"furry boi inspector"

Huckleberry Hound

Well... at least an icon like that will make sure everyone interacting with them knows immediately that they take pride in *checks notes* participating in the authoritarian coup being carried out by the federal government against both the legislature and the judiciary in a remarkably transparent move to transition the country into an actual oligarchy ruled by the capitalist billionaire elite. Or, you know, the mass deportation of minorities. "DoN'T bRiNG PolITicS iNtO mY pOrN." Shut up. Listen. My brother is half hispanic and our mother and his wife had to beg him, crying, to keep his birth certificate in his glove box because red necks were literally prowling the streets in trucks scooping up brown people to turn in to ICE. I and many of my friends are transgender and they are working very hard to make transitioning legally impossible. My girlfriend is post-op and no longer produces her own hormones, so not having access to hormones would have an incredibly negative impact on her health. Honestly the list of things they're doing to harm people of any demographic that is not white christian republicans is too long to list. This isn't "You'RE BeINg tOO PoLItiCAl" anymore. This is not up for debate. They are hard at work dismantling any and all protections against discrimination of ALL kinds and when they're done fucking us over they're coming for you. So no. I'm not going to stay silent anymore. We've been too patient, polite, and accommodating for far too long and it is how we got here. When this comes up I now have an ethical RESPONSIBILITY on behalf of my community and members of my family, much less the people they'll come after next, to tell anyone who will listen that things are not okay right now. Pretending that it is and making a cute silly icon for a member of the fucking FBI complete with a tactical rig given the current circumstances says a library's worth of volumes about your current stance on what's happening and I'm incredibly disappointed. Honestly furious. It is... difficult to describe how it feels emotionally to be paying attention to everything that's been going on since he took office only to check my submissions feed and find THIS. I hope whatever they paid you was worth the sharp stomach turning dread this inspired in countless people who follow you that are currently very worried about retaining their basic human rights in the coming months and years

They are not the American FBI.

Interesting! Where? Because I checked the wikipedia disambiguation for "FBI" and I don't see any others. Anywhere. I've searched around and the short answer is there isn't one. But I would be more than ready to welcome back the potent embarrassment I felt initially reading that before searching around and finding that this almost certainly isn't the case. If it turns out that there actually is a real, nonfictional, FBI that is not the one in the US that uses all of its commonly known visual identifiers such as that cap you will have the most sincere apology I can muster

It stands for furry booty inspector it's not that deep

+1

+1

Okay. This is a lurker account. In three and a half years, I have never made a single comment. As a libertarian socialist, this is an overreaction. The FBI is generally a nonpartisan government organization focusing on intelligence, mainly crime. It does not play a significant role in public policy, and only a supporting role in immigration. The vast majority of public servants remain employed by the government through transitions of power between parties in just about any country, including undemocratic ones. Even if this art could be contrued as a support for the actions of the FBI, the background implies the time period is roughly the 1970s, certainly pre-2000. This icon has nothing to do with the current crises caused by the Trump administration and does not indicate support for any particular political party. Besides, the FBI has had accusaions of liberal bias for the last 7 years, so they could have been fired (or will be fired soon due to all this nasty government gutting) and simply kept the hat. Heck, it could be satire showing the FBI as incompetent. Who can say what the intent is?

My deepest sympathies for your family and friends. Hope to get a strong progressive candidate in 2028. Please, this art is NOT political. And if it is, it is political in the most milquetoast I'm-not-literally-the-most-radical-anarchist-currently-alive sort of way. I understand that you need to vent your frustrations somewhere, but this is not the proper target.

