pathhyena

[pathhyena]

Worksona Design Commission for @godel-rhymes-with-turtle

[pathhyena]

Are celebrities really needed in the furry fandom, and if so can they at least be good ones?

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The one thing we never expected these adorable thieves to steal… was our hearts.

[pathhyena]

Depression: It bad

This might be an awful idea, but hyenas sort of thrive on those so who knows.

Hi everyone! Hey what’s been on the news lately?! Right, suicide. That sucks. (Great start hyena). I didn’t know the folks who passed very well, but I remember when Robin Williams took his life, and that threw me for a loop. Celebrities are weird because we have some connection to them even though they’ll likely never know we exist. We sort of support them en masse and they serve an invisible army hungry for their content. When they pass away, it hurts, because we have that powerful emotional one-way connection. I get that.

The bad news is that’s going to happen a lot. It used to not happen as much because we only had radio and TV and 30 channels so the celebrity delivery pipelines were relatively small. That’s why the news still announces every death in the mornings. Today, with social media, fandom structures, indie streaming, a million channels, and more movies and music delivery streams than ever, the number of celebrities has exploded. This is really cool because now there isn’t some centralized control over who we get access to, it’s really nicely wide open. What this also means though is that in the coming years we’ll hear about a lot more passing’s of really cool people. I think to a limited degree we saw this with Bourdain, whose content was delivered on an expansive cable frontier, and Avicii, who benefited from less centralized control over music. These are still all- stars in their fields, so they may be weak examples, but I just think we’ll see a lot more of this down the line.

Celebrity life is really crazy. It’s demanding. They read a lot of critical reviews of themselves as people, and sometimes the motivations that drive you towards fame are also internally destructive. Creativity as a force is often (not always!) cruel, and the drive to find approval from a mass audience often comes along, and often doesn’t come from the greatest places. Even far removed from who we were as teenagers, our darker angels live within us for decades. We all get better at dealing with them, but they certainly still exist.

When a celebrity takes their own life, there is a documented spike in suicides across the world, most notably in demographics similar to that individual. Partly this makes a lot of sense: someone we understand who looks and feels similar to ourselves lost their daily battle, and maybe it’s okay if we do, too. I heard a sociologist on NPR explaining that suicide is now normalizing, and that struck me as odd. I don’t know how it seems to other people, but it’s always been a glaring option to me. I didn’t need news articles to tell me it was an option, it’s something I used to think about.

Suicide is a thing a lot of us think about, and that doesn’t make us weird. It’s an odd existential exercise that the brain sometimes likes to meander into then shriek away from. Like how when I’m high up I think, wow that jump would suck (I am consequently scared of heights). That’s not all that abnormal, I don’t think. The issue comes when the exercise becomes less thought and more dangerous solution, less pondering and more considering. Some folks don’t feel like they have a lot to lose, even though realistically we have everything to lose. Decades of die rolls and adaptations and new friends around a corner we can’t see, but in that moment none of that seems likely, or maybe even all that great. We as people can’t help but view the entire span of a lifetime but through the lens of today, of right now. Tomorrow is forever away.

People keep begging us online to remember how valuable life is, they keep sending us suicide hotline numbers. One tweet I saw going around had the number for every country, in case someone speaking English in Turkey needed the suicide hotline for their nation. I have to be honest, I don’t know how qualified I am to respond to these; I haven’t felt a considerable level of suicide drive since I was 23. I didn’t want to take my own life since it would probably hurt and also it would make my mother sad and that would suck, but y’know if something would have magically end my life painlessly and without fault assigned that would have been cool. Nothing magically made that better but time, but I also had a lot of good friends to talk me through the really crazy thoughts.

I made very little sense back then. (I make only slightly more now.)

What I tend to find with depression is that it ebbs and flows. That’s not true for everyone, I’ve read, with the worst cases being times where apathy sets in and just stays for years. In that scenario nothing is good, nothing is bad, and everything is nothing. It’s a familiar numbness to the entrance and exit of a depressive wave. I think the brain just burns out, and it takes a while to recover. But there’s a period for a lot of us where it’s just really harsh, and I think that’s what those hotlines are for. Maybe you don’t have anyone you trust to talk to about something, you don’t have an emotional connection, and distant tweets from distant strangers don’t do it for you. That’s otherwise really hard, because you have to get through it on your own. I’ve had those nights too. It’s certainly possible to recover from the really bad times on your own (if not required sometimes), but it helps to have a receptive mind on the other end of your painful thoughts. Just something on the other end to reflect and consider. Sometimes that can turn things around, but usually it doesn’t. It’s good at getting you to the next clear moment, where maybe you can recover, find some respite.

