Saturday, August 6, 2022

Free Fur All: A Furry Convention Disaster [UPDATE: August 9, 2022]


Changed the logo since the other one has been removed.
This post has been updated into a separate post: Click Here.

Usually when you go to Conventions or Cons, you think of a fun yet exciting place to meet your favorite creators or celebrities. For most people, some conventions are better than others. It all depends on who's attending, the amount of money they raise and what creator/celebrity is going to be there. Most conventions tend to fall apart after a certain number of years, but that isn't the case for Free Fur All: A Furry based Convention that turned out to be its own DashCon (a con for Tumblr people) and a huge failure in a lot of the community's eyes. I've done a few furry related posts here on this blog. The first one being LupisVulpes and the other one is GaroShadowscale. If you haven't seen those posts, I recommend you check them out. I also want to point out that I'm NOT a furry. I like to report on drama regardless of what community it's from. I also hate talking about politics, I would rather talk about YouTuber related content instead. This convention is so bad that it needs to be talked about. This is also another great start for the month of August.

Brief History / Start of The Decline:

So, what is Free Fur All and what's with all the big commotion? I guess we'll start from the beginning. Free Fur All is a convention that is ran by the AWOO Association. AWOO (Anthro West Open Organization) is based in Oklahoma and started somewhere in 2020, raising and donating money during the COVID-19 Pandemic to animal charities like the Safari Sanctuary (very controversial when it comes to handling their animals). In August of 2020, they rose the money for the Sanctuary to $2,500 and in the same year became a non-profit organization. In early 2021 they were now part of a Federally Recognized Public Charity Organization under the 501(c)(3).

On September 1, 2021, the AWOO Association announced that they would he hosting a convention called Free Fur All at the Glenpool Conference Center in Glenpool, Oklahoma and the date was originally set to May 27-29, 2022. They also release a promotional video about the Convention. Not long after the announcement, the AWOO Association got exposed for being tied with the Alt-Right as well as the Nazi's and the Furry Community wanted it dead already. There's quite a number of people in the group but the two that stick out are PeaceWolfActual and 2 The Ranting Gryphon. Both have been in the fandom for a long time and are egotistical scumbags.


Sorry about the awkwardness. You'll have to start from the top to understand it fully.
Might have to open image in new tab

So why does the people want the convention dead? Well as shown in the tweet above, The AWOO Association chose to be political and chose what they would want in their logos and banners. Even just by looking at the Free Fur All image at the very top of the post, it definitely shoots red flags. I'm getting a little off topic, the reason for this is because nobody wants political stuff at a convention that's supposed to be fun and exciting (well furry conventions get negative attention a lot, so it's no surprise). Instead, you get something that's complete damage control. If any convention happens, there's bound to be those people and if the staff or security won't kick them out, then it's ruined. And the screenshot above were leaked discord messages between members and the staff of Free Fur All and the AWOO Association. The messages are so bad and cringeworthy that they're hard to read at times.

The Big Decline:

Loss of Venue / The Mostly Empty Areas / Poor Performance:

On September 15, 2021 (2 weeks after their announcement), they lost their venue they were hosting, or it was unavailable. AWOO responded with a statement basically pointing and blaming the dark side of the fandom whether or not if it was staff related or anything. Unfortunately, they got their venue back over miscommunication but it's still the Glenpool Conference Center, so nothing changed. However, the date was changed from May 27-29, 2022, to instead July 29-31, 2022. My favorite quote from the statement is this:

"The dark side of the anthro fandom is showing its face, and some have even so far as to target and harass members of our Association and our business partners."

Well despite the fact that these people are literal Nazi's to which they have no knowledge on how to exactly run a Furry Convention, it shows what they really truly are regardless of being attacked and even the discord messages they sent back and forth, no doubt about it. Like I said before it's complete damage control. Venues should not allow people like them in their building.

The only positive thing that I can say is the venue. The Glenpool Conference Center has some of the most beautiful yet elegant fountains I've ever seen. If you do a google search on it, you'll see what I'm talking about. However, that's the only positive thing I can say about it.

Now let's talk about the meat and the bones of this convention as to what it's like. As shown in the screenshot above was the earliest (July 29) photo that I could find that someone took of the place. This was apparently 2 Gryphon's area where he was going to perform a political stand-up comedy. Needless to say, with him being in the fandom for 20 years, the guy isn't funny. Anyways the area itself is depressing and underwhelming. When new cons come, they usually start off small but continue to grow over the years. Free Fur All 2022 was very low under the radar. The AWOO Association decided to create their own hashtag under the name #Uncancelable to I guess continue its public appearance and it's a complete joke in itself. They think they're uncancelable when they've been canceled from the start. Also #FreeFurAll22 was also making the big trend the next day on July 30.

In some other areas that you see around the Conference Center, you'll get to the side where all of the beautiful fountains are. This area features just one single ball pit and just a single party light (which is off camera, for more pictures scroll down). The ball pit is the most notorious and it pays tribute to the one of DashCon but only sadder. I'll talk about DashCon some other time but it's like father and son never left the building. Just like DashCon's ball pit, the one at Free Fur All was heavenly used as a meme with some making doctored drawings of the photo. Now what about the other few days at the con? Surely, they could've made up for the disastrous mistakes on the first day, right? Oh, wait they haven't.

