Raising the Discourse

Please note that this transcript is automatically generated and contains many inaccuracies

Disclaimer

Steeeve: The Zooier Than Thou podcast contains adult concepts and language and is intended for a mature audience. So if your idea of raising the discourse involves heckling on X with all caps Dr. Robotnik memes, you’re probably too young to listen.

Theme

Kynophile: Hey, what can I say?

You’ve got me howlin’ at the moon!

Whoa, don’t you know that love is wild when you’re a zoo?

We’re Zooier Than Thou!

Oh yeah!

Intro/Emails

Lovecat: Greetings, fellow zoos, and welcome to another discursive episode of Zooier Than Thou. I’m Lovecat, your feral friend who likes to make your squiggle wiggle,

Steeeve: I’m Steve, an averagely endowed avian.

Tarro: I’m Taro, and I’m here because I’m chronically online.

Mike the Dog: And I’m Mike the Dog, uh, you know, a wooing, a woo, like usual.

Lovecat: and we’ll be your hosts for this talk about talking.

Steeeve: Talking is something we do a lot here, and it’s something zoos have been doing publicly only very recently, though the open zoo presence online has certainly increased rapidly in the past five years or so.

Tarro: And so for the first time, the rest of the world is aware that zoophiles exist and are hearing what we have to say on our own behalf.

Lovecat: And this behooves us to think about what we’re saying and why, and check in with each other about where we’re all at on our individual and collective journeys into this brave and increasingly information laden world.

We like talking and sharing experiences. and when we think things through, we get a better idea of why we like certain topics and what’s really interesting about them.

Lovecat: But before we get into that, let’s get into some emails.

Tarro: Yay, emails!

Our first email comes from Asako, pretty sure I’m saying that right, with the subject A Curiosity Driven Discussion with a Zoo Changed My Mind. they write, Dear Zoo Crew, I just got podcast, including the bonus episodes . Uh, note, Thomas Granger bonus episode is not working, well, we’ll get someone on that, and decided to write in as a non zoo listener just to share my experience, showing that sometimes mere respectful dialogue can completely shake someone’s world.

After getting I quickly adopted the anti beastiality, but not necessarily anti zoo, views of the modern fandom, but that changed when I actually had an open and honest discussion with the zoo. Hi Harley, if you ever hear this, you may remember me as the ignorant dum dum you humored 2023. was lovely finding out that you’ve been part of the podcast.

Had a reaction of, wait, that’s the guy! The conversation itself did not really change my mind, but I started looking into the online presence of different openly zoo users and noticed that I actually agreed with a lot of what was being said, especially about treating non humans with the same respect we treat humans.

It even made me go back to being fully vegan again after years of being vegetarian. Congrats on that. By the way. So wait. I thought these people truly care about the welfare of animals. Have I misunderstood something? I set out to find science papers on the topic of cross species relationships, fully expecting the answer to be no.

It cannot be justified. But as it turns out, in science, things are never black and white. After a couple months of research and contemplation, I had my mind fully changed, and I found this podcast too, which helped me see the zoo community not as and straw men, but as people who truly cared about the well being of non humans.

People just trying to live their lives like everyone else. It also opened me up to remembering some aspects of my own past, things I had suppressed and that had me questioning things of my own. But that is not a story for this already lengthy email. I really appreciate you putting your voices out there, even though I am not looking to be an open activist, at least not in the furry space where the loud minority attack you for even hinting at somewhat zoo positive views.

Inspired by the podcast, I will definitely use my own creative skills for some hidden zoo y message. Insert wink, and this is not a mare joke, or is it?

Mike the Dog: Yeah.

Tarro: safe, and I already thanked Harley personally back then, but thank you again for humoring my silly butt. P. S. I love, love, love the original songs.

Please tell me you have more lyrics and instrumentals than just the couple I found on Ink Bunny, especially for In the Meadows.

Thank you so much for reaching out, Asako!

Lovecat: it’s always a really wonderful thing to, find that somebody who is willing to entertain. the fact that they might have been misinformed about, anything really, especially other people.

Mike the Dog: And I mean, not all people who are zoos are vegetarian or vegan or specifically, you know, take better care of their animals. zoos aren’t monsters, you know, when we find people who need a little extra help, we can point them in the right directions, right? There are people here and there, but yeah, the, the caricature of course is incorrect.

Steeeve: Yeah. And we’re always glad to hear that someone found something helpful and positive in the podcast, but just as you indicated that science is never really black and white. So too are people a little more multidimensional, so you can’t really paint all zoos with the same brush any more than you can paint all people with the same brush.

Like I’ve been a vegetarian since 1993, but I don’t think I’ve ever really been vegan. So maybe that makes me like sort of evil,

you

know?

Mike the Dog: It’s not really a zoo thing, right? But we end up here through our values, which we’ll get into a bit later. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Steeeve: Right. and as to the music, we’re apparently slowly working on putting something out more officially, but if you want more instrumentals and such, you can check us out on SoFurry, where we’re able to post more easily due to the TOS being less restrictive about humans involved in adult works with animals than Ink Bunny.

Mike the Dog: Yeah.

Tarro: to me, because I feel like Ink Bunny’s whole thing is being fairly open to various kinds of content.

Mike the Dog: Oh, you could read the guys like legal, musings where a lot of the times it’s the introduction of the human element that causes things to become illegal. Right.

Steeeve: Yeah, it’s a zigzaggy line. You just never really know, where somebody’s going to draw it, which is, you know, that’s our whole ongoing saga about de platforming and finding our own platforms, such as this podcast, et cetera, et cetera.