And here’s the thing with going to a friend for help – they often want to “fix” you. And it doesn’t work, and then after a few more rounds (this stuff comes in rounds usually), they get frustrated and they check out. Even the good friends do, they just get exasperated. Okay this definitely isn’t true for ALL friends. But here’s a hint to the good allies out there: You can’t fix someone with these issues, we must work them out for ourselves.

“You only talk to me when you’re depressed.” Yes, because that’s the only time I’m in enough pain to overcome debilitating social anxiety.

“You don’t really say anything.” I don’t know what to say, all my thoughts are awful.

“Why are you so negative all the time.” Why is the sky blue.

“This is really hard to hear every week.” I know. I know that, and I feel bad talking to you, I just don’t know what else to do.

And therapy isn’t a magic bullet. You need a good therapist, and sometimes the right drug combination and that’s its own mess. I encourage folks to take this route, but it’s not a fast lane. You often need a mix of stuff. You need exercise so your body doesn’t get sad on your brain’s behalf, friends to get you through the hard times and share your realizations, helpful information to help you fight your battles more strategically, an ability to adjust your tactics when you’re in a good place, and sometimes professionals who can help you understand what’s going on. You may be helped by medication that can help you find clarity.

That’s a lot! And it takes years, and I know that’s frustrating. Humans live for decades, and even through your bad years you often add a lot of value to the world in weird little uncelebrated ways. We can even have a lot of worthless years and find our way to a net positive life. It’s just hard to see that. You have to take it on faith. I’m not much for hope myself, I’m weird that way. But some things you have to take on faith. If you keep fighting, the probability is over time you can find the tools to make it just a little bit easier. And sometimes that’s all we need. We don’t need to be “fixed”. Just make things a little bit easier. And then we can start from a better palace, another foothold in this mountain climb.

We need people to help us be okay with the tumbles, though. There will be a lot of setbacks. Recovery is a long game.

And maybe this is morbid, but consider Robin Williams for a moment. He struggled constantly, and in the end, he “lost”. He went a long time though. If it was cancer, we would have celebrated his valiant struggle. It wasn’t, though, it was self destruction, so it feels like just this great, avoidable loss.

It isn’t, tho. Depression is much like cancer, there is a physical cause, and just because we overcome it psychologically that doesn’t diminish how difficult that is. When you think, when you process ideas or even daydream, you literally change the physical construction of your brain. You rewire. There’s a physical change. When we learn to work with and around our depression we are literally adapting to difficult wiring with re-routed wiring. Depression is a physical malady. When someone loses their struggle, it’s very sad.

But it’s not their fault. It’s not our fault. It’s no one’s “fault”. Sentience is so complex. There are millions of adaptive super computers we call brains and sometimes they have difficulty and we struggle. The tragedy, I feel, is when someone loses to a “spike” – those moments that inexplicably are so much worse. That’s what the hotlines are for, y’know. They get you through those potentially fatal spikes, and maybe there’s a longer term way out.

There are people that have died because they didn’t have someone with an emotional connection to talk to. That’s a stark truth. Now someone to talk to isn’t going to fix anything, necessarily, but if you have a really harsh downswing, and there’s no one there, it’s so easy to give in to the reality your troubled mind constructs. How do you overcome a misperceived reality when your own mind is telling you what’s real? That answer is complicated. We have a lot of minds in us, and we can sort of call on our other sections of thought to help get us through. We can find our way through creativity, practiced mental exercises, or even forcing ourselves to think logically through a mental storm. Those are tools we learn how to use, but they’re hard to use when the awful part of the brain is literally screaming at us. Like trying to have a conversation with a screaming baby behind you on a plane. What helps a lot in the really bad times is another person to sort of generate words for us, and that’s why the good friends are so important.

But we also burn those friends out, and you sort of need a network to spread that responsibility around. But so often it’s hard to trust, and without vulnerability you can’t really care about the person on the other end. Without a fully functioning personality it’s difficult to find that bigger network. People are also stressful and sometimes awful. Sometimes they even make stuff worse.

