Furry Conventions - Media and Public Perception

Media and Public Perception

While small, and often avoiding media coverage, furry conventions have increasingly become a topic of attention for the news and mass media:

• The Commercial Appeal covered Mephit FurMeet 7 in September 2003. Two years later, The Memphis Flyer did a piece about MFM 2005.
• An October 2003 episode of CSI featured PafCon, a fictional furry convention held in Las Vegas. Reactions to the show were varied.
• A CBC Newsworld episode of Culture Shock about furries spent much of its time covering Howloween 2003 in November.
• The News Tribune of Tacoma wrote a short article about Conifur Northwest 2004.
• The Financial Times Weekend Magazine took a look at Anthrocon 2005.
• The Corner News of Auburn, Alabama covered Rocket City FurMeet 2006.
• Several newspapers were invited to attend Anthrocon 2006, including the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and the Pittsburgh City Paper, which printed both a preview and an extensive review. When local television station KDKA-TV showed up, chairman Samuel Conway gave a short television interview outside the convention hotel. There was similar coverage in 2007.
• The Montreal Gazette covered Anthrofest 2007.
• Eurofurence 13 received extensive coverage by several regional newspapers in Thuringia.
• An undercover reporter from Hartford Advocate attended FurFright 2007 and published her findings

One public perception — popularized by the CSI episode "Fur and Loathing" — is that furry conventions are places for people to dress up as animals and perform sexual acts with each other. In an article about furries, Vanity Fair described some hotel guests as "stunned", with some calling convention-goers "freaks", "blatant homosexuals", and various derogatory terms. Some U.S. Army personnel present during the same convention described attendees as "a little unusual" and "people that have problems", while others considered the event "something nice to bring kids to."