Furry Fandom and Drama General

Breadbassket said:
Found a Reddit post from a few years ago with the dramatic title "The day the furry fandom died.", it does not at all paint a positive picture of Merlino.
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A lot of the information from the era the post is centered around seems to be buried away on Usenet or on forums but here is Ed Klein's letter (archive in attachments to stop it from disappearing due to link rot) which seems to be the source of the "semen in the elevator" accusation. ConFurence 8 took place in 1997 while Mark Merlino was the convention chairman. It was originally posted by a user with the name Steve Gattuso.

Ed's Klein Letter:
Hello folks,

This is a letter to Mark Merlino which the author has asked be forwarded to alt.fan.furry. For those of you unfamiliar with the him, Ed Kline is a very genial fellow whom I have been acquainted with for a few years, mostly through Confurence. He is best known for the wonderful =
costumes of Red Shetland and Eeon that often show up at the con and together with Kishma Danielle form Thundermark Press.
Ed is someone I have great respect for, and I have been asked to pass along responses to this message to him as they appear.

Mark, This letter is in regards to a serious problem that we encountered at ConFurence 8. I direct this letter at you personally because I assume you are still in charge and responsible for the convention in general. I say I assume because certain matters have made me question your authority regarding the running of this con. Mark, pay very close attention to what you're reading. I do not want any misunderstandings.

On Thursday, the day of my arrival, on our way to get something to eat at the hotel coffee shop, we watched two young men deliberately waiting for what we saw to be "mundanes" see them, and proceed to deep-throat each other in a rather blatant manner in the hotel lobby. Obviously getting a kick out of offending these people. This went on for the period of time it took us to get across the lobby and into the coffee shop. They were still there when we left. This behavior is immature, disgusting and we assume has nothing to do with the convention.

This would have offended me and my group no matter whether those making the display were homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, or otherwise! This behavior is offensive any time and anywhere. This little game of "freak the normals" should be policed by con security.

Science Fiction/Fantasy conventions have a hard enough time getting "outsiders" to take them seriously. Besides that, what the hell was one of your security doing walking around in DRAG? What's that got to do with the so-called premise of the convention along with not aiding in the confidence people would be feeling in approaching security? That was very immature and unprofessional!

This was not the only experience we encountered. There was a situation in an elevator Saturday evening, when I was taking some important guests back to my room for business. We were discussing said business in the elevator on our way up to the room when one of the gentlemen with me leaned back against the wall, as most people do, when he found his side and pants covered in SEMEN! Some diseased bottom-feeder couldn't contain himself and squirted all over the wall. This goes way beyond disgusting and immature. There are other situations which I'll go into later, but at this point - in case you're wondering why I'm bringing this to your attention again - it's YOUR con as you are so want to make everyone aware of. Which means shit like this is your responsibility . My question is... when did you decide to make this convention something other than anthropomorphic? What are you going to do about this "lunatic fringe" that is seeping into the convention? And understand this, I don't care whether they're alternative lifestlyists or otherwise or if they make love to their pets, or any other "preference."

That's not what I'm addressing. What are you going to do about the people who aren't interested in attending this convention for its intended purposes? We actually had people look at myself when I was dressed as Eeon, Kishmas as Tashta, and Tanamin as Ingo, and ask "That are the weirdos doing here in costume?" We overheard others, on more than one occasion ask, "What's a furry?" and receive the answer, "I don't know. I'm just here for the parties and sex." What are you going to do about these same people who are going about methodically ruining the reputations of the alternative lifestylists as well? This convention used to draw everybody you and I knew in fandom because of its uniqueness. In the last few years I've watched fewer and fewer people show up. I wondered about that. I wondered about the causes. I thought, "Surely it's not because of Mark and the way he's running the con?"

Last year we saw a great number of "strange young men" again, blatantly embarrassing everyone around them and "oblivious to what they were causing". Or so it seemed. Now, in case we were overreacting to circumstance, I and my group questioned others at the con. "Old Timers" who've been attending conventions for a good ten years or more, like ourselves. Surprise! EVERYBODY we talked to not only felt as angry as we did at what happened to us, but recounted myriad incidents that happened to themselves as well. And many decided that they were not coming back. Now, Mark, I and my household are extremely open-minded. I myself being permanently involved in a well working three-way relationship: Kishma and Tanamin, my two mates, both being bisexual, and I myself being heterosexual. (I have declared myself heterosexual, having experienced male sex and found absolutely no interest in it personally. But, as I said before, I am not opposed to it.)

