Gazebo Furs
About a year ago I coined the term “Gazebo fur” to describe a certain type of person in the community. One who has a level of power as to dictate what is and isn’t acceptable, because a few years back they rented a gazebo in the park for meets. The act of renting the gazebo had no qualifications, and as such the person is ill equipped to handle things like say… consorted and dedicated efforts by white supremacists to subtly inject their politics into the community; or an abusive person that’s friends with a friend of said gazebo fur. These situations require confrontation, a grievous sin to gazebo furs. After all, the entire source (and possibly motivation) of their success was avoiding confrontation. We are a happy community. And people who bring confrontation ruin it.
I’ll go ahead and cite a personal example of how this can be a problem; At the start of the pandemic, around about May 2020, after the first lockdown and before the main spike; a local event holder and group chat moderator was discouraging masks, and trying to get events going again. I cited the obvious medical issues. He persisted citing the various anti-mask excuses that have now become beyond tiring. I persisted, and then he pulled out the old chestnut of “I am a moderator, and I say drop the subject.” and I, knowing what was at stake, didn’t. The result was that I was banned from the group chat, and any future events. When I asked the other admins in the group chat to reconsider, I was greeted with “He is an admin and he asked you to stop. It’s a matter of personal preference as to if people go or not.” I, as the bringer of confrontation, was the bad one. And he as the host of an event, was to be obeyed and listened to.
That was about 600,000 Covid deaths ago.
The chat moderator in question was soon found out to have a fascination with stahlhelms and swastikas. And had that not been the case, I’d still be ostracized. I’d still be in the wrong. Because the furry community here wants to avoid confrontation so much that they will let people lie and get other people sick. The moderators who backed him up on his decision still don’t see anything wrong in what they’ve done. Or at the very least haven’t apologized.
And the swastika situation is another facet of things; it’s been a matter of public knowledge for years now that there were dedicated efforts of white supremacists, alt right, nazi types, using nerd culture to inject their politics into these spaces. But to confront all but the most overt of the opinions they’ve injected is heinous. The people in charge of our communities would rather believe the thinnest of fig leaves, would pretend that it really is a difference of opinion that trans people deserve civil rights, or that protesters shouldn’t be killed. Or that masks and vaccines should be required in a convention.
And with conventions opening up, we see that the gazebo furs still reign. Will they confront the sex offender that they were warned about before the convention? No. Will they mandate masks and vaccines and confront the state government to ensure that we keep our community safe? No. The gazebo furs would rather risk attendees getting assaulted, would rather risk them getting sick; than to have these confrontations. The health of the community is secondary to avoiding an uncomfortable conversation, a drawn out fight, or a legal battle. They’d rather risk a wrongful death suit from an attendee than one from the governor.
The Gazebo furs are still in charge. And we are expendable to their comfort.