The other thing I’d like to mention is, this concept that the listener referenced about formerly being anti zoo and then suddenly being more receptive to the idea that zoos are good people. And, I’m always, you know, I was a little surprised by that flip, by that contrast, and it reminds me of something from behavior of science called relational frame theory. And basically if you have a fundamental belief that is strongly polarized, and then other concepts in your life are polarized. Polarized in response to that concept, then if that core concept, that relational frame flips polarization, then you’ll find that everything else flips and it’s polarity as well.

so for instance, you’ll see people who are hardcore drug users, right? Like they’re, they’re super into drugs and then. something will happen, and they’ll flip the other way, and they don’t just stop doing drugs, they go hardcore, like, Drugs are horrible, these are terrible, I’m gonna go full throttle with the intensity of a thousand demons toward abstinence now, and I’m gonna make everyone know about it!

and it was just as intense in the other direction before, and now the intensity remains, but the polarization has changed, so, you see that with a lot of folks who are like, super intense about like, ah, zoos are the devil, let’s go after them, and then once they discover maybe like, Actually, um, I think maybe I was trying to convince the world and myself that I’m not a zoo, but now that I realize I am a zoo, I’m going to be a super zoo, and we’re all like, whoa, chill.

Mike the Dog: Right.

Steeeve: And I don’t know if that’s the case for the, for the listener who wrote in, but, we’ve seen it before and we’ll probably see it again.

Mike the Dog: Yeah. Thank you for keeping us open minded, Asako.

Steeeve: Next up we have an email from E. Goldstein. What do you say about that, Lovecat?

Lovecat: Well, E. Goldstein says, That bastard E. Goldstein, and he flushes that out with, To answer Lovecat’s question on my moniker, as you guys discussed, it comes from Orwell’s 1984. In the book, Emanuel Goldstein is the guy the government blames for all the shit that goes wrong. A factory machine fails?

Sabotage by Goldstein. Farms didn’t produce enough food? The goddamn Goldstein. An accident happens and people get hurt or killed? It was orchestrated by that son of a bitch Goldstein. For those who haven’t read it, In the book, they eventually discuss that they don’t really even know if Goldstein is real, but blaming him for all the shit is useful for motivating people so the truth doesn’t matter.

I felt it kind of fit for zoos in general, since we’re often used as boogeymen. I usually change names after major life events, such as the loss of a partner, since keeping an old name is often difficult due to the person who used it having changed so dramatically that it would be like comparing a caterpillar to the moth it becomes, and thus the old name no longer seems to fit or like wearing another person’s clothes. I don’t know which emails you’ve got that haven’t been read, but older ones likely have little relevance and are probably not worth reading.

Thanks for the good work, and I appreciate you all, and the substantial effort you put into the podcast. As I have stated before, if I can be of assistance, feel free to reach out. Thank you, E. Goldstein, and is a super interesting explanation of your moniker. I totally get where you’re coming from now.

Although, I gotta admit, when I first saw it, I was like, what is this guy’s deal? Yeah, I mean, zoos have been scapegoated for a long time. Yeah, that fucking guy, man, you know? That fucking gold scene.

Mike the Dog: it’s that guy we all hate for two minutes at a time. Hahaha.

Lovecat: I got a fucking flat tire today because of that asshole.

Steeeve: Yeah. Thanks for nothing, E. Goldstein.

Lovecat: Yeah,

Steeeve: Ugh.

Lovecat: Thanks again for writing in, Eaglestein.

Mike the Dog: The next email is from Desert Rat. Subject, Cody Roberts, wolf sadist. No, okay, so, This is a heavy one. I’ve read through, it’s, descriptive. I want to warn everyone right now that, yeah, you may want to You may want to Skip ahead if you’re faint of

heart,

Steeeve: trigger warning for

Mike the Dog: to say that.

Steeeve: abuse.

Mike the Dog: Desert Rat writes, on February 29th, 2024, a patron of the Green River Bar in Daniel, Wyoming, brought an injured wolf pup into the bar wearing a shock collar and tape around her muzzle.

This patron, Cody Roberts of Daniel, Wyoming, and the owner of Cody Roberts Trucking, had deliberately ran over the wolf pup with his snowmobile after chasing the wolf down to exhaustion. Photos and videos were taken of the terrified wolf, who continued to be tormented for another 5 hours in the Green River Bar.

She could be heard whimpering periodically and to flee when her captor, Cody Roberts, would turn up a chalk collar. Patrons of the bar did nothing to intervene, nor did anyone call authorities. This female wolf, estimated by a biologist to be around 9 months old, was already suffering with grave injuries And in unimaginable pain. All who saw her at the bar could see that she was in grave condition and only took pictures and video and taunted the injured wolf pup. They allowed her to be tortured for another five hours by Cody Roberts, who continued to shock her with a shock collar. No one called the authorities or rendered any aid to the innocent wolf pup in any way.

After five hours, Roberts took the terrorized wolf out back to end her life after kissing her on the muzzle inside the bar on video camera. this incident was not an act of hunting, wildlife management, or self defense from an animal attack.

Cody Roberts gave in to a pure act of sadism and torture. Roberts was later charged a fine of 250 for possession of a wild animal. Many people have demanded a change to wildlife policies, not just on the state levels, but on the national one, are demanding that Roberts be arrested and tried for violating Wyoming’s animal cruelty laws, and want Cody Roberts banned from being allowed to hunt again.

Many people, including hunters and outdoorsmen, have also condemned Roberts actions as nothing more than sadism. Hunters have stated that no animal that is being hunted should undergo unnecessary trauma, and should be killed as humanely as possible. We must all demand a change in wildlife policy at both state and federal levels to no longer allow people like Cody Roberts to sadistically torture wolves or other wild animals for their own sick gratification. And yeah, all too often we see that like animal cruelty laws are basically not upheld. Right? One of the things I would say to people, right, is that there’s no reason for bestiality laws because obviously there’s already criminal statutes for harming animals, but obviously that’s not really what is in people’s minds, right?

Because that’s not actually what gets people arrested Most of the time,

Tarro: Yeah, this is a story that I was familiar with before, reading the email, and it’s pretty crazy, I guess the way that this doesn’t count as, quote, animal cruelty is because, wolves in that area are considered predators, and as they’re classified as predators, they just don’t actually get any of the protections that animal rights would have.

you can basically just kill them however you would like, and it’s, like, not enforced at all. So, it’s a really fucked up story.

