, so I offered rides to whoever wanted to go with me from Philly

soon enough we had a crew of six dramafurs plus one unfortunate normal bloke committed, which I believe makes it the largest-ever rdrama meetup. only the crow needed a ride, though

the crow felt it would be important to blend in with a species-affirming mask while there, so I bought a nice crow mask and pin to welcome him properly to America, which I exchanged for the cool character badge he printed for me I dug up some of my old my little pony music to really help things sink in—it being his first con and all, I wanted to be sure he was properly dosed up on weird nerd stuff. he wanted to take some pictures around Philly to prove he had Valid Reasons to be in America, so I obliged for a bit and then we set off

anyway, first thing the crow does when we get to Pittsburgh is put our purple shark friend in a headlock. said something mysterious about needing to live up to his reputation, really wanted to make sure to get it on camera. muttered something like "I'm not a furry"

(images have been very lightly edited for opsec purposes)

after that, the first thing I learned about anthrocon is that the line for first-time entry is miserable. hours, they had us standing there, but hey, at least we got to people- and animal-watch.

none of us were in costume day 1, which turns out to be a mistake. here's the thing: many people at furcons look ridiculous. You will not possibly look as ridiculous as many there.

but that's the thing: you don't look as ridiculous as many there

not only is it terribly non-species-affirming to wear your humansona, everyone out of costume has less fun than everyone in costume and adds less to the atmosphere. the weirder you look the more interesting it is for everyone around you

someone already mentioned the sticker pole but here's another picture anyway, along with a random furry wandering the city. honestly some of the most fun of the convention was just wandering around downtown Pittsburgh with everyone acting like it was normal to have cartoon animals hanging out everywhere

this is the future liberals want, and that's a good thing

day 1 ended with a rave where we just sorta lurked in the corner and watched at first.

the crow kept bouncing along to the music as if he yearned for more, though, so eventually I took pity on him and pushed for us to go flail about a bit on the dance floor

to close out the night we played a bunch of smash bros ultimate in our hotel room, and I worked my way through every furry character on the roster

day 2 we were more prepared. the crow brought his species-affirming mask and I brought my aesthetic-affirming cultist robes. armed with a better aesthetic, we were off to fulfill the true purpose of cons: consooming

the crow really wanted to find artists to commission, I wanted to say hi to some of my favorite artists [insert here], and our whole group wanted to scour the room for species-affirming items. eventually I found some nice species-affirming ears to complete my outfit and a tasteful wall hanging for my office, the crow found a nice species-affirming crow skull necklace, and we found a friendly artist providing at-con sketches at generous prices check them out

there were also some cool leatherwork and realistic fursuit stalls to gawk at

after leaving the dealer's den my core purpose for the day became judging the fursuits around me. I regret to tell most furries that their taste in fursuits is bad, so I won't be showing the overwhelming horde of cartoony suits (tho tbh they still add to the atmosphere so I'm glad people had them)

instead, here is a brief selection of some of the suits that met (or in some cases, greatly exceeded) my minimal “oh huh that's kinda neat” standard:

this three-headed lamb might have been my favorite. v creative and Weird in good ways. I would join its cult:

a brief note on these next lads:

I'm told that a common experience among men is seeing beautiful women from behind, going in for the approach, then having the women turn around and realizing their faces aren't quite so pretty

well, look, I'm a mind-broken furtwink who likes werewolves instead of women, so I'd never had that experience

but there I was, wandering through the streets of Pittsburgh, and what did I see but three incredible-looking realistic suits ahead of me. everything about them looked perfect: their outfits, the style of their suits, finally seeing a few good suits in the flood… Ignore the impostor in the middle.

then alas they turned around. turns out their suits were made by the realistic maker who uses the person's eyes instead of fake eyes, and …

like, I respect the creativity but it turns out the effect is more unnerving than anything

so now I get what straggots go through is all

at some point the stragglers in our group showed up, and then we were seven. Presenting—Fursonas of Dramatheism:

By the time night 2 hit, we were much more prepared for the rave. I'm not much for raves generally speaking, but honestly the costumes add a lot to the experience. dark packed rooms with loud music are much more pleasantly surreal if every second person is wearing a tail, ears, or full animal costume. we slammed down some fireballs, Scotch, Jaeger, and gin in our hotel room, enjoyed the foreign snacks the crow had brought as gifts from overseas, then returned to head onto the dance floor. for a night, we became party animals

to note briefly, I really did come away with a much better understanding of why furries treat furry fandom as less sexually driven than outsiders. most of the time, the convention really did feel like any other Nerd Culture space, just with all the cosplayers in animal costumes. you see fetish gear and oversexual nonsense here and there (cons should, incidentally, probably be 18+ by default), but there's something deeply unsexual about walking through a giant convention space, going to misc panels, watching costume parades, and the like.

even when we wandered into a midnight erotica reading to get a sense of the other side of things, the whole thing felt comical and out of place—a joke that the presenters and participants were all in on, the absurdity of asking writers whose stories people hide in dark corners and read in strict privacy to self-consciously read their own lines aloud.

anyway, there's a lot for me to like about furries and furry conventions, occasional, ah, Weirdnesses aside

but then sometimes they open their mouths

among furries, to be in the center is functionally to be on the far right. chants of “eat the rich” spontaneously erupt at seemingly random times, to loud cheers. they feel obligated to maintain a mask mandate in the year of our lord 2023, even though nobody can be bothered to keep one on in practice. when stats are shown indicating that “Nazifurs” (a tiny group of maladjusted morons) and “babyfurs” (just what it sounds like) are unpopular within the fandom, everyone whoops “Nazifurs f—- off” and then they just kinda awkwardly skip over the babyfur part, because to mention it would be to provoke a fight.

tired inside jokes are traded around like Pokémon cards, getting obligatory laughs each time. Yes, haha, if the flight back went down the IT industry would be knocked out. Yes, haha, [inside joke here]. Yes, I understand your reference so I will laugh. that's endemic to all of Nerd Culture, if not indeed every subculture around, but it got old for me quickly

the standout of that part of things came during “Uncle Kage's Story Hour,” a peculiar ritual some attendees spoke of in hushed tones, reminiscing with regret about having missed it once or twice. The con founder, an older doctor with a cockroach for a fursona, gets up and pretends to joke around for an hour or two, while audience members pretend to laugh—many even calling out responses to his lines in a peculiar parasocial ritual. it's odd, and they all seemed to be having fun, but I can't say I quite understood why

I missed most of the panels and really should have attended a few more for Anthropological purposes. Initially a couple of the dramafurs and I planned to split up to collect many of them, but distractions got in the way. still, I got a few. sitting in a room full of therians and researchers taking all their statements with intense seriousness is always a pleasant time, and some small groups (like an aviation one) had straightforwardly interesting people around, some of whom I'd happily keep in touch with. even as the sum of the culture frustrates me, there are plenty of individuals worth getting to know almost anywhere

anyway by night three we were so assimilated that rumors say someone started lapping alcohol out of a dog bowl, and by the time they got around to having a team dance-off, I was fully in the mood to just watch impressive dancers square off in and out of fursuits:

https://i.imgur.com/6nXiVEc (link bc idk how to embed videos)

that was the anthrocon experience, really. I found myself at once vaguely envious of those who went there to have a good time with their furriends without pretense or veil of irony, and perfectly clear on why I have always maintained a comfortable layer of detachment from them. neither the aesthetic or the culture quite suits me, but there are flashes of something that would throughout

in the end, the crow found his artists and got a few nice commissions to remember the con with, I found quiet flashes of the pleasant world in my head and had a chance to pester the scientists in attendance about handedness data, the horse found a fellow spirit alongside whom he could rave in horse masks and found a species-affirming pony Hawaiian shirt, and the dramafurs got to hang out and chat against the pleasantly surreal backdrop of thousands of animal costumes

alas, the world is not yet safe for furkind, so I had to remove my species-affirming ears before returning to Philadelphia

10/10 would go again. thanks @Corvus (not a furry) for pushing the dramafurs to organize our first con trip—hope you felt nice and affirmed in your mask

FAQ:

Q: why is this releasing more than a month after anthrocon

A: shush