I'm going to skip the part where I explain what a babyfur is because if you're reading this, you already know. You probably know better than most people will ever understand.
I figured it out about myself around 2016. Or, that's when I finally admitted it, anyway. The feelings had been there way longer. I just didn't have words for them, and then when I found the words, I spent another year or so convinced I was broken somehow.
You know how it goes.
The Telegram Era
Eventually I found my way into some Telegram groups. Aus Babyfurs. A couple others. Lots of intros, lots of "hiii welcome!!", lots of late-night conversations that made me feel slightly less like an alien. I made friends. Real ones, even if we'd never met face-to-face.
But here's the thing about online community: it's amazing until it isn't. You can have the most wonderful chat at 2am with someone who genuinely Gets It, and then you close the app and you're just... alone in your room again. With your stuffies that nobody in your real life knows about. In a city where nobody knows this part of you exists.
I used to scroll through posts from American babyfurs going to camps and sleepovers and conventions with entire babyfur tracks and just... stare. Like looking at pictures of a country I couldn't afford to visit.
FurDU Didn't Fix It
Don't get me wrong, I love FurDU. Going to a furry con for the first time was incredible. Being surrounded by people in ears and tails, finally being somewhere that "weird" was normal. I cried in the bathroom on the first night, the good kind of crying.
But it's a furry con. Not a babyfur event. And there's a difference.
I remember being in my hotel room with my overnight bag, looking at the onesie I'd packed "just in case," and not being able to put it on. What if someone saw? What if furries, furries, of all people, thought I was too weird? The babyfur community has always been kind of the odd ones out, even in spaces that are supposed to be accepting. We're used to it. Doesn't mean it doesn't sting.
I ended up shoving the onesie back in my bag and going to the rave in jeans like a normal person. Had fun. Still felt like I'd chickened out of something.
The Idea
The idea for BBF didn't come to me in some big flash of inspiration. It was more like... sediment building up. Every time I saw an American event I couldn't go to. Every time someone in the group chat said "I wish there was something like that here." Every time I imagined what it would feel like to actually be in a room full of people where I didn't have to hide anything.
In 2023 I started actually looking into it. Venues. Costs. What would it take. Could it even work in Australia, where everyone's spread across a continent and we don't have the numbers that the US does?
The answer was: I don't know. But I couldn't stop thinking about it.
The Thing I Keep Coming Back To
There's this specific feeling I'm trying to create. I don't know if I can describe it properly, but I'm going to try.
It's waking up somewhere that isn't your house, but still feeling safe. It's walking into a common area in your pajamas, the real pajamas, the ones with the feet, and nobody looking at you weird. It's eating cereal next to someone who's also eating cereal, both of you a bit sleepy, maybe wearing ears, not having to perform anything. Just existing.
I've felt it exactly twice in my life. Once at a small house party where everyone happened to be a babyfur, and once at a camp overseas that had a babyfur cabin (which was amazing but also very much not Australia, and required a flight I couldn't always afford).
Both times I didn't want to leave. Both times I thought: why isn't this a regular thing? Why do I have to wait years for it to happen by accident?
Why Brisbane
Because I live here. That's the honest answer.
Also because Brisbane's kind of perfectly placed, close enough to the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast that people can drive, got an airport for the interstate folks, and there are actually properties around here that work for what I'm imagining. We're not Sydney or Melbourne, which means things are slightly more affordable, and also there's something nice about not being in the Big City. More chill. More space.
Queensland energy, I guess. If you know, you know.
What I Want This To Be
Not a con. Not a party. Not a "meetup" where everyone stands around being awkward.
I want it to feel like a sleepover at a friend's house, if that friend had a really big house and also 30 other friends who were all babyfurs and also there were fairy lights everywhere and someone made pancakes in the morning.
I want it to be the thing I wished existed when I was sitting alone in my room in 2016, convinced I was the only person in Brisbane who felt this way.
I want someone to come to BBF and feel that thing, that feeling of finally, finally, finally being somewhere they belong. And then I want them to make friends who live close enough to actually see again. I want them to leave with numbers in their phone and plans to hang out. I want to build something that outlasts the weekend.
The Scary Part
I'm putting this out there not knowing if it'll work. Maybe not enough people will sign up. Maybe I'll screw something up. Maybe I've overestimated how many babyfurs in Australia actually want something like this.
But I keep thinking: what if it works? What if there are other people out there who've been waiting for exactly this, the same way I was?
Anyway. That's the story. Not very dramatic. Just someone who got tired of wishing something existed and decided to try making it real.
If that sounds like something you want to be part of, I'd love to have you in the pack.
– Pudding 🐾
(yes, that's really what I go by, no I'm not telling you my species, you'll find out if you come)