Heads up, Pittsburgh: A menagerie of costumed wolves, rabbits, foxes, and other fake fauna are about to converge on your city.
And no, it has nothing to do with PETA.
Actually, it’s all about Anthrocon—the world’s largest “Furry” convention. OK, so if you don’t know what a Furry is, I know you’re dying to ask. In a nutshell, a Furry is a person who is totally into animal anthropomorphism (assigning animals human traits). I mean totally into it. We’re talking loving fictional animal characters so much that they often wear mascot-like costumes of their fave animals (think Crayola-colored cheetahs in cargo pants).
Which is where PETA came into the picture. Don’t get me wrong, we weren’t trying to harsh their mellow. We just wanted to make sure that convention-going “Fursuiters”—as they like to be called—weren’t parading around in the pelts of real animals. Here’s the letter we sent to them:
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Their response?
Dear Shawna:
Real fur is frowned upon at all furry conventions, in the same sense that leaping in front of speeding locomotives is frowned upon at comic book conventions.
Yours truly,
Samuel Conway, Ph.D.
Chairman and CEO
Anthrocon, Inc.
Written by Amy Elizabeth