Where to start. Self admitted lurker account necro's a thread from about two weeks ago under a relatively uninteresting and otherwise un-clickworthy post. At least as far as finding it either in your submissions feed or the gallery. I mean I got upset at it but... there's not a particular draw to this one unless you're wound up like I was. My hunches are you: A)Read but did not engage with my comment much closer to the date of its posting and couldn't take not commenting any longer. B) You're familiar with the commissioner on some level and they're hurt by what I said and this is how it's being expressed. C) You're familiar with the artist on some level, what I said bothered them, you're here to defend them. Option A would be... odd timing, considering that the CR passed the senate today. It was pretty odd watching a video uploaded by Bernie Sanders telling everyone to go get politically active locally to save our very country because Congress is too corrupt to expect them to fix this for us on /my birthday/ let me tell you. So... being a bit whipped up and your mind going to this isn't unthinkable. Options B and C... whatever, fam. I'm not here to be some arbiter for what you can and can't do. You can do whatever you want. I just pretty much literally can't afford not to speak out at this point. I will admit I got much spicier than necessary. Neither of us want to get into what's been going on with me, it hasn't just been politics, but that isn't an excuse either. I could have been far more concise and polite and I'm not proud of getting that worked up.

Anyway lets get into the meat, because I feel like we're misunderstanding each other a lot here. I'm not going to take the low hanging fruit on the libertarian thing, I disagree but not on anything remotely relevant to this and not in a way that I think reflects on you as a person. I'm passionate but I'm not one of "those." Okay, specifying the nature of the FBI. Yeah, I'm familiar. "Nonpartisan" is... technically correct, obviously, but it is also a branch of the federal government and thus beholden to the President of the United States who, by nature of our two party system and how our elections work, is most certainly not non-partisan. They are non-partisan as an organization absolutely but... they're still beholden to someone who isn't. Yes. Yes, there are a lot of regulations and procedures about how things are done. Does... it look like that guy has been respecting them all that much though? At any rate public policy... correct, of course. Immigration... Yeah I'm acutely aware who I'm far more pissed at is Immigration and Customs Enforcement. I was, while having a bit of a meltdown I grant you, trying to convey that symbolism of the federal government of the United States has become very strongly associated with a very coordinated attack on the rights of minorities many of whom count themselves among their watchers. You do you, I don't dictate your audience, but worth pointing out? I dunno. Maybe it wasn't. Public servants remain... Oh honey. Yes. Yes they did. They're making people take loyalty tests and there's a billionaire on stage literally brandishing a chainsaw that he's bragging about taking to the people working for our federal government and this is your argument? That... that they usually stay? Yeah. Yeah, usually. Oops. Alright... You're... you're arguing that the reel to reel tape machine in the background dates this piece at a cozier time. Technically correct. Still not fun under current circumstances. I get that I went off a bit there about the person commissioning it under current circumstances and... I regret that. It really does detract from a far more salient take I have which is that with this kind of stuff going on it's hard for a lot of us to see reminders of a lot of stuff we're very stressed about. Nothing to do with current- basically already covered this, it's not that it does it's that we can't get away from it on our end. We're the ones stuck here and this doesn't really need to be right on the nose to be hard. Besides the FB- I really don't know what to make of that. I don't know why you think I'd find that remotely relevant at all, their "accusations" (from who??) of a liberal bias or... why it seems you think I'd be comforted by them getting fired for that bias or just to gut the fed and they kept the... hat? Ah, this is a character defense of the commissioner. I mean possibly? I don't care. I think it's weirdly put, it's... treating the commissioner like they're their character and not the person. "They just kept the hat" No. No, they paid a talented artist to illustrate for them something personal and expressive that they personally identify with for use as an icon for using on the internet. That necessitates a certain pride in that uniform and advertising being a part of that organization that kind of precludes that possibility. But... I mean screw it, right? I was butt hurt but I'm a random trans woman on the internet I don't get to tell them whether or not they can live with themselves that way. Might even be quite happy that way and... whatever, fam. I couldn't but you're not me. Satire...? Ah, to question my authority to infer intent. Nah, see, this isn't abstract or deep. Yeah I know, I said it wasn't deep lmao. But really it's not exploring concepts it's a profile picture, an icon. A visual shorthand for saying "This is me!" and for them "Me" is an icon of a cute puppy guy and his only defining feature is blue because literally that whole face is covered by that hat. It's cute, for the record. But it means the person who wanted it really /really/ wanted the focus to be on their being a part of the FBI and whether that's fictional or not it does say a lot about them whether they really agree with what most people read from that or not. You can have all the intent in the world but at the end of the day not everyone is going to read that intent and you've gotta cope just like the rest of us. Alright there's that paragraph.