This sounds like a lot, right? It sounds hard. It IS hard. Folks should understand how Catch 22 in nature depression is.

I have several people who only talk to me when they’re just really, really depressed. They don’t say they’re depressed usually, just small talk, and we banter, and they feel better. Lonely is it’s own kind of hell. I’m okay with these folks, to be honest. I don’t mind being that person. I’m glad I can help in little ways. Maybe it adds up.

I mean I’ve also had people just message me with no effort every day and they’re basically using me as a background television station because they’re bored, and that’s less great. Sometimes it’s hard to tell one from the other.

Anyway I’ll finish with this. Depression isn’t your fault, and feeling like you’re at wit’s end isn’t weakness. There is something wrong with you but it’s your fault as much as it’s someone’s fault for getting the flu. Now there are dumb things you can do when you get the flu – you don’t go run a mile or stop drinking water, right? There are basic measures to be taken, and that’s true for depression. Don’t indulge your demons and try to take care of your body when you’re able (your body can create it’s own depression). When the flu wears off we do things to recover and get back to 100%, and when depression gives us a break we should be documenting, pondering, and trying to fight our awful thoughts.

Another good flu analogy is seeking mental healthcare (which yes I know is not a great system today) makes sense when your brain is that ill. As with any physical malady, and no amount of willing it away is going to fix it. Telling someone with a 104F fever that they should suck it up is about as helpful as feeling like you shouldn’t need to go to a therapist because we should all be Very Strong People.

If you’re basically fighting the good fight, the overall tenor of where you are today is absolutely not your fault. It’s not a weakness, you don’t suck. You’re given the life you have by who you are and who you were.

Today is yours, and you can control how you react to today. Yesterday is already fucked, and that’s okay. You’re you today. The point of today is to make tomorrow a little better.

To that end, I’m okay with being someone’s desperate cold call on the way to oblivion, which is to say that if you just can’t stand life anymore and you don’t have anyone, it’s okay to message a hyena and say like, “fuck I don’t know what to do, you wrote that I could say hi to you and I could unload and you wouldn’t eat me (that might be a lie, that last part), so I’m taking a risk.” (You don’t have to curse.)

Now I know it’s a shitty thing to say, “Hey if you need someone come talk to me���, cause people are utterly fucking terrifying and how do you talk to someone you don’t know well, especially if they’re “fandom popular” (which has it’s own complications). What if you’re wasting someone’s time, what if you have nothing to say, what if you say something dumb, etc.

If I can’t talk right now, I can tell you, and I think you’d understand. If you have nothing to say we can talk about curtains. You can’t waste my time unless you’re just doing the bored no effort “I’m fine but entertain me” thing people sometimes do when they’re younger and haven’t figured that part out yet. Beyond that, honestly I’ve been where you are and the quality of conversation doesn’t even have to be great, it just has to be someone else out there. I’ll read your words and respond. I can’t be your best friend, and I’m sorry about that, but let’s be honest we’re not looking for best friends we are literally looking for anybody to show some compassion and care about our struggle, even if just briefly.

You may not know me except for reputation, or tweets, or even just this dumb tumblr post. That’s okay. You can look at my tweets and see that maybe I am weird because I think I am a hyena online and paws are pretty cool, and if you don’t think I’m awful (enough) and you really need someone, say hi.

As a disclaimer obviously if we have a prior history this may not work, because I am a person you have history with and am not actually a volunteer stranger on the end of a phoneline.

Dear person in a Very Bad Place: I may not be able to find you in time to say the right words. If you reach out to me, *I* may not have the right words. But we can try, and at least that’s something. I might be at work or laggy or depressed myelf, but I can tell you that, and I trust you to not take it so personally because you are a people and I am too.

If direct contact is scary, send me a reply on Twitter. We can use a code phrase, it can be “Foxes are very strange.” It’s true. As a corollary, sometimes my notifications get slammed and I might miss that (Twitter is bad at volume delivery), but I wanna still offer it as a sort of option.

Life is hard. I get that. If I can make your struggle a little easier, and you’re in a bad way, maybe I can help.

I feel like this is probably true for a lot of people on Twitter, and I bet there are folks who will read this and might reply “Hey me too, I would like to be this person too”. I don’t want to name names cause I don’t want to volunteer people who may not be in a good place themselves. You never know people’s lives.