Mike the Dog: one of the earliest zoo sadism stories I’d heard of was like probably 10 years ago. And I heard a story somewhere about someone’s dog who was taken and later found tied to a tree with tape around her mouth. And so that, imagery to me just screams of something else.

Like, it doesn’t matter if it’s a wild animal, like a wolf or something, like it’s, it’s the same concept. there’s no excuse.

Steeeve: yeah, and I think there’s a, maybe a broader point to be made here. I assume I’m not the only person who read all of the Harry Potter books, right? It wasn’t just me buying millions of copies of them, by myself. So when I speak to this reference, I think a lot of people would get it.

But one of the very, very first things in the very first chapter of the first book of Harry Potter. Talks about how Harry’s, uncle, Vernon Dursley, hates anything that doesn’t behave as it should, right? you know, he’s, he’s had a reason to believe that things should behave as they, should, because, you know, that’s all he’s ever experienced.

He lives in the suburbs. And a sleepy neighborhood and everything’s very orderly and things are just so so that’s the contrast against, you know, all this magical chaos, you know, where that happens. And I think that if you fail to understand. What government really is and the function that it serves You might be tempted to think that it is dysfunctional and I think that it couldn’t be further from the truth It’s extremely functional and it does exactly what it’s really supposed to do, which is to entrench and further enrich rich people I don’t feel like the, I’m the lunatic fringe here.

I know that it says on the package that it’s supposed to serve the public good, but it doesn’t ever really do that. And it’s not designed to do that. And if you don’t believe that you have to look no further than campaign finance reform and how it has never

actually worked.

Mike the Dog: It’s a

lobbying thing. you know, people put the money into

Steeeve: right, all you need to know is that in order to get elected, you have to spend a bunch of money.

So unless you personally are super duper rich, then you work for someone who is super duper rich, who gives you the money so that you can run for office and win elections. But that person wants something in return. And what they want is to be made even richer. That’s how they got rich in the first place.

So that’s. The real function is to reward with further enrichment, right? And prevention of loss of existing enrichment for the people who gave you enough money to win elections in the first place. And the rest of the laws are really more like property laws. they want to determine who owns what in terms of material possessions.

That’s what almost all of the laws are. That’s why. You know, there’s different justice systems for, for the rich and for, people who aren’t rich. so, um, when you’re trying to use the government to help animals out of a sense of empathy, that’s not what the government is for at all.

The government is It’s for keeping itself in power indefinitely at the behest of these super rich masters that paid enough for them to be elected in the first place.

Tarro: The government is, much more interested in protecting the farmers who own all the

Steeeve: some of those farmers have enough money to contribute to campaigns in a way that causes those politicians to be elected. So if it happens accidentally to as a side effect, serve the purpose of promoting animal welfare, then you’ll see government respond in a way that protects animal welfare, such as if they demonize zoos in a way that scares their base into showing up and voting for them, then yeah, they’ll throw us under the bus in a second.

That’s usually how that works out. If they feel like demonizing wolves will motivate. Their rancher constituents. To show up to the polls and vote for them, they’ll do whatever it takes to stay in power, or risk being replaced in an election with someone who will. So, that’s the system, and when you expect it to do something different than what it does, then I think you’ll be disappointed, but when you expect it to do what it’s likely to do, then, you know, there’s a trade off, like, your expectations will be met.

But it feels like a cop out, so I don’t know what to tell you about that other

than, you know, expect government to serve itself, and its rich masters, and anything else that it does, I feel like if it leaves you alone, you’re doing pretty good.

Mike the Dog: So they spent money to do that. Right. And that represents a certain amount of economic influence. You and all your friends can make a difference by speaking up more.

you know, there, there are ways to, to call offices and so on. And there are ways to, you know, join larger campaigns for, for

Steeeve: right. And in lower levels of government where people are not serving in elected positions you’ll see good people. There are good people everywhere, including in middle levels of government. So there’s probably really passionate. Wildlife Protection and Conservation and Anti Animal Cruelty personnel working in those jobs.

And I happen to know that some of those people are also zoos. That’s why they wanted to enter public services, so that they could actually help animals. But, as far as passing laws All right, that’s the purview of elected representatives. And since they have to survive elections, they have to raise campaign contributions.

That just comes from whoever happens to be rich. So if rich people wanted these laws in place, you can be assured they would be in place, right? That’s how laws get

made.

But as far as, you know, somebody Enforcing these laws and fining these people and advocating personally for the protection of these animals.

That’s where you see regular, non rich, non elected people just doing their honest best. And to those people who are doing work like that, like we on the podcast, I believe I speak for them, that you know, we super support that, and we hope that you have all the success in the world.

Lovecat: Yeah. And what Cody Roberts did to this wolf is, nothing out of the ordinary as far as the w the way that wolves have been treated. they’ve been demonized for hundreds of years, and for the past, you know, 150 or 170 years, it’s been ranchers, basically telling the, uh, bureau of. Biological Services or something like that, I can’t remember the name off the top of my head,

Mike the Dog: Oh,

the Bureau of Land Management.

Lovecat: starting in the, I think, mid 1800s, and are still doing that today, and are still

Mike the Dog: Yeah.

Lovecat: bullshit stories

that they were,

Mike the Dog: passed recently that took them off of the endangered species list?

Steeeve: I heard something about

Lovecat: uh, I, I read that, yeah, I think , their status is kind of mixed right now, depending on where they are.

Tarro: As of, , February 28th, the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service denied gray wolves, environmental protection as, , an endangered species.

Lovecat: And I just read in the newspaper not too long ago, this whole front page spread against wolves, and it was all the same bullshit that ranchers have been putting out there for, the past 150 years, that they’re responsible for all this, cattle depredations and, attacking humans, and, I mean, there have been, like, a handful, five or fewer confirmed wild wolf attacks on human beings in the past century.

and only, ten or twenty wolf attacks total. And most of those were, captive wolves or rabid wolves. so, as far as we know, wolves really just don’t attack humans. and they don’t primarily go after

cattle either.

