Convention News

Midwest Furfest Bans Alt-Right Troll Milo Yiannopoulos, He Claims He’ll Attend Anyway

Alt-Right personality Milo Yiannopoulos has been banned from a lot of things. He’s not allowed on Twitter or Facebook. He’s been banned from the country of Australia. And now the man has been banned from Chicago area furry convention Midwest Furfest.

This all started when Yiannopoulos announced he was attending the convention on Telegram (one of the few places left he can post). Right Wing Watch posted a screenshot of the announcement:

Via Right Wing Watch
Why Yiannopoulos decided that he should attend a furry convention I don’t know. He apparently also submitted a panel called the “Politics of Fur,” and I can only assume that he was trying to build support in the unfortunate alt-right subsection of the furry community.

Yiannopoulos has been having problems building a following lately.

Outraged members of the furry community brought their concerns to Midwest Furfest. The con was fairly quick to act though. On September 16th, Midwest Furfest officially announced on their social media that Yiannopoulos has been banned from not only their 2019 event, but all future events the convention holds.

And if we lived in a sane, normal world — this is where the story would end.

According to Rolling Stone, when they reached out to Yiannopolous for comment, he said “I’m going anyway. And I’m taking friends. They best be ready.” Yiannopolous also posted the following screenshot of an email to his Telegram account:

Yiannopoulos’s Alleged Email to Midwest FurFest
Now, a couple of things. One, this is Yiannopoulos literally threaten to “ghost” or lobbycon Midwest Furfest. If his goal was to ingratiate himself with the furry community, publicly announcing you’re going to violate the social contract of con attendees and conventions isn’t going to make him very popular. Secondly, if a hotel has to choose between an event like Midwest FurFest and a hotel guest like Yiannopolous (who literally admits he has not actually booked a hotel room under his own name in that email), odds are they aren’t going to side with the guy who is banned from Australia.

Lobbyconning is only allowed as long as the hotel allows it.

This also raises questions though. Midwest FurFest is hosted at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, and there are multiple hotels associated with the con. One could assume it’s the attached Hyatt Regency O’Hare, but he could also mean a number of other locations. I mean, one has to assume he means the Hyatt Regency O’Hare, right? It’s not much of a statement if he means he just has a room at the Comfort Inn.

We’ll continue to follow this if anything else develops.

Via Right Wing Watch, Twitter, Rolling Stone

Trae Dorn

Trae Dorn has been staffing conventions for over twenty-five years. They also wrote and drew the now completed webcomic UnCONventional, and produce the podcasts BS-Free Witchcraft, On This Day With Trae, Stormwood & Associates, The Meatgrinder, and The Nerd & Tie Podcast. This leads many to ask how the heck they have the time to get it all done. Trae says they have the time because they “do it all quite poorly.”

One thought on “Midwest Furfest Bans Alt-Right Troll Milo Yiannopoulos, He Claims He’ll Attend Anyway

  • Mongoose

    “Fairly quick” nothin’. Midwest Furfest had their response ready within 36 hours, which is crazy fast given that a fair chunk of their high-level membership was out of the country when the news broke. That’s figuring a decision, making a press release, and getting it all approved by a Quorum.
    I’ll note that only the Hyatt O’Hare has in the past had event/convention space for MFF; they’ve been moving more and more things into the Convention center. Other hotels are indeed Other Hotels (Inasmuch as some are very convenient (And god, if he booked the Comfort Inn I’ll laugh)).
    I don;t think Milo knows how the furry fandom nor conventions operate; this overall seems like just a sad ploy to get himself back in the news in any way he can. I think the odds of him actually showing up at MFF are low, unless he thinks he can get news cameras there and play for them.

    Reply

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