If you read the lamestream media, you may get the impression that Nazis are everywhere. Even in the once pure and idyllic furry community (people who dress up in plush animal costumes and sometimes have sex in those costumes, although furries will say that is not the point of the fandom) the press is giving credence to a rise of furry Nazidom.
And now the fur is flying.
While we’ve written about Nazi furs and the “Altfurry” movement before, most of the Nazis in the furry community are ironic trolls or simply furries who fetishize the outfits and Nazi military history (look up Wehraboos).
But that’s not important. The issue at hand, making headlines from the Denver Post to the The Daily Beast was the cancellation of the Rocky Mountain Furry Convention, a gathering of about 1,600 furries going back annually for 10 years.
The event was cancelled after back and forth “threats” made on Twitter by antifa (anti-fascist) and an anonymous person who were considered “credible” by the police, which resulted security costs of the event to skyrocket to around $22,000. Antifas are known for their strong arm tactics and their willingness to use violence to “stop fascism.”
The clusterfuck began when an antifa/communist furry by the name of Deo, who’s “fursona” is a Tasmanian devil, was talking shit on Twitter about punching Nazis at RMFC. Deo had beef with people called the Furry Raiders, an group of over 100 furries with no stated political agenda, painted as a Neo-Nazi group by leftists in the furry community.
The Furry Raiders wear arm bands that some consider Nazi iconography, but their leader, Foxler Nightfire, denies the arm bands have anything to do with Nazism. Foxler (who is gay and half asian) is also criticized for his Nazi-like outfit (a black collared shirt with a red tie) which he says was inspired by Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong.
“My armband does not have a swatstika, its a paw,” Foxler said on the phone.”And if you want to be technical its not turned 45 degrees.”
The Furry Raider armbands are not exclusively red either and come in multiple colors.
At the 2016 RMFC, the Raiders caused controversy by booking to many hotel rooms at the convention center, which some saw as a “furry putsch”. Because we all know Hitler came to power by booking too many hotel rooms at a furry convention.
There are various reasons as to why Foxler has been labelled a Nazi– including that he tweeted with the AltFurry hashtag while giving a Nazi salute at one point (which he claims was a misunderstanding).
He also at one point in his youth–after dropping out of high school–tried to join a neo-Nazi forum out of what he described as ignorance for Nazism and World War 2 (due to his lack of education). The forum’s neo-Nazis promptly told him to “get the fuck out” for being gay and half-asian and a furry.
The main reason for the RMFC shutting down was one slew of rhetorical threats made on Twitter between Deo (the Tasmanian devil antifa/communist furry) and a Twitter user named Olivia Meles. Olivia responded to Deo’s Nazi punching statement, suggesting that the Furry Raiders would be coming to the RMFC armed and would defend themselves.
The strangest part of the exchange is that Deo had not even planned on attending the RMFC and Olivia was in no way associated with the Furry Raiders.
Deo reported Olivia and got her banned from Twitter.
Foxler denies even knowing Olivia and said she is not associated with the Furry Raiders. Because her account was deleted it is impossible to surmise what political leanings Olivia had.
After the exchange at some point Deo commissioned artwork of her fursona punching Foxler’s fursona.
NAZI FURS FUCK OFF! pic.twitter.com/Qen6w4iRcB
— I make Nazis cry (@DeoTasDevil) April 12, 2017
Deo did not return our request for comment but told The Daily Beast that she called the Denver Marriott Tech Center, where the event was scheduled to occur in August, to notify them of the threat of gun violence. The hotel contacted the the police who found the threats in the Twitter thread “credible.”
The chairman of the RMFC claimed this caused the security costs to increase dramatically and was the main reason why the event was cancelled. The group’s chairman Zachary Brooks (aka Sorin the snow leopard) made an official statement here.
Before the event was cancelled, the CEO of the Mid America Anthropomorphic And Art Corporation (MAAAC), the parent organization of RMFC, sent a cease and desist letter to Deo asking her to stop making threats of violence and undermining the convention. It also banned Deo from attending RMFC. Kendal Emery, also known as Kahuki the otter, sent the letter and signed it with a red-thumb print which is apparently means he is part of the Sovereign Citizens movement, a controversial libertarian group (Emery denies being a sovereign citizen).
Deo made clear on her Twitter account she took the letter as a threat and was even more unnerved by the fact Emery sent it to her home address, information that was not publicly available.
After Emery sent out the letter, it came out that he was convicted of having sex with a minor in 1993. This was already an open secret in the Denver furry community and the reason why he stepped down as the chairman of the RMFC in 2008.
Emery resigned from his position as CEO of MAAAC following, the backlash towards him over the letter and his sex offender past. There were also concerns over MAAAC’s tax problems in the past when they switched from being a nonprofit to a nonexempt corporation. Rodney Graff (Scorch the dragon), a board member of MAAAC said the tax issue did not play a role in the event getting cancelled.
So why did the event get cancelled, was it these gay furry “Nazis” that aren’t actually allowed in any real neo-Nazi circles, or the person claiming to punch people then alert the police? The Daily Beast article “Neo-Nazis Are Tearing Apart the Furry World” clearly implies the former.
This story essentially boils down to a small Internet slapfight getting blown way out of proportion, but made infinitely more interesting because furries are involved. But in the name of fairness it doesn’t appear these “Nazis” were at all the agitators or the downfall of a small convention in Denver.
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