Steeeve: Cattle are super strong.

Lovecat: their skittishness was used as , its own justification for killing them, they were, called cowardly and, duplicitous and all these things, and used to justify this exact sort of, horrific killing, not just killing, but, torturing and tormenting and then killing, And there are people , who are working to change that in different ways now, like, , the battle for recognizing, animal personhood is, a live issue right now, the other thing that comes to mind is, the ranching industry that is really pushing this agenda, , the most immediate thing that anybody can do is, not consuming the products of the ranching industry.

So, because they can only do that, they can only have that power as long as everybody is, eating their meat and drinking their milk and, giving them , the power to, tell government organizations what they want them to do.

Mike the Dog: yeah, and if as zoos we see, a contention when it comes to people talking about, trophy hunting or, sport hunting, this is kind of why right here.

Steeeve: well, and also I think it bears mentioning that as we’re heading into yet another contentious polarized election season in the U. S. That if somebody feels like they are vulnerable in an election, that, they’re running for office and they’re facing a formidable challenger, right, to their office, then it’s not above them to reach for fear mongering,

to try to scare people into voting for them.

Like, we as a species have survived. This long because we have modulated our fear response in response to real or imagined threats and like who gets to pass on their genes, somebody who didn’t climb up a tree for safety at the imagined threat of a lion or someone who got. Eaten by the lion for not responding out of fear, right?

So we get to exist because our ancestors were scared enough to look for threats and respond to them. So that useful biological feature of our species also enables politicians to scare us into voting for them. Because they promise to protect us from those threats, whether those threats exist or not.

So if you are aware of this though, because our species is also capable of, Oh, I don’t know, metacognition, then you can also critically evaluate. Something that a politician says and like I mean the truth of this is obviously the politician is just looking out for the politician They just want to get reelected.

They’ll say anything to make that happen. They don’t care about you They will mulch you and sell your bones to a dog food company like they they super don’t care about you But they definitely care about reelection. And so if they’re saying something about how someone is the boogeyman Whether it be zoos, or wolves, or gays, or trans people, or women who want to vote, or black people, or who, you know, it doesn’t matter, they’ll pick a boogeyman they think they can get away with demonizing if they think that you will vote for them to save them from the scary whatevs.

just be aware that those kind of people exist, and that they are full of shit, and that, you know, if you can have some talks with some people about, hey man, I think that guy’s just trying to lie to get elected, he’s just trying to scare you into voting for him, you know, maybe pointing that out enough times will inoculate people against that kind of manipulation.

I, you know, that’s my hope.

Mike the Dog: If you’re in Wyoming, make sure you take a look at who’s running for what and what their platform is.

Steeeve: Yeah, and if they’re a shitty fearmonger, You know, maybe see if you can talk with your, uh, your loved ones about not voting for that piece of shit.

Mike the Dog: So thank you, Desert Rat. not a, an easy read, of course, but, um, it is something that we have to remember as zoos that these things happen. This is kind of what should be important to us. And we have to be aware of these incidents.

We have to know what’s happening,

Tarro: the one saving grace of all of that is that, pretty much overwhelmingly, the response to this was people, getting very angry, getting very upset. I saw, like, maybe one person take this stance of, Oh no, it was funny. And, like, overwhelmingly, everyone came together to say, like, No, this action is despicable.

And it’s heartening to see that, at least.

Steeeve: Well,

and also, right. Except

for the people in the

bar, he just sat by and watched, right?

Mike the Dog: yeah, social pressures happen. And it’s easy for us to. criticize them after the fact and like who knows what any any of us would have done But I would have I would like to think that we would have intervened said like yeah, you know what? let me take a turn torturing that wolf and then just run off with the wolf and take it immediately to like a You know, someplace safe.

Steeeve: You know, right? Underground railroad that wolf the hell out of there and try to rehab

Mike the Dog: yeah,

Steeeve: life at a wolf

Mike the Dog: yeah,

Steeeve: several states away, preferably, because,

like,

Mike the Dog: is something that’s going to keep on coming

up

Steeeve: people like that are

Mike the Dog: like just

Steeeve: and we need to protect

Mike the Dog: no, but like the opposite direction though, like we’re going to be having to confront our own, you know, Fear of like losing friends or making a scene when it comes to something that is important to us.

Steeeve: Sure. Well, and also, like, a reasonable person would look at somebody who is clearly a psychopath. You know, torturing a living, feeling, being, and reasonably being afraid, like, hey man, if I try to intervene, is this guy just gonna shoot me dead in the parking lot of this bar? You know, that’s not how I want to die in

Wyoming, that’s tacky, right?

Mike the Dog: Yeah.

Tarro: that is tacky.

Steeeve: Well, speaking of tacky, tarot. I think you have an email.

Tarro: In, possibly the best segue ever, uh, we have another email from Sammer69, and the subject is, Search for like minded people. The email reads, Hello, everyone. I’ve been looking for like minded people, in brackets, zoos, for a very long time. Can you help me with the search? Winky face. I would be very happy about that.

Kind regards! Um, and yeah, I think probably we can help at least a little bit. there are a ton of really amazing spaces out there for people that are looking to, meet more zoos. not to, to just plug my own stuff, but, we have a great Discord, server, the zooey. pub Discord. there’s the zanyzoo memes chat, that one’s really good.

Zoo for Unity. Pretty solid, especially if you are also a furry. I mean, I’ll leave Mike to talk about zoo community, but

Steeeve: I think zoo community specifically prohibits the sharing of locations for security reasons, right?

Mike the Dog: I mean, at this moment, it depends, like not necessarily for security, but like,

Steeeve: It’s not a criticism, but you know, it’s every,

Mike the Dog: no, it’s, it’s more.

