A common narrative on discussion boards like Hacker News is that my inclusion of my fursona on my technical blog posts somehow makes them unsuitable for consumption in a business setting. (This claim is made despite the fact that I’ve never posted pornographic art on this blog.)
Well, Internet marketers must have missed that memo!
They keep contacting me through various channels to try to pay me to publish something that promotes some business.
A few years ago, I briefly humored one of these outreach requests just to see if they’d attempt to write it in my distinct style, complete with furry stickers. In the end, I declined payment and fully disclosed their draft blog post and the emails.
If the recent deluge of emails from marketing agencies are indicative of a trend, neither the furry art nor shenanigans have made me enough of a pariah to the advertising industry for them to leave me alone.
A word on emails and incentives
I generally don’t want to make a habit of publishing emails I’ve received, no matter how hilarious they would be to dunk on. This is especially true of hate emails I received over the years.
Part of the reason for my stance here is that it creates perverse incentives: Some people will enhance their negativity in the hopes that their email gets published next. This can lead the blogger to experience more negative feedback from their audience, which can lead to all sorts of toxic outcomes. Even if you avoid those, you still generally feel shittier about your own blog and interacting with people.
Conversely, I receive a lot of positive and thoughtful letters and comments from folks across the world. It’s a delight to hear from most of you.
I even occasionally hear from technical recruiters (and one investor) that are interested in working with cryptography or privacy experts. When this happens, I’ll funnel recruiters towards excellent people I know that are on the market for new jobs, and refer investors to companies staffed by people I’ve worked with before and know to be capable of delivering incredible work.
I actually don’t mind hearing from recruiters or investors in this way because there’s no editorial pressure on my blog’s contents. Connecting people on both sides of a potentially mutually beneficial business transaction is called being part of society and not a burden, nor something I hope to personally extract value from.
The problem is when people think they can pay me to publish their words as my own.
I’m not interested
I’d like to believe that explanation is sufficient and satisfactory, but we clearly don’t live in the ideal world.
So here’s some more reasons why I’m not going to entertain any offers from advertisers.
Your brand sucks
There’s no gentle way to put this, so I’m not going to mince words.
If you’re so desperate to try to get eyeballs on a product or service that you’ll ask furry bloggers that have explicitly made it a point to be hostile towards Advertising as an industry, your product or service is probably (at best) utter shit. In all likelihood, it’s even more likely to be a scam or a grift than merely “not valuable” to potential buyers.
If you’re that desperate, why would I subject my readers to your product or service at all, let alone endorse it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_F5GxCwizc
Your offer sucks
The dollar amount attached to these offers is, in practice, irrelevant. I wouldn’t sell out for any price, after all.
Having said that, the fact that these unsolicited offers are as cheap as they are also makes me feel kind of insulted.
You advertising parasites really think $100 (or less) is going to compel me to sell out? I’m not a middle school kid arguing for a bigger allowance. I have a career and pay a mortgage.
Give me some credit for fucks sake.
