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Random article popped on my Windows Live Messenger
14 years ago
http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/vi.....fetish/pmxhyp4
http://tlc.discovery.com/videos/my-.....it-fetish.html
Searching, I didn't see anything really constructive posted on FA.
This is an TLC article on a fursuiter.
"My Strange Addiction: Fur Suit Fetish"
It's something. The article is fine, just showing Lauren going in public in fursuit. She describes how she created Kiira (not Kira), and says fursuiting cheers her up on down days and makes her less shy. Her mother says her daughter was always creative, and one day she asked her to buy fur for her latest creative project. That's it. The reporters then wedged the words "addiction" and "obsessed" in a splash-captions, and the word "fetish" is wedged in the title. Really, wedged.
Reporters work so hard to keep the meme going. Lauren and her mother did great to show something light and cheerful, I'm sure they were disappointed to see the article come out with the word "fetish" just tacked on like a bad glue gun job. (Not only that, Bing's bad keyword linking thingie posts articles about things like robot fetishes, hair eating addictions, Lauren the Bodybuilder, and a toddler swimSUIT competition.)
If you're at cons when Uncle Kage and 2 the Ranting Gryphon do their "Furries and the Media", go. They have story after story about how ridiculously hard reporters will work. It's awesome, I've seen two versions, they get better and more hilarious every time they do it.
I was approached by a reporter at Furfright while I was in-suit. This was outside the hotel, she had no escort. She introduced herself as someone from MSNBC.com, and asked for a picture. I simply shook my head no. She started digging through her purse while talking with me, saything something about how she "tried to contact us and didn't get an answer", and how she wanted to portray furries "correctly". I said I'd heard reporters say that before, I personally was at three conventions where I saw reporters interview us, and in every case they used none of the material we gave them and instead showed clips from MTV and CSI. She kept talking to me calmly and doing that deceptive purse-dig, but she cringed a bit and slowed down, my words obviously had an effect on her. She ran out of things to say, so I went inside and told staff. I saw her get brought in, then after about ten minutes escorted out by three staffers.
The number three for reporter-furry incidents was a white lie, I've seen this happen only at Texas Furry Fiesta 2010. I saw what the reporters got, I saw how "nice" they were to us, then I saw the article afterwards. They just stripped out almost everything we gave them, then stuck in the MTV fursuit yiff footage, which took more than half of the video in the article. They also related "how strictly we controlled their interviews", turning that against us much like a "no comment" response.
The other two reporter incidents were personal non-furry related incidents friends of mine had, also times when we gave them one thing and what was printed was totally different.
Real reporting is based on relationships with individual reporters. Those relationships take time to build. Reporters compete agressively, even within their own company (read: backstab). That's why events require registration, and registration closes a month or more before the event, so con staff and other officials have time to do a background check on the reporter, do personal interviews with the reporter, as well as plan the reporter's tour.
Every event, EVERY event, professional, trade show, anime con, has a registration process for the press. Anyone wandering around outside and playing dumb about "how they tried to contact us" is skirting this process. That lady at Furfright was likely a newbie reporter being sent on the reporter's version of a landlubber's mission, like fetching a bucket of steam or 100 yards of shoreline. "Oh, do the furry fetish, that should be easy for you. What? You got nothing? You can't cut it in our shop, sorry." I'm guessing, but it would make sense.
I think Lauren and her mom did fine. I can only speculate on the internals at TLC. To me it looks like some well-intentioned recorders put something nice together, but were likely pressured by someone upstairs, "we need something to bring them in, else we can't publish this" or something stupid like that. Enter the words addiction and fetish. Total speculation, but makes sense.
http://tlc.discovery.com/videos/my-.....it-fetish.html
Searching, I didn't see anything really constructive posted on FA.
This is an TLC article on a fursuiter.
"My Strange Addiction: Fur Suit Fetish"
It's something. The article is fine, just showing Lauren going in public in fursuit. She describes how she created Kiira (not Kira), and says fursuiting cheers her up on down days and makes her less shy. Her mother says her daughter was always creative, and one day she asked her to buy fur for her latest creative project. That's it. The reporters then wedged the words "addiction" and "obsessed" in a splash-captions, and the word "fetish" is wedged in the title. Really, wedged.