Steeeve: you know,

stuff,

Mike the Dog: about, networking stuff, right? So if we can figure out a way to, you know, vetting or whatever, if we can figure out a way to allow that somehow. I don’t know, I’m taking a look into it. There’s certain things that might work.

Steeeve: Well, and on Zooville, they have location specific forums, where if you wish to reach out to local zoos, you can, but I get it. It’s a little intimidating at first for people, until you realize like, oh, wow, zoos are really everywhere, but they’re just, they’re hiding, right? They’re being discreet. so I would say like Zooville might be one way to do that.

I know people have reached out to me on, on Twitter with that same question. And it’s frustrating, because, like, I maintain a mailing list of people who wanted zoo stickers the world over, and we have something like 26 different countries, and, you know, all the different states.

So I, I know where the, you know, at least there’s a bunch of people who wanted zoo stickers for whatever reason. I assume they’re probably zoos. And I can’t and won’t share their location with anybody, even if I know that the person who wrote in happens to be near a bunch of other zoos, right?

So, I would say places like Zooville. where you can say like hey i’m just putting myself out here i’m willing to meet at a well lit safe public place like a starbucks or a waffle house or something if if a bunch of people want to get together here’s where i’ll be you know and take that chance but uh i’m not gonna suggest that that’s the right choice for everyone but if that’s what you want to do samurai 69 then I think that’s one way you could go about doing it.

Tarro: Also, the more that you spend time in the community and, like, meet people and form connections and stuff, just by nature, the more you’re gonna, like, get opportunities to meet other people. Like, last year I went to Eurofurence, and I hung out pretty much exclusively with other zoos, and that was Incredible and amazing.

And those were all connections that I made first online that, you know, we just over time built up more and more trust until eventually it was like, all right, let’s all get together and hang out. So that’s definitely another option you can take as

Steeeve: And was there like a Eurofriends telegram chat that you were able to meet people through? Or how did you?

Tarro: yep! it was a pretty small chat specifically for like the group of us that were going together, and in that chat it was like very much invite only, but once you got in there it was kinda like, alright, you’re trusted, let’s, you know, here’s the selfies, let’s go!

Steeeve: Here’s the thing that’s really blown my mind. There are at least two telegram chats. That are not at all related to the podcast and there’s only like a passing awareness of the podcast So like in the podcast chat, you know, it’s it’s all podcasts We’re in the process of making the podcast like we’re working together, you know, we organize ourselves accordingly, right?

But there’s a couple of other like well populated zoo Telegram chats that are only peripherally even aware of the podcast and like if they know anything about it they’re like oh aren’t you one of those guys that’s like doing a zoo podcast

and there’s like

hundreds of people in

those there’s hundreds of people in those chats and it’s like oh my god like these are really everywhere they’re they’re everywhere so much that even doing something as visible as what we’re doing is not necessarily even something they’re aware of.

So, wherever there are people, there are zoos, if that helps in your search and I, I hope it does help with the search.

Mike the Dog: Yeah. And so even though this person, obviously with their email, they’re probably not really expecting much from us besides like an invite to some weird media sharing chat or something, they’re probably not even listening to the podcast. But we’re talking about it here because there are people who are listening to the podcast and actually do want to know like, Hey, what’s available, like, who is everyone, right?

What do we, what do I do? So yeah, if you’re new and listening and have not written in.

Steeeve: Well, and I feel kind of responsible for having repeatedly told our listening audience that they should meet other zoos in person and then they write in, they’re like, okay, cool. How do I do that? And we’ve, we’ve talked a little bit of the, about that before, but it’s also kind of tough because a lot of zoos want to be discreet.

Right? We got it. But it, is valuable. And like, if I’m missing something beyond just like, Hey man, go on ZUVO forums and, you know, post in the location specific threads, like that, Hey, here’s where I am. I’m trying to meet people. Um,

Mike the Dog: probably a bad idea. Yeah.

Steeeve: it’s not without risk. Right. And it is kind of a porn, you know, You know, centric environment, so if you’re not trying to do that, then that’s not great.

But when, when you do meet some zoos in person, they know other zoos, and those zoos know other zoos still, and you can kind of build a network, you know, in person that way. At least that’s how it worked for me, and I can’t imagine I did anything impossible.

Lovecat: I’ll tell you, and this might help, when I, got into the community and wanted to start meeting other zoos, I got onto Telegram and, was in a couple of groups and, just kind of chatted, you know, like I wasn’t, , I wasn’t searching for, you know, opportunities. , I wasn’t, you know, just trying to, to set up real life meetings or anything.

just kind of hung around and got comfortable. And, the first zoo that I met was, uh, Doodle Donkey. who hasn’t been on this podcast in a while, but he is a member of the Zoot Crew, and that happened because we had had enough experience talking to each other, in a group chat that we had a good feeling that each of us was for real and that we weren’t expecting anything other than literally just to meet another zoo in real life, and, that’s basically how it’s been, with everybody that I’ve met, You know, and then, once there are people who, you know, you both know that you’re, good people, you know, they’ll, they’ll start introducing you more to people who aren’t in those chats, and, and that’s how that goes, but, you know, the, the key is just to, to be genuine, and, Not to act on expectation, I guess, you know,

just be real and See who else is really, yeah, and, um, and it’ll happen. It might take some time, but, it’s better to, to take the time and to, to meet the right people than to, you know, meet up with whatever random freak show just happens to respond to your, hey, you know, uh, ASL,

fuck, you know.

heh, heh,

heh, heh,

heh, heh, heh, heh, yeah,

Steeeve: Oh yeah, we’re dating ourselves here.

Lovecat: So, hope that helps.

Steeeve: Yeah, thanks for writing in, Samra69, hopefully you’ll meet some cool zoos.