Thanks for the sympathies. I'm hoping we can get things turned around, yeah. I'm less sure every day what we're going to need to do for our country and when to make that happen but in the event this flaming sinking ship makes it into port for another election in 2028 much like this last time I will be there to vote for the lesser of two evils just like I have every presidential election and... Yeah, I'll admit it, I'm going to have to get a lot better at showing up at those mid-terms too. Anyway. Wait you closed the first paragraph with interrogating my or anyone's authority to declare the intent of the piece and now you're unilaterally declaring it isn't yourself as if you /do/ have that authority. Now, you could simply be missing that cognitive dissonance, happens, but it does lend some interesting weight to the theory that you're the commissioner. I mean the Bluesky in the description was for a lurker account too, come to think of it. Huh. Eh, whoever they are they shouldn't be losing sleep over someone like me. Their conscience maybe... but that's a them problem to work out, they shouldn't be arguing with me about it. If it is... don't straw man me, fam. I mean I am an anarchist, I'll come clean on that seeing as you were kind enough to share you're libertarian when we both know that's really tee-ing me up. But I'm really not trying to get all that radical, beneath what I'll freely admit again was far too passionate. I really should have at least calmed down first. Proper target... On that I'm going to say absolutely, in that I shouldn't have targeted the commissioner. I've doubled down on some things in this post so let me clarify: It really distracted from what I actually felt was important which was conveying that seeing that stuff is hard and I don't think I'm the only person it's hard for. And there's merit to sharing that! They have a diverse audience and knowing at least some people are experiencing that kind of reaction when they may not desire that can be helpful for informing their future decisions and that decision could easily be "I'm posting it anyway" and fam go nuts I can easily just unwatch. Your audience will find you, fam, it shouldn't matter to anyone whether I'm in it. Not the artist, not me, not anyone. Wasn't for me. Guess I'll check out one of the tens of thousands of other artists. Less in the niche stuff but... you get my point. So why bitch? Wasn't for me. I don't think I was the only one who felt dread for a moment and like... dunno. Sharing that is important. Captain "It stands for furry booty inspector" represents a decent portion of people and if we don't figure out how to convey to the people who think this isn't going to effect them just how wrong they are they're not going to help stop it and they're wrong. It is going to effect them and not in a pretty way. I... can't just stay quiet

Slept on it. Want to acknowledge a question I'm even asking myself: "Yeah, but is making noise in the comments of a nobody's new profile picture accomplishing... any of that?" and... it engaged you. Two weeks later and you're here to engage critically even if we seem to disagree on some key stuff. That's more than I would have accomplished staying silent and the world needs a lot more of that now, not less. We can disagree but we absolutely need to be engaged in figuring it out, because trusting it to be figured out for us is really not working out and probably contributed significantly to getting where we are. I truly believe that

I...hold on. Let's back this all up. Libertarian socialism is not in any way affiliated with the Libertarian Party in the United States. As a self-described anarchist, I would've thought you were aware of the co-opting of anarchist communism into the "libertarian" right (essentially just fascism except corporations replace the state instead of merging into it). I need you to understand that I am a leftist with no right-wing influence in economics or culture. Anarchism IS the most extreme form of libertarianism, by definition. That word is not trademarked by a specific political party, and avoiding using that word is what causes these confusions.

I can't believe I got multiple conspiracy theories centered on me. I'm giddy reading them. But seriously, 2 weeks is not that long. It's on the second row of the gallery. I like the design. Does there need to be a more intricate explanation? For the record, I am not the commissioner, and I don't personally know them, Sexotheque, or anyone with the initials FBI.

And this conversational writing technique. Going line-by-line. It's like a miniature First Treatise. I love it. Responding to each of my potential explanations individually, while it would be an excellent response to a Gish gallop, doesn't addess my point (that, in hindsight, could have used more specific diction) that you are assigning undue weight to the political ramifications of the FBI "brand." It doesn't have much more political relevance than... I'll just pick a random agency, the US Postal Service. Technically, all of those workers are under Trump now. They were under Biden 3 months ago. Does that make them representative of the Republican Party in some sort of 1984esque rewriting of history for them to have always been a conservative organization? No. They shouldn't just be given up as another Trump instrument.