Now this was not all that led to pissing me off. What really clenched it was our attempt at being involved in the Pet Auction. Gee, Mark, innocent naive us. We thought it was going to be a PET Auction. As in, people in costumes and anthropomorphically inclined, adopting others of similar interests for the benefit of charity. We thought it would be fun. Lo and behold our surprise! We found it was nothing more than a "queer auction." Kishma offered to do a lap dance as Tashta, her zebra dancer, to the highest bidder. If she was offering this to a furry audience, she probably would have brought the house down. Instead, she got crickets!!!

Know what that means, Mark? She went for $28. Subtract the $10 WE spent on the Cabaret ticket, totals $18. I don't even want to tell you what happened with Eeon, who's been known in fandom a lot longer than Tashta. And yet, some little cretin in tight black shorts, offering veiled sex, went for $180. In fact, ALL those offering "extras at the discretion of the pet" sold for over $40. Mark, all of this came off as a thinly disguised excuse for pandering. You're lucky it wasn't shut down. And we DO mean this seriously, Mark. It's not just sour grapes: EVERY furry costume that was bid on went for a low bid. Except Cataroo. .. and that's the ONLY one: the two gentlemen who bid on her had entered and left with her.

The only women other than Tashta who participated went for $12 and $8, respectively. And one of that was a pair of round cuties who were basically offering a rather charming "spanking" show. They got crickets. All the women did! All the anthropomorphics did! Anyone who did not offer or imply sexual favours were bid on very poorly or not at all. Now what does this lead you to believe, Mark? Who do you think was dominating the audience, Mark? I think you should really address some considerations concerning your security as well, in these matters.

There were camera teams prowling these areas who we discovered were NOT there for the convention's health: but, evidently doing expose`s casting furrydom in a negative light and boy did they have tons of ammunition this time! The nonsense we've seen happen at THIS convention is not helping the situation one bit. You're responsible, Mark. I'd get your act together or get some people to help you who CAN, before you find yourself and your convention facing some very serious consequences. As a result of all this crap, needless to say, you won't be seeing us next year, or a number of others old-timers and new people alike... from what we were given to understand. Should this trend continue, we do not want to be involved, and will be attending other conventions, rather than wasting our time, money and emotions on this one.

Understand, Mark, this used to be our favorite convention! We'd make it to THIS one even if we didn't make it to any other! In the past, it's been a wonderful way to re-energize our creative energies: but, Mark, if you're going to change the convention to some other venue then stop trying to hide what you're doing under the guise of ConFurence. If you feel the need to run an Alternative Lifestyle convention, then why don't you do that instead of changing ConFurence into it? It's ruining it for us, and others. And for those who are not interested in the alternative lifestyle aspect. It also piss us off that you invite this opening on the 'net and yet make no mention of this "change" in FurNation.
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Mark Merlino under the alias Sylys Sable would respond to some of the accusations in this letter years later in 2011 in a comment for a post regarding misconceptions in the origin of the Furry Fandom:
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Maybe TMNT and Usagi Yojimbo continued to "survive and thrive" cause they were actually good? And Omaha the Cat Dancer is a weird historical footnote cause it wasn't very good?
"Ed Kline is mad at me cause his wife didn't make much money in the charity slave auction" destroyed my ribs.
 
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MarvinTheParanoidAndroid said:
So was this guy an actual pedophile or animal abuser or was it just people in his orbit?
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He seemed to have quite a few people with odd proclivities in his circle to put it lightly. He was setting up some of the first room parties and pushed back with his cronies something fierce toward the only group that ever tried to "sanitize" the community. His inaction on rooting out sex pests kind of speaks more than anything the nigger would actually say.
 
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PhoBingas said:
He seemed to have quite a few people with odd proclivities in his circle to put it lightly. He was setting up some of the first room parties and pushed back with his cronies something fierce toward the only group that ever tried to "sanitize" the community. His inaction on rooting out sex pests kind of speaks more than anything the nigger would actually say.
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What was that sanitizin group?
 
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MarvinTheParanoidAndroid said:
So was this guy an actual pedophile or animal abuser or was it just people in his orbit?
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My observation, knowing Mark for 25+ years, and having been at his house occasionally;
He was an autistic gay man who liked electronics, model trains, and pretending to be an animal on the internet. All the creepers in the fandom around him were simply a result of his "go along, get along, don't argue, just make friends, tolerate everything" peace-and-love-hippy attitude.
 
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Relinquish said:
View attachment 5740220View attachment 5740221


MOD EDIT:
Mark has no known direct ties to the extremely depraved subcommunities derived from the furry fandom such as zoosadists, he is simply the earliest organizer for the community. Temper your reactions to his passing accordingly. Or don't, I'm just a mod edit.
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I'm split, yes I hate furries, but at the same point I like laughing at furries so.... God speed mr. furfag sr.
 
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