Lovecat: Next up, we have an email from Solr, who wants to talk about KitKat. Solr says, A couple months ago, I wrote in, being all existential, and I had a short conversation with Toggle on Twitter. I was absolutely thrilled when he actually answered. A few weeks ago, I lost my cat. His name was KitKat. He was least trained, I walked him all around town, he was my best friend, but I had issues with him spraying.

Most of the time it was fine, but he was just an absolute something, when I didn’t have time to walk him, and I just couldn’t bear to get him neutered. I really miss him. I hope you all have a good night howling at the moon. Well, thank you very much for writing in, Solar, especially about something so personal and painful.

I’m sorry that you lost your sweet cat.

Steeeve: I know on the Howloween episodes, we have our remembrances of partners lost. And grief is one of those things where you can’t really ignore it and also function, at all.

you’ll build up, a head of, unresolved grief and lash out at people and do awful things. and it’s, really, it’s one of the most destructive things you can do. So, I mean, you have to feel that grief and process it and experience it in order to move on from that. The only way out is through,

right?

Mike the Dog: Yeah.

Steeeve: never gets easier, but it’s something that, you know, unless your partner is an African gray parrot that will outlive you and everyone you know, or, an alligator snapping turtle, you know, like you’re going to outlive your faster metabolism partners such as dogs, cats, you know, most animals That we would find suitable for companionship, and I’m really sorry about your cat, he sounds like a really cool cat.

Lovecat: it might help, Solar, if you haven’t maybe consider, writing in for our next Halloween episode, it can provide some needed closure to say the things that you need to say, it can kind of help let some of the pain go,

with it.

Steeeve: Yeah, and when you’re ready, and you’ve processed enough grief, and you find that there’s room in your heart for another companion, then maybe you can be a special human to another cat going forward, another lucky cat.

Mike the Dog: Do any of you have, experience with cats and spraying?

Lovecat: No,

I’ve only had, uh, neutered cats.

Steeeve: I have an intact cat, but, he doesn’t really seem to spray, I don’t know, he just seems to get along with the other neighbor cats, and, it hasn’t been an issue. So I don’t know, maybe I’m just lucky, or maybe I’m just oblivious, but, He seems pretty happy and healthy and, and everything’s cool on our end.

Mike the Dog: It might be something about how they view your relationship or whatever too. Yeah. Yeah.

Steeeve: About what now?

Mike the Dog: Well, I hear, I hear a lot of animals will try it once just to try, and then they may realize that it’s not something to do.

Steeeve: Oh, from what I can understand, when there’s like a territorial dispute between cats, that’s when they’ll

start spraying. But, for whatever reason, my cat just doesn’t really seem as bothered by the other cats, and they don’t seem bothered by him. I don’t know, man, I have a pretty sensitive nose, and I can’t smell any spraying activity around my place.

so either he’s spraying somewhere else that I’m not aware of, or he’s not spraying at all.

Tarro: He’s a bottom. He

loves it when all the other ones spray.

Lovecat: Ha

Steeeve: he’s he’s really easy going. He is super chill. So yeah, I don’t know, man. I’m, I’m not, personally affected by a cat spring, but, yeah, anyway, it sounds like a cool cat.

Tarro: I love the name.

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Topic - Raising the Discourse

Steeeve: Okay, our next email is from NeoCount. Subject, stuff. NeoCount writes, Hey, I’m catching up on listening to the podcast. I was a listener from the beginning, but gradually stopped because I lost interest in the subject matter. I don’t mean zoo stuff. I am an over 50 zoo. I’ve been zoo since around 15 years old.

What I mean is I’m straight, white, Straight zoo. I eat mead and have never twittered. I have never had a problem with myself being zoo. I don’t feel bad about it. I don’t want to kill myself, and I don’t need therapy. Almost all of my friends know I’m zoo. None of them have a problem with it. If zoo were legal, I would be openly zoo to everyone, but not flamboyant and throw it in everyone’s face.

I don’t need a parade with the zoo flag and sexualized animals prancing through town. I just think it’s completely natural. My only reason for not being 100 percent open is legality. I feel like my demographic gets left out of the podcast. Nearly every episode seems to be about how bad everything is, and that’s almost depressing.

I’m not saying life is great and perfect for all zoos, but it is for some. Try spending more time talking about normal. Normalize zoo. I don’t need every episode to tell me 20 times how awful Twitter is. If Twitter is bad, stop promoting it. There is so much more to life than the internet and Twitter. Heck, I think the internet causes more problems than it solves.

Back before internet, farm boys fucked horses. It was just a thing they did, and they grew up to be normal, happy adults. I feel like in your quest to be inclusive, people like me get left out. Don’t forget about us normal, happy people. Yes, you may read this on air. I’m shy at writing and putting my thoughts into words, so I hope this all made sense.

Neo count. Yeah, that’s, that is a lot. What do you say, Mike?

Mike the Dog: Yeah, well, I mean, aren’t some of us envious, uh, having that kind of easy life, right?

Steeeve: Well, um, I mean, You know, what’s normal? Like, I don’t get to decide for anyone else what’s normal, and they would probably think my life was pretty weird, but to me, my life feels pretty normal, right?

Tarro: So personally, I have two opinions on this email. I’m very happy for the listener that, their life is so great. I honestly think that’s amazing. And, you know, I do agree that some amount of what we talk about should be towards the idea of like, what does the world look like if everything’s going great at the same time?

I think maybe they have a bit of a misunderstanding of what the point of the parades and the flags and everything. is for because those flags and the parades and everything aren’t necessarily for the people who are out to all of their friends and have a great life and aren’t worried about it.

There’s a lot of people out there, I would say the vast majority of zoos, who either feel uncomfortable with themselves or are in situations where they might not be able to express their pride and I think it’s more about trying to give a voice to those people so that they feel less alone and like they are part of this community.

so I, definitely don’t mean to discredit. you, listener, if you get to this episode before losing interest again.

Steeeve: They already stopped, it’s too late!

Tarro: yeah, but I would say that like, if it does feel like we’re talking to those people more than we are you, know that it’s not because we don’t value you, it’s because those are the people that need to hear this

message.