What I was getting at with accusasions of liberal bias is the bashing of the FBI even stretching back to the first Trump term. Republican support for the FBI tanked in 2018, and stayed that way. With the latest Gallup poll in September 2024, only 20% of Republicans thought the FBI was doing a good job, compared to well over 60% for Democrats. It has the sixth highest gap in net favorability of the 16 major government agencies, just below the big ones like the CDC, EPA, and Department of Education. As far as agencies go, it would be a relatively unconventional choice to go with the FBI to represent conservative values.

But in reality, none of that matters. This is a fictional being, part of a fictionalized version of a real government organization that may evoke feelings of the real government it's part of. As a relatively political person myself, it wasn't my first thought. The FBI has been a trope for a century. That might have been what Sexotheque was getting at when they said "They are not the American FBI." The trope shouldn't be confused with reality. Or should we just hold off on making any art involving any possible member of a US-like governmental organization until the political situation improves because someone might think the artist supports Trump?

It's okay to go on rants. It's okay to write extensively about passions. But this is not the place to advocate political action. If I may interpret, your view of the situation is as if the art was of ICE and the comment was "ermmm actually ICE stands for Impressive Cock Enjoyer." That would be a more understandable outrage, as ICE is much newer, doesn't have many connotations outside of current politics, and is generally affiliated with unsavory things. But that's not what's happening. We are witnessing a trope. It's okay to make a joke about the FBI—one that's, if I may, relatively common, as I feel I've heard it before. It is absolutely possible to make light of the FBI while also recognizing the immediate human rights threat the current US administration is. The two are completely separate.

I encourage you to join a local political organization and perhaps fill the political outlet you need, since you have shown interest in political activism. I would suggest a DSA chapter, if one's local, or perhaps an organization dedicated to a specific policy you are particularly passionate about.

No, I know libertar- *Long sigh* Yeah. Yeah, I understand that libertarianism is broader than the Tea Party. There's a reason I merely acknowledged it was "low hanging fruit" and didn't take that path. Also... what you're describing is an anarcho-capitalist and yeah they're nuts. I'm... not "avoiding" using libertarianism and I'm not encouraging you to either. I'm an anarcho-communist, at least notionally, but it really turns me off that the majority of communist flavors (stalinism and maoism particularly) turn to authoritarianism to fight capitalism. Though... considering what the west and especially the US has historically done to openly communist territories it's not as if that happened in a vacuum. This gets into a whole thing I have about incentive systems and how all I really want is to collectively figure out how to structure things such that cooperation is intrinsically more rewarding than exploitation so that we /don't/ have a system that solves for the most ruthless and exploitative people to accumulate wealth and influence but we really don't have to get eyeballs deep into that here.

I mean I acknowledged that if you were I don't care and if you're not I don't care so... w/e.

*The deepest sigh* It's a thorough way to engage with what you've said and respond. But that's not what the sigh is about, I... political relevance isn't the issue here. Comparing the FBI to the USPS is... almost asinine here. I /know/ you've consumed media where something along the lines of "Oh shit, it's the FBI!!" Followed by feds in plate carriers with guns drawn bursting on scene. Have you seen anything remotely like that with the USPS? Even as satire? My girlfriend works for the USPS, matter of fact. Rural carrier, hasn't made it career yet. Just transferred, actually. Had to move, it's complicated and I miss her. She went from working with a jerk that violated regs to wear politically affiliated red hats at work and the postmaster always had his back. Even did stuff like screw with her keys to make her job harder. Now she works at an office with a couple lesbians and a trans man so, that's going a lot better. Assuming they can continue to get funding for one of the most vital public services the federal government is responsible for. Rural USPS serves places FedEx and UPS are just not going to bother to and no small amount of what's getting mailed is stuff like people's medications from online pharmacy these days. It's spooky that they want to get rid of it TBH. So... yeah, really didn't go with a strong comparison there. To circle back though, I'm not "giving up" on the FBI as a Trump instrument out of hand. Very significant effort is being put in to bring that organization to heel right now and don't misunderstand me at all. That sucks a /lot/ for the people working there who don't like what's happening and I have nothing but sympathy for them.

