I went to
a little festival over the weekend. It's full of creative Internet people, and I use my bunny avatar on the pre-festival chat, so I was like "screw it, wear the bunny ears". And then everyone was ridiculously kind the first night so I was like "screw it, wear the tail too".
Friday night, there was a Fray Cafe - an open mic of personal, true stories. I figured, I like attention, so I went up and talked about a pretty emotionally key moment during Furlandia, said as though all the animals involved were real animals until the punchline at the very end.
I figured I'd get a little kindness, just because that's how the place was. Somewhere around the tenth or eleventh complete stranger complimenting my story and how brave I was for sharing it, I 1) became extremely flattered and slightly skeptical and 2) became the unofficial Official Furry Delegation.
The point is less bragging about doing total furry bullshit in public and getting away with it, and more about one of those people that complimented me. We shared a table at lunch, and after she broke the ice with that, she got past some very clear hesitation and started opening up about her time as a furry, and her more recent passion for fanfiction. It was clear she never gets to share that comfortably, certainly not in person. But because I was there and willing to be The Furry, she had someone she could relate to.
And that was really cool, to (accidentally) give someone a safe space to open up and feel comforted. Definitely more important than just rambling about myself for five minutes. I'm gonna try and keep in touch with her, think it'd be good for both of us.
(Also from this weekend: Anil Dash's
"what the Internet is made of". We're number 1! We're number 1!)