Mike the Dog: Yeah. and we get this commonly.

Steeeve: Yeah, I would say also like, that’s like saying like, what is all this talk about insulin? Ugh, y’all have to complain. These people complain. It’s like, yeah, for diabetic people, they need that. Like, just because you’re not diabetic doesn’t mean that diabetic people don’t need insulin, right?

And also If you’re feeling like all of this community outreach is not helpful to you, that’s okay to not listen to the podcast. Like if you don’t need the help, we love that. We love that you don’t need help. but if you feel like you’re okay and other people do need help, then, there’s nothing stopping you from helping people who need it.

Right? And that’s what we’re trying to do.

Tarro: The listener should create their own podcast that’s , straight white, straight zoos.

Steeeve: Well, you know, I’m relatively straight. I also happen to be white. And I also don’t feel any distress about my zooness. And, I am out to all of my loved ones. And a lot of ways I have a lot in common with neocounts. and I also remember being zoo before there was an internet. and I also recognize that it is a position of privilege to feel well adjusted and supported and to be able to express myself and have the luxury of being able to do Public facing community outreach for people who aren’t in the same position.

So I would say if you happen to have tuned back in Neo count, maybe consider that your position of relative privilege puts you in a unique position to be able to help people who aren’t as fortunate as you. I also hope that. It becomes more normal to people to be a zoo. For me, it is normal. For you, it sounds like it is normal.

I want that for everybody and I’m, I’m trying to do my part to help them feel like that. We all are.

Lovecat: And the purpose of, pride and related things that I think people often leave out of account is that these are reactive to a system that has been oppressing whatever minority, there is a step on the road to a world that doesn’t need pride parades.

Because it simply understands and respects the, variety of human experience. and some people need that, and some people don’t. And if you don’t, that’s good, because that’s one less thing that you need. But, for some people it’s a phase that you go through once you’ve come to accept yourself.

it’s natural to, turn around the condemnation and transform it into pride. maybe that’ll last you the rest of your life and, you know, maybe you’ll, settle down but it serves a purpose. and it’s totally valid to feel, you know, normal and, that you don’t need that kind of thing to, if we haven’t, included that then it might just be because we haven’t heard from you before.

I mean, this podcast is inclusive and if you want to be a part of it, do what, you’ve done and write in and let us know that you exist and what your experience is, so that that can be part of the picture too. so I’m glad that you did.

Mike the Dog: Yeah, yeah. So like, this is something we see commonly, too, where, you know, a lot of what this person is probably used to seeing is everything that he’s interested in that is very specific. Right?

Specific narrow interest, but the whole point of diversity is that we see a lot of these other stories, the stories that don’t get told, right? The things that are important to a variety of different people that really doesn’t necessarily have to be interesting to everyone. You know, maybe there’s certain people’s stories that you don’t really need to hear.

I don’t know. I still encourage people to listen to them, but, we’re telling those stories. You know, you can’t expect that like literally everything on the show is going to be engaging specifically for you.

Steeeve: We’re just trying our best.

Mike the Dog: Yeah.

Lovecat: it just seems to be as to the point where, about being fine with being open, if it were legal. I mean, that’s a big part of what we’re doing here too. Uh, that’s the problem. I mean, a lot of us would be, you know, Completely open, if we didn’t have to fear, you know, our lives being destroyed and our partners being killed,

Mike the Dog: Yeah. Well, why wouldn’t you? Right?

Lovecat: right, and the thing is that in a world where, where that wasn’t a risk, that’s, that’s a world where you wouldn’t need it.

To have pride parades and, stickers and stuff like that, because it would just be no, it would be as big a deal to anybody as, you know, making a big point out of being straight, you know, at that point, they would have to wonder if you were just insecure. Why do you have to, tell us?

that’s part of the world that we’re working for. and, there’s a lot more and bigger issues that they need to be faced in order to bring that world about.

Steeeve: And can I also just say that there’s a pretty natural trend for as everyone gets a little older to Become a little more pragmatic and probably a little more discreet I’m not gonna say that neocount is the only 50 something zoo for which this is true. This is not a neocount only feature Right?

I know a lot of older zoos, like in their 60s and their 70s, that if you didn’t already happen to know they were zoo, they would definitely not come out to you. They have an established life and maybe even a legacy to protect. Right? And maybe people who work for them and whole families that their businesses are supporting now, right?

It’s, it doesn’t work for them to come out and risk other people’s livelihoods just so that they can express themselves. And so they take a, they make a practical choice, right? And they turtle up, they become discreet, they move out onto some land and, you know, everyone leaves them alone.

They leave other people alone and, they live their lives, secure in the knowledge that, they are more secure for it. And for certain people in a certain stage of life, that’s a valid choice. It’s not a valid choice for everybody though, and so I think if you’re hearing what we’re saying and you don’t feel like it applies to you, like that’s, that’s okay.

You know, it’s not everything is about everybody. And if we left out your viewpoint, of like, Hey man, it’s okay to like settle down and, be discreet and be comfortable and secure in, in who you are, like that is okay. And that’s, I think a lot of us on the podcast staff feel that way about our own lives.

we’re, we’re trying to use our position to help people who don’t feel like that. So hopefully that works and you feel acknowledged.

Tarro: We love our zaddies.

Steeeve: Stop. Stop. You. Oh, you. You stop it.

Lovecat: I’m actually most surprised in this email that, the impression that, that we talk about everything being bad because I think that we, or at least in my opinion, we usually strike a pretty good balance between talking about, you know, serious heavy subjects that need to be talked about and, talking about what’s good.

I mean, the, the whole, theme of the podcast is having a positive view of what it is to be a zoo.

Tarro: Well,

I do wonder where they were at in the podcast when they wrote this email, because they said they were just starting to catch up. So maybe this means they hit an episode, like a run of episodes, like two or three in a row that like dealt with a bit more negativity. Because I do feel like across the season, it is pretty balanced.