$100 wouldn’t even cover my hosting costs for this blog for half a year. Did someone in your network veer into the creepy realm of pick-up artists and suggest negging as an outreach strategy?![XKCD comic about pickup artists.[Hairy and Cueball sitting at a table.]Hairy: I've been learning tricks from pickup artist forums.Cueball: Pickup artists are dehumanizing creeps who see relationships as adversarial and women as sex toys.[Close-up of Hairy's head, with a faint outline of Black hat and Danish sitting at a table in the background.]Hairy: No, it's just a bunch of tips! Like negging: you belittle chicks to undermine their self-confidence so they'll be more vulnerable and seek your approval.[Close-up of Cueball's head.]Cueball: Just talk to them like a fucking human being.Hairy: Nah, that's a sucker's game.Hairy: Ok— wish me luck![Small frame across top of panel reads Meanwhile... and Danish is sitting at a table with Black hat standing next to the table holding a bowling ball under his arm.]Black Hat: I'm going to the bathroom to roll a bowling ball down under the line of stalls.Danish: Cool.[Close up of Cueball's head, with Hairy approaching Danish's table in the background.]Cueball: Oh no.[Hairy and Danish at a table. Hairy is standing up and leaning on the table.]Hairy: You look like you're on a diet. That's great!Hairy: How's the fruit plate?[Close-up of Danish's head.]Danish: Ooh- are we negging?Danish: Let me try![Close-up of Danish's head, with her hand raised.]Danish: You look like you're going to spend your life having one epiphany after another, always thinking you've finally figured out what's holding you back, and how you can finally be productive and creative and turn your life around.Danish: But nothing will ever change. That cycle of mediocrity isn't due to some obstacle. It's who you are.Danish: The thing standing in the way of your dreamsDanish: is that the person having them is you.[Hairy and Danish at a table. Hairy is standing up.]Danish: Ok, your turn! Ooh, try insulting my hair!Hairy: I think I need to go home and think about my life.Danish: It won't help.](https://fika.grin.hu/photo/link/10419 "XKCD comic about pickup artists.[Hairy and Cueball sitting at a table.]Hairy: I've been learning tricks from pickup artist forums.Cueball: Pickup artists are dehumanizing creeps who see relationships as adversarial and women as sex toys.[Close-up of Hairy's head, with a faint outline of Black hat and Danish sitting at a table in the background.]Hairy: No, it's just a bunch of tips! Like negging: you belittle chicks to undermine their self-confidence so they'll be more vulnerable and seek your approval.[Close-up of Cueball's head.]Cueball: Just talk to them like a fucking human being.Hairy: Nah, that's a sucker's game.Hairy: Ok— wish me luck![Small frame across top of panel reads Meanwhile... and Danish is sitting at a table with Black hat standing next to the table holding a bowling ball under his arm.]Black Hat: I'm going to the bathroom to roll a bowling ball down under the line of stalls.Danish: Cool.[Close up of Cueball's head, with Hairy approaching Danish's table in the background.]Cueball: Oh no.[Hairy and Danish at a table. Hairy is standing up and leaning on the table.]Hairy: You look like you're on a diet. That's great!Hairy: How's the fruit plate?[Close-up of Danish's head.]Danish: Ooh- are we negging?Danish: Let me try![Close-up of Danish's head, with her hand raised.]Danish: You look like you're going to spend your life having one epiphany after another, always thinking you've finally figured out what's holding you back, and how you can finally be productive and creative and turn your life around.Danish: But nothing will ever change. That cycle of mediocrity isn't due to some obstacle. It's who you are.Danish: The thing standing in the way of your dreamsDanish: is that the person having them is you.[Hairy and Danish at a table. Hairy is standing up.]Danish: Ok, your turn! Ooh, try insulting my hair!Hairy: I think I need to go home and think about my life.Danish: It won't help.")
Your writing style is uninteresting
I am, much to the chagrin of pedants everywhere, a proponent of conversational English writing.
Every attempt at native advertising copywriting I’ve seen has been painfully corporate and dull. (Maybe the pedants would like it, though?)
You might think you’re being conversational, but you’re about as authentic as the “sugar baby” scammers on Telegram.
You missed the point entirely
Have anyone in the advertising or marketing space ever wondered, “Why would anyone write technical deep dives under their furry fandom persona when all that could instead be written under their professional name to advance their own career?”
It’s not much of a mystery: I’m sufficiently established in my career that writing something that other engineers could use to bolster their career as my fursona isn’t a significant loss to me.
This is aside from the fact that most cryptography experts, and companies that hire cryptography experts, don’t give half a shit about anyone’s hobbies or participation in Internet subcultures, no matter how weird they may seem to Reddit users.“You’re a gay furry? There’s a private Slack channel if you want to join it. Talk to [person] for an invite.” — every major tech company
In practice, the most of the people who would hold such a thing against you aren’t the sort of people you’d want to work for anyway.
The entire point of writing furry blogs is to have fun; not to make money.