... Ahhhh. Ah. I think I finally see. No, this isn't about bashing conservatives for me. This is about the FBI being on some level threatening to think about given that they're an arm of a federal government that's off the rails. I'll admit it's really not often in the ways depicted in media but they engage in the enforcement of federal law. With guns. I don't care whether they voted Democrat, Republican, or whatever. I care about the fact that there's a nutbag that's telling them they need to swear absolute loyalty or GTFO and that's scary. It just is. Don't try to tell me it isn't. They investigate violation of federal law and they enforce that law. With weapons. This is not about which side of the aisle I'm on for me, Texas is already trying to argue that transgender people there changed the gender on their IDs illegally so that they can be put in fucking prison. Trump and the Project 2025 people are just /itching/ to do that on a bigger and bigger scale. If it became a federal crime to have your birth certificate, passport, etc updated my girlfriend is going to federal prison and it's quite possibly the FBI bringing her in unless they decide to make a new enforcement agency and name it after another stupid meme.

No. No it matters. I was there in the late 2000's when the discourse around the furries that liked to dress up like Nazi's was all "Aww what's the harm it's a dead ideology" but even if that held water (and it didn't that gave them exactly the space they needed to dig themselves in. Our niave tolerance of that garbage is exactly why the Furry Raiders exist) that's not what we're talking about. We're not talking about a dead ideology or what-ifs. We're talking about stuff literally actually happening right now in our own backyards. Well, my backyard I don't want to assume. This stuff scares the shit out of a good population of people and rightly so. My girlfriend is having to beat off demands from her mom to move out to where they retired in Portugal regularly, my dad and step mom are badgering me to get my passport because they're preparing for the possibility of moving to Uruguay, and I know several trans friends who are freaking out wondering if they'd even qualify to move to somewhere like Canada even if being trans made them a refugee. Especially the disabled ones, they're /super/ fucked. Oh if Sexotheque wants to make art of the FBI they can go nuts. But people will read into that, people who will like it that scare me and people who won't who are scared themselves. That's not my fault. If you're mad that it's suddenly complicated to openly rock symbology of armed enforcers of federal law then you can be mad at the people who make them scary, not the person letting you know they scare us shitless for good reason.

Nope. Hard disagree. I am not "getting political" in the traditional "Umm actually, my position on that policy..." sense. I am standing up and going "Yo, those are the guys with fucking guns that our nutbag president might turn into state police can we /not/ because I'm in a demographic they eager to erase and that freaks me and a lot of people I know right the hell out." And again, as I said multiple times, they can say "Fuck off, furry booty inspector" and for people not in my position that probably is funny but here we are. I already unwatched them, I'm here because I'm getting notifications from your replies. That's how this notionally works. They do something I might find freaky, I go "what the fuck?" and if I don't get a satisfying answer I take the hint and move on. But no. No, it's not separate. Not for me and not for many and you should sit with the fact that it being separate for you is a /privilege/ because you're not experiencing the same existential threat to your human rights. Yet.

Yeah. Yeah I intend to get politically active and I'm taking steps in that direction. It's a little hard when I'm in a very very small midwestern town and my only form of transportation is a OneWheel but I making it happen. I'm not going to stop speaking out, but I'm taking steps to work towards more meaningful change too.

I hate to do it but I can't come back to this thread. You can respond, but I can't read it. I can't debate what's staring us down with you when your attitude is this dismissive, it's really difficult for me and my autistic ass just can't seem to ignore it once I've read what you've said. It's three in the morning, I was finding porn to have a good time before passing out and instead I've spent at least an hour defending the take "The armed branch of the federal government that enforces federal law during an administration that seems eager to make my existence federally illegal is really scary, actually, please respect my discomfort with that."

I'd really rather have been crazy than correct but hey, here we are