ANYWAY, thanks for reading 3000 words, have a gold star. I hope any of this was helpful, and I mean the thing at the end except for the not eating you part. I have a reputation to maintain, you see.

@pathhyena on Twitter

P.S. I am especially bad at tumblr comments because I am extremely old.

Also adding ten more words to make it exactly 3000.

[pathhyena]

We talk about the important things like baseball, birthdays, and whether fursuit ownership truly is a tangible advantage within the fandom.

[pathhyena]

Successful people and me.

[pathhyena]

Furry Conventions and Changing Acceptability in Public Spaces

The Pup Hood debate has lots of takes, but really we’re talking about a wider issue.

I know there’s been so much already on this, but I think some perspective has been missing from the ongoing commentary.  I’m speaking generally for what I see with large furry conventions, not representing any one in particular.

First off, don’t feel bad if you’re not sure where you fall on this issue, I can tell you that convention staffs everywhere wrestle with this sort of complexity all the time, and it’s difficult.  We spend hours contemplating this stuff (apparel in general, not one part of one sub-fandom).

I want to make it clear that very few large Furry Conventions today, if any, are sitting down and trying to dictate the future of furry culture. We don’t stand up and say, “hey, let’s make this entirely PG,” or, “everyone should be free to explore their sexuality in a free and open space”.  Those are both effectively mission statements, and needed to be worked out at the initiation of the convention.  It would affect advertising, target audience, and especially venue compatibility. Mind you, there are cons that certainly lean one way or the other, but I don’t think any of them take the principles to an extreme.

Most cons are trying to serve a general audience, usually geographic.  We have another stakeholder – the venue. A venue will let you get away on the edges, by which I mean if something is a little uncomfortable for them they’re not going to give us push back.  They want to accommodate, but only to an extent. Therefore setting a mission is so important early on. Your venue must know what to expect.

In serving the fandom we do, we walk an increasingly fine line between expression and keeping a general space.  Where is that line?  I dunno, it moves, and yearly.  The dress codes are moving targets and most cons take the Supreme Court direction of “You’ll know it when you see it”, where “it” is when a visual becomes something a step too far.

Some things are done out of safety.  Leashes, for example, are commonly banned, because they create a wall with an object that can catch on things.  That may sound dumb, but you multiply drunk by 2k attendees and weird things happen. We’re concerned with safety.  The same goes for garments that lock.

Baby Furs as a group understand and have had to walk this middle route for a long time.  Conventions can’t effectively detail when something is right for a convention space and when it isn’t.  There’s so many variables.  But there’s a stark difference between wearing a diaper out in the open and maybe walking around in footie pajamas with strongly hinting badge art.

That’s just one sub-fandom, there are a lot of them, and many of them walk a similar line. I feel like the talk about Pup Hoods is just another expression of this – where we take a garment choice and use it to argue the abstraction.  Many of you are arguing about which cultural choice a convention should stand for. The reality is the larger conventions are trying to meet all the stakeholders in the middle, which may be unsatisfying, but the furry fandom represents a large, diverse community with all kinds of feelings of right and wrong.

Again this is not to say a specific mission convention couldn’t begin with an eye towards a specific cultural community, and I think you’ll see more of that.  Over 18 conventions, truly family friendly conventions. There’s no right or wrong here, just different audiences.  I think there will always be a place for the general line many cons walk because your friends are often as diverse as the fandom itself, and you can always take the more interesting stuff to your rooms.

Con’s try to create guidelines where there’s ambiguity. And many of you are astute in noticing that the lenience on these guidelines gently, quietly change at night.

As to Pup Hoods, sometimes that’s not even a kink. Some folks just like how they look. To some Furries, every fursuit is potentially a highly sexual object, and to some they never should be. I think where you’ll see Conventions and their venues fall, generally, is where it’s always sort of fallen.  A pup hood is fine, really. When it’s full gear, it’s a different discussion. So far we know that works, because for years that’s been the policy and no one’s really had an issue with it in any meaningfully vocal way, not even our hotels.  And for us, that’s a win.

This is going to be an ongoing debate in the fandom, and it’ll be lively.  I think it’s weird how many people stand so solidly, so loudly stating “this is right” and “this is wrong”.  There’s so much grey area, and  every convention is trying to navigate this ship on changing cultural waves, onward under a poorly lit moon. Right now, I think we’re doing okay.  

[pathhyena]

Spotted Hyena Studies / Tutorial by kenket