If people want to throw a few bucks my way for a coffee, as a way of showing their appreciation, that’s wonderful. But I don’t expect it, and I don’t take it for granted.
I don’t have a content strategy.
I don’t have monetization goals.
My livelihood doesn’t depend on how well my blog posts are received by strangers on the Internet.
I don’t fit the vague “content creator” box. There is no today’s sponsor. This message isn’t brought to you by anyone but me.
And that’s the way I like things.
I’d be willing to bet, that’s how most of my regular readers like things, too.
I don’t have anything to sell. I don’t want to have anything to sell.
If I ever recommend a piece of technology, it’s always for technical reasons and it’s usually free.
The only thing I do that could be considered mildly promotional is crediting the artists that drew stuff for me when I use it in my blog. (The furry sticker I used in the header image was made by AJ, by the way.)
Why do I do that? Because I want to see people in my community thrive. I don’t want anything in return.
A few years ago, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, I wrote a detailed series about getting into the tech industry for as close to $0 and zero experience as possible, aimed at furry audiences. Between the money I paid to artists to create the illustrations for that series, and the time and expertise that went into writing it, it’s probably worth something like $6,000 to someone in a three-piece suit.
To me, its worth is that a half dozen or so furries (that I know of) have successfully followed the advice given therein to change careers. This is priceless. But it also probably injected damn near half a million dollars into the economy, due to these folks’ increased purchasing power.
If each of them pay it forward and help at least one other person attain their career goals, based on the strategy and guidance I gave away for free, the sky’s the limit on how beneficial it could be.
Me selling out wouldn’t help anyone.
Furries aren’t a marketable demographic
I know that, partly due to the breakneck exponential growth of the furry fandom, it’s inevitable that some marketer would view us as an untapped market.
But every time a major brand has tried to establish themselves in the furry community, they usually get shouted at with lots of porn. This tactic is controversial (especially when the brand in question is one that a lot of kids might follow on social media) yet effective.
Porn is mainly an anathema to marketers because of influences from the likes of MasterCard, who are in bed with “Christian” anti-sex movements like “Exodus Cry”; not because there’s any falsehood to the idea that sex sells.
If I thought it would scare marketers away, and not just cause myself a different kind of headache, I would consider including furry porn on every blog post I ever wrote.
TL;DR
My final answer to any online marketer looking to publish anything on this blog is, “No.”
If anyone is really has money burning a hole in their pocket that they want to send me, you’re certainly free to do so, but you won’t get anything in return.
If it still doesn’t click, I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe my writing isn’t that good after all, and your brand would be better served by a blog that’s easier to understand? Tell yourself whatever keeps your unsolicited marketing emails from being sent.
https://soatok.blog/2024/07/02/my-furry-blog-is-not-an-opportunity-to-develop-your-brand/
#advertising #furry #Internet #marketing #nativeMarketing #rant
The people afraid to show their peers or bosses my technical writing because it also contains furry art are some of the dumbest cowards in technology.Considering the recent events at ApeFest, a competitive level of stupidity is quite impressive.
To be clear, the exhibited stupidity in question is their tendency to project their own sexual connotations onto furry art–even if said art isn’t sexual in nature in any meaningful sense of the word.
But then again, poetry can be sexual, so who knows?
Scandalous furry,
Why are you glitching like that?
Haiku are lewd too!
Art: AJThe cowardice comes in with the fear of their peers or bosses judging them for *checks notes* the content and presentation that I wrote, and not them.
Which (if you think about it for any significant length of time) implies that they’re generally eager to take credit for other people’s work, but their selfishness was thwarted by a cute cartoon dhole doing something totally innocent.
Even sillier, there’s a small contingent on technical forums that are “concerned” about the growing prevalence of queer and furry identities in technical spaces (archived).
Even some old school hackers conveniently forget that
alt.fan.furrywas a thing before the Internet.As frustratingly incompetent as these hot takes are, they pale in comparison to, by far, the biggest source of bad opinions about the furry fandom.
Credit: Tirrelous
The call is coming from inside the house.