Reporters work so hard to keep the meme going. Lauren and her mother did great to show something light and cheerful, I'm sure they were disappointed to see the article come out with the word "fetish" just tacked on like a bad glue gun job. (Not only that, Bing's bad keyword linking thingie posts articles about things like robot fetishes, hair eating addictions, Lauren the Bodybuilder, and a toddler swimSUIT competition.)
If you're at cons when Uncle Kage and 2 the Ranting Gryphon do their "Furries and the Media", go. They have story after story about how ridiculously hard reporters will work. It's awesome, I've seen two versions, they get better and more hilarious every time they do it.
I was approached by a reporter at Furfright while I was in-suit. This was outside the hotel, she had no escort. She introduced herself as someone from MSNBC.com, and asked for a picture. I simply shook my head no. She started digging through her purse while talking with me, saything something about how she "tried to contact us and didn't get an answer", and how she wanted to portray furries "correctly". I said I'd heard reporters say that before, I personally was at three conventions where I saw reporters interview us, and in every case they used none of the material we gave them and instead showed clips from MTV and CSI. She kept talking to me calmly and doing that deceptive purse-dig, but she cringed a bit and slowed down, my words obviously had an effect on her. She ran out of things to say, so I went inside and told staff. I saw her get brought in, then after about ten minutes escorted out by three staffers.
The number three for reporter-furry incidents was a white lie, I've seen this happen only at Texas Furry Fiesta 2010. I saw what the reporters got, I saw how "nice" they were to us, then I saw the article afterwards. They just stripped out almost everything we gave them, then stuck in the MTV fursuit yiff footage, which took more than half of the video in the article. They also related "how strictly we controlled their interviews", turning that against us much like a "no comment" response.
The other two reporter incidents were personal non-furry related incidents friends of mine had, also times when we gave them one thing and what was printed was totally different.
Real reporting is based on relationships with individual reporters. Those relationships take time to build. Reporters compete agressively, even within their own company (read: backstab). That's why events require registration, and registration closes a month or more before the event, so con staff and other officials have time to do a background check on the reporter, do personal interviews with the reporter, as well as plan the reporter's tour.
Every event, EVERY event, professional, trade show, anime con, has a registration process for the press. Anyone wandering around outside and playing dumb about "how they tried to contact us" is skirting this process. That lady at Furfright was likely a newbie reporter being sent on the reporter's version of a landlubber's mission, like fetching a bucket of steam or 100 yards of shoreline. "Oh, do the furry fetish, that should be easy for you. What? You got nothing? You can't cut it in our shop, sorry." I'm guessing, but it would make sense.
I think Lauren and her mom did fine. I can only speculate on the internals at TLC. To me it looks like some well-intentioned recorders put something nice together, but were likely pressured by someone upstairs, "we need something to bring them in, else we can't publish this" or something stupid like that. Enter the words addiction and fetish. Total speculation, but makes sense.
Caldy
~caldy
I saw the show and thought it was fairly decent. But the clips they shown of the fursuiters on the show were from Mephit fur Meet before they moved locations. I don't know what year it was but i remember one year tigercowboy (or is it TygerCowboy) said that media may be there but if so make sure staff is present if they want to talk to you. I was approached mainly because i was dressed completely normal didn't have anything on showing i was a furry and they asked what i thought of the event and all these freaks here. I looked at them gave a soft smile and simply said "fuck off" and walked off before they could say anything else i disapeared outside.
theguywiththecamera
~theguywiththecamera
She knew the show was called My Strange Addiction and she pointed out it was a hobby and they said they would take her anyways. She chose to be on the show and have TLC portray her the way they did in exchange for $1500. It was her choice to make herself and the furry community look bad.
shroompicker
~shroompicker
OP
Thanks for the information. I think that would mean a simple case of "I'll save the fandom!!" syndrome.
ProcyonLoki
~procyonloki
Wow. They really will stop at nothing...
