Midwest Fur Fest 2025 is the first furry convention I've attended since 2019, and the first one I've attended as an attendee rather than a vendor since 2011. I've never done a post-con discussion before, but the way things have changed in what should be so little time has really struck me.

Firstly, I got old. People tell me 41 isn't old, that I don't look old, but I am old. I found myself constantly tired, my feet still hurt, and I have a pain in my left hip that's never happened before but that I'm almost certain was caused by needing to take the stairs constantly. But more importantly, I see that the culture has moved on. The social isolation brought on by my autism has always meant that my relationship with culture and society has been arm's length at best, with me taking small pieces for myself and leaving the most of it alone. But this con just reinforced to me how much the world I knew has died and been replaced. It isn't better, it isn't worse, it's just changed, and I need to decide for myself what that means for me.

Secondly, what struck me is how much fanart has gone from being part of the fandom to its defining feature. Fanart has always been part of the fandom, and it always will be, but when I was going to cons twenty years ago, it was a minor sideshow that was often jeered at as being "unoriginal" or "uncreative," false though that is. Now it seems like it dominates, with trademarked characters being turned into fursuits, prints, body pillows, and more. People representing themselves with characters originally created by or heavily inspired by properties owned by Nintendo, Disney, and Bandai are the norm, not the exception. Partly I think this reflects the fact that the media many of these people grew up with is just better than what I did, anyone who tells you the garbage thrown at me by DIC and Hannah-Barberra can even hold a candle to the stuff available today is at best a liar. But partly it makes me worry that furry's spot as the only fandom that isn't beholden to corporate interests will one day come to an end. If you're into Star Trek, Paramount can and does and will decide what's acceptable for your convention. If you're into Star Wars, Disney will always hold veto power over any fan-made art you happen to develop. I saw first-hand how Hasbro actively suppressed the queer and kink communities trying to find a home in the Brony fandom while allowing the fascists to fester. The only reason furry has remained safe for queers in a world where the Harry Potter fandom can annihilate its entire trans contingent without remorse is because furry is the only fandom where corporations don't get a vote, because the intellectual property they've stolen from their employees isn't necessary. And the drift from fanart being fringe to being essential makes me worry that one day they will show up and say "no" and the last place I feel safe being gay will disappear.

This leads me into the third thing, which is the utter annihilation of the fandom's history in the past five years. I always knew the day would come when the graymuzzles I grew to love in my college days would retire or die, but I always thought their works would continue to be a thing. Even when I was vending from 2012-2019, their work was always present, being sold or re-sold by various retailers who ensured that, while the artist may no longer be in the fandom, their work certainly is. But time and especially COVID-19 has made this disappear completely. Other than some of the furry publishers continuing to make available certain titles they own the rights to, pretty much nothing I saw at the convention was less than five years old. I get that at the end of the day, the Dealer's Den is filled with people running businesses, and needs of business necessitate that the new must always supplant the old. But now I have to wonder if furries today are even going to know that they have a past? That people came before them? That the fandom can exist without social media, without corporate input, with only those things we can make with our hands? Again, my biggest fear concerning the fandom is that one day, I'll start seeing corporate sponsors, corporate influence, and corporate rules pushing down on what isn't "advertiser friendly," which has emerged as corporate newspeak for demanding the erasure of queer people. And the fandom /is/ now erasing queer people - the ones who came before now, who no longer come to display and sell their own work, and whose art and culture no longer produce revenue. Maybe it's because I'm old, maybe it's because I'm a coward, but I feel that one day, this too will come for me. And the fact that I spent 12 years owning and operating a furry business that sold literally hundreds of thousands of dollars of product yet even the people I once employed can't recognize my name shows me how inevitable and terrifying that erasure is.

I wanna conclude on a positive note and that's that I've found my new favorite thing to do at a con and that is to just go around handing out complements. For all my fear of corporate takeover or the erasure of me and other older members of the fandom, I take nothing but absolute joy in the artistic skill and diversity of skill on display at MFF. In an era where corporations think that you as a consumer are not only incapable of creation but should not be allowed to create, that you should abandon all skill and expression and subsume one of the defining traits of humanity to an unfeeling AI, seeing what's on display in the art shows and dealer's dens and the costumes of the attendees was better than anything money could buy. Which is handy since I more than blew through my budget before noon on Saturday. I spent hours just going from booth to booth, gathering business cards and saying nice things about all of the hard work on display. I even assembled all those cards into a memento (viewable here https://bsky.app/profile/rolandguis.....m7gi6wj74c2p). I regret selling/giving away/losing all those con books I used to have from the days of yore, allowing myself to foolishly fail to preserve the very history I'm now terrified is just plain gone. But I think that these binders of cards, tiny collections of the artistic brilliance of this fandom, will be a lovely replacement. Especially since their complete absence of financial value means that when I invariably enter financial ruin again, their preservation will outweigh any potential profit in their departure.

For all its flaws, horrors, drama and straight-up bullshit, there's nowhere I'd rather be than with you guys. I just hope I can do it again next year.