Like Cats and Dogs
Last month, I wrote a blog post about Aural Alliance, which caused a menace in the furry music space to accuse me of “bad journalism” for not verbally crucifying the label’s creator (a good friend of mine) for having a failed business venture in the past, or taking credit for donating to their cause early on.
Twitter DM conversation.
Everyone I’ve talked to that has dealt with this particular person before responded with, “Yeah, this is typical Cassidy behavior.”To which one must wonder, “Since when am I a journalist?”
I’ve never called myself a journalist. I’m a blogger and I don’t pretend to be anything more than that. I especially would never besmirch the work of real journalists by comparing it with my musings.
At times, I also wear the security researcher hat, but you’ll only hear about it when I’m publishing a vulnerability.
This is a personal blog. I will neither be censored nor subject to compelled speech. I have no moral or professional obligations to “both sides” of what amounts to a nontroversy.
Nobody has ever paid me to write anything here, and I will never accept any compensation for my writing.
Sure, I contributed to covering Aural Alliance’s up-front infrastructure costs when it was just an idea in Finn’s head. I’m not going to apologize for supporting artists. The Furry Fandom wouldn’t exist without artists.
This kind of behavior isn’t an isolated incident, unfortunately. A handful of furries have rage-quit tech groups I’m in because they found out I generously tipped artists that were under-charging for their work.
It bewilders me every time someone reacts this way. Do you not know the community you’re in?
The most intelligible pushback I’ve seen over the years is, “Well if everyone raises their prices, low-income furries will be pushed out of the market!”
Setting aside that art is a luxury, not a need for a moment, that’s not actually true.
There are so many artists, and they’re so decentralized, that no coherent price coordination effort is even possible. It’s worse than herding cats. Some may raise their prices by $5, others by $500. If furries were organized enough to coordinate something like this, then we’d have a tough time explaining why there are still abusers in the fandom.
Also, it costs very little to learn to draw, yourself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeoQx9hphBw
Oh, but I’m not done.
The demand for low-priced digital art incentivizes people to reach for theft enabled by large-scale computing (a.k.a. “AI” by its proponents).
A similar demand for cheap, high-quality fursuits (usually at the maker’s expense) will lead to a walmartization of the furry community.
If you listen to these hot takes long enough, you start to notice a pattern of short-sighted selfishness.
When you demand something of the furry community, and don’t think of the long-term consequences of your demands, you’re probably being an idiot. This is true even if it’s actually a good idea.
If me supporting artists somehow prices you out of commissioning your favorite artist, you still have other options: Learning to make your own, finding new artists, saving money, etc.
On the flipside, the artists you admire will suffer less due to money troubles. Fewer artists starving makes the world a more beautiful place.
Center of the Fediverse
If flame war and retoot count relieved desire
In the comment thread someone must have known
That the hottest takes truly leave us tired
‘Cause in the center of the fediverse
We are all aloneWith apologies to Kamelot
If you’re on the Fediverse (e.g., Mastodon), and your instance uses a blocklist like TheBadSpace (TBS), you probably cannot see my posts onfurry.engineeranymore.This is because the people running TBS have erroneously decided that any criticism of its curators is anti-blackness.
If you want a biased but detailed (with receipts!) account of the conflicts that led up to
furry.engineer‘s erroneous inclusion on their blocklist, Silver Eagle wrote about their experience with TBS, blocklist criticism, and receiving death threats from the friends of TBS curators.(Spoiler: It was largely prompted by another predominantly LGBTQIA+ instance,
tech.lgbt, being erroneously added to the same blocklist, which resulted in criticism of said blocklist curators.)Be forewarned, though: Linking to Silver Eagle’s blog post was enough for TBS supporters to harass me and directly accuse me, personally, of anti-blackness, so don’t expect any degree of level-headed discussion from that crowd.
Art: CMYKat
What Can We Do About This?
