A furry creates a virtual Dia de Los Muertos ofrenda in VRChat to celebrate and remember deceased members of the furry fandom.

    Transcript

    PAWSRY: Changa, first, thank you so much for joining this interview. Now, feed my curious mind: what motivated you to start this project?

    CHANGA: “It came from my roommate, Mark Belino, one of the earlier founders of the fandom (who) got moved by the Disney movie Coco, and decided to make an ofrenda for PAWCon, which took place over the holiday, in late Oct, early Nov.

    He built it with pictures of furries who passed and we got permission to put it outside the Dealers’ Room. People then added to it, it was very beautiful. 

    There is no PAWCon this year due to the state of the world being what it is, we decided to try to build it here. Originally it was just the photos he put in there of older furries from the fandom, people like Bob Hill, who was going to be the first fursuiter at the first furry convention who we’ve lost a couple of years ago.

    But since it’s a world that’s virtual in VR, we have more potential walls and space than we would (have) normally, so I started trying to find as many people as I could to add from the fandom. Looking through Wikifur and FA, just looking for people that have passed.

    We’ve gathered around 185 people that I’ve found and confirmed, got photos, at least their fursona art, or pictures of them.

    And with the help of Brainfreeze who got involved in this project, we pulled together very short biographies. And since we could have them clickable and bring up information about the people, we’ve expanded it from there.

    We decided to make this an ongoing project, and memorialise as many people as we can in the fandom as we could.

    It’s a good reminder and a celebration of well, the people in our community and around the world, really! And yeah, it’s a project that’s kind of rolled out of control. Unfortunately, I’ve going to have to build more walls. The ofrenda has already grown up to more than 200 people, at least close to it.

    We’ll see where it goes. But hopefully, this will become more public and get out of (VRChat community) labs. Right now it is in the comm labs in VRC (VRChat). It needs more activities, and more people visiting and favouriting it.

    But if we keep it up and hopefully get it linked in a few places, it’ll at least become a place of remembrance for people in our community.

    PAWSRY: That’s a lot of hard work there. So much work to memorialise and preserve memories. Now given this history, could you tell us, looking forward, what do you hope to achieve with this?

    CHANGA: I don’t think about projects too far ahead, do I? (Laughter) Seeing the response I’ve gotten so far and given how this year has been, I’m hoping to help the community remember and deal with grief.

    We’ve lost a lot of people. I’m realising, in this year alone, right before I put this world up to publish, the furry community in VRChat lost somebody that I have to add.

    We’ve unfortunately lost a whole bunch of people this year, I think more than we’ve lost in previous years, and it hurts. I hope this gives people at least a way to remember them.

    PAWSRY: You know, it’s nice; it’s like we’re always associating the dead with grief and monochromatic themes; like just black and white.

    But seeing this place, this festivity: Dia de Los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead, it’s really beautiful that we’re not grieving over people’s death. We can move away from that, it seems, and celebrate the things they’ve done. Their legacy.

    CHANGA: Yeah, it is really beautiful how it is more of a celebration and not a funeral. That’s why we made a conscious effort to not list the biographies of how people died, but more of what they’ve loved, or at least what we could find out.

    Sometimes there isn’t enough information on people. And pulling through Wikifur, Wikifur focused on people’s deaths and that’s not what we’ve wanted here. We want a celebration (like Dia de Los Muertos).

    The other reason why I have the TV playing actual Day of the Dead music, music videos, more upbeat music, I want to add more to that, as well as at least a little documentary piece on the holiday just to get more people to be aware, they need more information in here about the Day of the Dead generally.

    And I have at least several furs from VRChat, who are from Mexico, who have been a great help in making sure I get the details right because I’m new to it as well. But I think it is beautiful and it is a great way of showcasing people in our community that are no longer with us.