A guy on twitter that goes by the name Stallionslaughter posted quite a number of videos about his experience at Free Fur All along with his viewpoints and opinions about the Con. The two shown above is a primary example of when things don't go out as planned. He also takes a tour around the Conference Center to show what the Convention really is, so you'll start to see that the con itself is lack luster. From the looks of it, the dance room was very empty and the DJ look like he wasn't thrilled. You also have the Fursuit Lounge, Panel Room, Game Room and the Dealers Den. The Game Room is the only other thing that's acceptable, but the rest was again lack luster and underwhelming. How did the other people react to the con? Well, I'll summarize it in a compilation of tweets from many different users. I also want to let you know that some of these are repeats or repeat of the same user. Might have to open image in new tab.

There's more where that came from, but I've spent way too long compiling a variety of tweets in three different images. If you want to see these tweets individually, check out the sources at the bottom of the post or go to twitter and type in #FreeFurAll22.

The Aftermath:

Anyways for a lot of people, the aftermath and the overall experience for them was very poor. The final results for the Convention were that it managed to attract 207 attendees (that is if you count the fursuiters in this and is also nothing compared to other conventions), $8,000 for the same abusive charity and the fact that there coming back for 2023 is mindboggling. If anything, I want to see how much they've spent on the Con itself because for something like $8,000 doesn't seem much. Their guest of honor was none other than Jasonafex and his girlfriend KabsCornerArt. We all know who the guy is: Basically, a zoophile, groomed his girlfriend and use the crowdfunding money he earned to buy a dog.

Before I actually close on this (since I've spent the past 4 days making this post) I want to point out more red flags, mostly the fursuiters that were attending the Con. At the beginning of the post, I've mentioned 2 The Ranting Gryphon and PeaceWolfActual. There were mostly people in the Furry Raiders (essentially a hate group) who attended the con just like what they always do. I'll talk more about it in another post but the members who attended were Crusader Cat, Tech Coyote, Foxler Nightfire, Aeve Nova, Sheep (no actual name), Safari Sanctuary, Diesel Raccoon, 2 Gryphon, Jasonafex & Kabier, Starimus, TMDrake, Orion Starwing and many others. There is a list of the admins and staff, but more have been updated as well.

There is some good news and a lot of bad news. The good news is that the current venue they went to which is the Glenpool Conference Center has now blacklisted the AWOO Association from attending there ever again. And the bad news is that well, there attending again for 2023. What are your predictions? Will it happen again?

UPDATE, August 9, 2022:

Well, this is actually the first update on this Convention that I get to talk about since there was some stuff that was left out from the original. Two twitter users: Waidayu Wanano and Benji the Beagle talked about their experiences with PeaceWolf. If you want to read the full story for these two users, checkout the new sources below or you can read on what they said here:

"My own personal experience:

PeaceWolf who used to be in charge of TTFC, hired me as social media liaison in 2019. When I first met her, she had me convinced that she was the right person for the job. But then she fired one staffer for getting pregnant. And her husband started making racist jokes. And she started packing staff with people from her personal work life. That was suspicious, but it wasn't enough to get me to quit. In June of 2019, I wanted to post something to celebrate Pride month, as one does. She told me in no uncertain terms that I was not to do so, as it did not align with the values of staff. I protested this idea, because I know our fandom. She fired me. I did not attend the event because of her behavior. Retracted my Founder level membership and stayed home. Later I learned that she had been ousted from her position, and - as I suspected she would - she took a huge chunk of staff (her personal work life people) with her. TTFC had been gutted by her actions but refused to die. I rejoined staff, and we rebuilt. Recruited. Brought good people on board. We were reborn from the ashes, better than we had ever been. That should have been the end of the story, but PeaceWolf doubled down on her awfulness. Deciding to make a convention honoring 'Freedom' (but only for people who thought like her). Our venue caught wind of what they were about and wanted nothing to do with it. THAT should have been the end of the story. She got the convention hosted in a government building. Brought the Furry Raiders onto staff. Got a GoH who admitted to being a Nazi. Decided to be who she really was, out in front of everyone. Decided to create a convention to reflect her heart. Succeeded in that. And here we are, July 30, 2022. Free Fur All is a flop, a mockery of itself. Attendance numbers smaller than some local furmeets. Attendees widely socially ostracized. Congratulations, PeaceWolf. These are the fruits of your labor. #FreeFurAll22 - Waidayu.

"This tweet is really tough to make and will be a thread. This is my story with Peacewolf and how she hurt me physically and emotionally. Before who I knew who she was now we we're friends. She took me to her house and we hung out was a great bonding experience. That was at first. After a few months in she manipulated me at the worst possible time when my mental health was at a downlow. She basically said, "You need to post on Twitter of everything true about me or this friendship is over." So me in my very bad mental state unfortunately posted what she wanted which got some people upset. In the end tho. I had enough of her and ended the friendship myself, but I ended up in the hospital due to this because I became suicidal with what happened. After that she started going after some of my friends. Honestly, I am very terrified even standing up here right now and I hope no one thinks less of me. Peacewolf is someone to stay far away from. I learned that the hard way. Hope everyone is having a great day overall." - Benji The Beagle.

Seeing these experiences between Benji and Waidayu, it proves on what Peacewolf really is and is really doing it to center herself around her 'friends' to what other people in the fandom call her enemies. It's pretty damn crazy if you think about it and it's the people with that mentality. Hell the drama for her goes all the way back into 2019 and 2020. I might come out with another update with some stuff regarding 2 Gryphon.

One other thing that I wanted to point out is that a Nazi user by the name of Fox "FoxGlove" Reno also known as @FoxGloveActual is Peacewolf's husband and constantly bickers to people who talk about Peacewolf since he's a nazi. Here's an example of this (@foxglove9001 was his old account).

Images & Sources:

Update Sources:

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