If you cannot see my Fediverse posts anymore, and actually want to see them, message your instance moderators and suggest unsubscribing from TheBadSpace’s blocklist.If they refuse, your only real recourse is to move to another instance. The great thing about the Fediverse is, you can just do that, and nobody can lock you in.
Personally, I plan on sticking on
furry.engineer. I trust its moderators to not tolerate racist and/or fascist bullshit.The baseless accusations of anti-blackness are, unsurprisingly, false.
Burnout Isn’t Inevitable
A few months ago, I quit a great job with an amazing team because the CEO decided that everyone has to return to working in the office, including people that were hired fully remote before the pandemic. This meant being forced to move more than 3,000 miles, or resigning. I’ve been told the legal term for such a move is “constructive dismissal.”In hindsight, I was starting to burn out anyway, so leaving when I did was a great move for my mental health and life satisfaction.
Art: CMYKat
I’m an introvert. I have a finite social battery. Because my work was split across three different teams at the same company, I was a necessary participant in a lot of meetings.
More than 5 hours per day of meetings, as an individual contributor. Sometimes as many as 7 hours/day of them. I almost never had a quiet day, even after blocking one day every week so nobody would schedule any meetings and I could get productive work done.
If you’re interested in being a people manager, or have an extroverted personality, you’re probably unperturbed by this account. But I was absolutely miserable. My close friends started to worry if I was suffering from depression, because of how socially exhausted I was all the time.
I took a few weeks off between jobs. My new role doesn’t pointlessly encumber me with unnecessary meetings.
Every day, I feel the burnout symptoms leaving my mind. I feel challenged and stimulated in a good way. I’m learning new technologies and being productive. I’ve never spent more than 3 hours of any given day in a meeting.
Different people burn out in many different ways, for many different reasons.
In my experience, the consequences appear to be reversible if caught early enough. I don’t know if they would be if I held onto my old job for much longer.
The job market’s tough right now, but if you’re deeply unsatisfied with an aspect of your current job, prioritize yourself and make whatever change is necessary.
This doesn’t mean you have to switch jobs like I did, of course. It was a good move for me. Your mileage may vary.
Where’s The Cryptography?
https://youtu.be/4KNzdlc7ZcA?t=59Somedays I feel like writing about technical topics. Other days, I feel like writing about unimportant or personal topics.
If you’re disappointed in this post, perhaps you also expect everything on this blog to be professionally useful?
Well, worry not, for you’re eligible for a full refund for the amount you paid to read it.
Art: CMYKat
Logging Off
This post has been a collection of unrelated topics on my mind over the past few months. There is one other thing, but I was unsure if it warranted a separate post of its own, or an addendum on this one. Since you’re reading this, you’ll know I ultimately settled on the latter.I started this blog in 2020 because I thought having a personal blog where I talk about things that interest me (mainly the furry fandom and software security) would be fun. And I wanted to do it in a way that was fun for me.
“Having fun with it” has been the guiding principle of this blog for over 3 years. I never intended to do anything important or meaningful, that sort of happened by accident. I didn’t care about others being able to use my writing in a professional setting (hence, my scoffing at the very notion above).
Lately, posts have slowed to a crawl, because it’s not fun for me anymore. I have a lot of ideas I’d love to write about, but when it comes time to turn an idea into something tangible, I lose all inspiration.
So I’m not going to force it.
This will be the last post on this blog for a while. I recently tried to pick up fiction writing, but I’m not happy with anything I’ve been able to produce yet, so I won’t bore anyone with that garbage.
There are a lot of brilliant people that read my writing. Most of you are more than capable of picking up where I left off and starting your own blogs.
I encourage you to do so.
Have fun with it, too. Just remember, when it’s time to put the pen down and take a rest, don’t be stubborn and burn yourself out.
Happy hacking.
Header is a collage of art from AJ, CMYKat, Kyume, WeaselDumb, and a DEFCON Furs 2023 photo from Chevron.
https://soatok.blog/2023/11/17/this-would-be-more-professionally-useful-if-not-for-the-furry-art/
#fediverse #furries #furry #FurryFandom #furryMusic
