This 4th of July weekend in Downtown Pittsburgh, over 17,000 people — many wearing handmade fur-suits — converged at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center for Anthrocon. It was a record-breaking year for the convention which has been held annually since 1997 and is now considered one of the largest furry conventions in the world.
The furry fandom, emerging in the 70s alongside the growth of fantasy, anime and role-playing subcultures, is a community that appreciates anthropomorphic animals. Many furries create their own characters, or “fur-sonas.” Donning a fursuit is somewhere between a performance and an identity, but convention organizers say ultimately it’s a mode of expression, creativity and respite from day-to-day stress.
“Everybody's reason for being — for making their characters even in suit or out of suit — is either an extension of themselves or something that is great about themselves that they want to expound upon,” explained Anthrocon’s assistant director of public relations Chris Mays, whose dalmatian fursona is named Osee. “So it is very much our identity and, and just an outward expression of all the great things that are about us.
OSEE: What makes [Anthrocon] so unique to Pittsburgh is the city welcomes us as much as we've welcomed the city to our culture. The city of Pittsburgh is a wonderful artistic community, and we can think of no better place for Anthrocon to be year after year.
CONI: “When you're in fursuits, you can get extremely hot. Some fursuits have fans built into their heads to help circulate and blow air in your face because you're sweating so much, especially in this weather right now. But I don't have that. I have an external fan, and this one happens to be shaped like a popsicle, which I think is really cute because I can still use it without looking too out of character.”
AURORA: “Aurora has been my online name for years, since before I graduated high school. It's kind of spanned across multiple characters. I don't really name other characters that I make different names — it's always just Aurora because my character's supposed to be me.”
NIHO: “I actually got this guy from a fursuit-selling website. The maker is local in my state, and this was back in 2017, 2018. I was looking through and I was like, ‘He's really cheap. He's in [West Virginia],’ and I said, ‘Let's go get him.’ So I got him and I've had him since then.”
MILO: “Milo is actually a sodaroo based off of the drink Mello Yello. It's a subspecies of kangaroos where they're based off of certain drinks. I commissioned a suit back last year by a person named LazyLupe. They're a really cool maker from Australia, and I just recently got him. This is the first convention I've gotten to show him off to people, and I'm very excited about it.”
BADGER: “I’m a programmer for my job. So the idea of it being a fursuit with coding and electronics, that kind of drew me in. The very first bit I had was just the lights — I didn't have any of the head or anything because that's the bit I was really interested in. It's just the perfect fursuit for me to work on.”