Steeeve: Well, and I feel like in my unbiased opinion that, we’ve gotten, that we’ve gotten better, but I don’t know, maybe somebody else, depending on what they’re looking for, it feels like we’ve just gotten worse. So maybe he made the right choice to ditch us when he did.

Lovecat: We do our best, though. We do our very best.

Steeeve: Hopefully we’re not getting worse. Well, in any case, thanks for writing in to your account. This kind of segues neatly into our topic. For this episode, which is elevating the

discourse.

Lovecat: yeah. And sorry to tell you this, NeoCap, but we, we are going to be talking about Twitter, although we’re not going to be focusing on Twitter here. But that is definitely going to be a part of the following discussion, so hopefully if you’re listening to this, that doesn’t just turn you right the hell back off.

Tarro: If you hear my voice, just mute the podcast for like five minutes and you’ll miss all the Twitter

talk.

Steeeve: boy. So what do we have to say about Twitter?

Lovecat: Well, as zoos who are, you know, putting ourselves out there in the world, we have to be wherever is visible in order to do that. And, it does happen that Twitter is the most easily accessible, and visible platform out there. but it’s certainly not the only one. and it’s not even necessarily the best one.

but it is a place that, the zoos have made our own in the past. I don’t know. What do you want to go? I just want to say like five or 10 years or so.

Steeeve: And there’s a lot of people there. So, I mean, that includes angry people. It includes confused people. it includes. People who are content with their lot in life and in a position to help people. and yeah, since, the recent, change in ownership, it sucks even more than it did before, but people keep signing up.

And so there’s still people that we feel like we can reach. And so we’re still. There, you know, and engaging.

Lovecat: Yeah. But what we’re going to be talking about, , also has to do with other platforms. I’ll answer questions on Quora. Um, I see comments in the, you know, book and newspaper. article, comment sections, there’s various message boards, one of our founders, Fausty, was open as a zoo on, think it was Blue Light.

the big drug message board, so there, there’s all kinds of venues.

Steeeve: I’ve even seen zoos intervening on Wikipedia articles

Stuff as granular as Yahoo Answers Right?

They take ourselves way back here, but yeah, I

Tarro: Nothing hits like Quora zoos though. I don’t know if you’ve been through that, but it is some of the funniest stuff I’ve ever seen.

Steeeve: Oh, yeah. Yeah, there’s, there’s some real personalities there. But, one of the things that’s an obstacle that, to moving to better, more responsive platforms is, that nobody follows you if you leave one of the mainstream platforms such as X, formerly known as Twitter. And, getting buy in from, your audiences is kind of tricky.

that is, for better or worse, the dominant platform right now. So that’s where we go to try to do our activism.

Lovecat: Yeah. And, I’ve moved over to Mastodon, in the past six or eight months and, I haven’t had anyone who isn’t a zoo, interact with me on, , any zoo posts, except for furries who block me, because they feel, you Threatened by my existence there, and on one hand, it does feel a little disappointing.

You know, you do want people to, to engage and let you know that they’re actually, reading what you’re putting out there. but at the same time, on Twitter, really, when I wasn’t interacting with zoos, it was pretty much just trolls coming by. So I can’t say that I really miss that. And, in my opinion, Mastodon is, just a much higher quality experience, , even though it’s a smaller one, there’s a lot more serious minded people there, who are, wanting to actually, engage in, in topics.

And, the trolls there, basically have to exist on servers that will allow trolls, which pretty much everybody else just blocks. So, you don’t get that there. And, we’ll talk a little bit about the pros and cons of that in a little bit. on Quora, there too, most of the people who comment on my answers have been trolls.

there have been a couple of serious people though, which was a welcome surprise. But people go there, I think, more looking for, you know, actual information. since you can type as long a reply as you want, you don’t have to put up with, the 200 or whatever character limit.

Steeeve: Well, and there, as with Twitter, what kind of keeps me feeling motivated to do the work that I’m doing is the feeling that for everyone that’s responding with hate mail and the There’s a bunch more people that maybe Didn’t feel safe or comfortable to reach out, but as a passive Reader as a lurker, right?

That they are there and they’re deriving some benefit from the information and support that we provide.

Tarro: There’s no other platform that I’m on where I get more just like DMs from people, either on like alt accounts or even sometimes not. Asking like, hey how do I know if I’m a zoo? what is the community about? Where are spaces that I can join to sort of find out more? and just having that presence that’s so accessible and so visible on a platform that people already visit.

I think it just does so much good for our reach, for, not just, like, spreading our message, but also for other zoos who don’t understand there is a community out there for them to be able to find us.

Steeeve: privately, I, I’ve had that same experience where I get a lot of engagement where people are like, Hey, don’t tell people that I messaged you, but I, I like your stickers, or, the podcast really helped me, or I learned something about myself because of this.

So like, Most of the, the comments on our posts are, heckling, and telling us to kill ourselves and stupid. You know, it’s, it’s kids with, that don’t have well developed empathy, and they’re just looking for somebody who’s an easy target to hackle, right? Privately, we’re getting a lot of, supportive messages.

Lovecat: So, we’ve all joined the public space, and I’d like to, hear from each of us, what our, kind of goal and, our plans were getting into that and, how we conduct ourselves. I joined Twitter in 2019 and, and this is relevant to, um, The rest of my, public, persona and, engagement.

, I didn’t really care for a lot of the representation that I saw there. a lot of it seemed really shallow and superficial. And, I wanted to, be more real. So I just wanted to go on as somebody who was openly zoo, But, who would present, as complete a picture of, uh, my actual self as I could, you know, within safety limits, just to give people, a realistic portrait of at least, you know, one person, who would probably, not be what they would have imagined if you asked them, uh, what do you think a person who has, sexual and romantic relationships with animals is like?

and so, when I would go on there, I would talk about zoo stuff, I would, you know, talk about, science and art and, whatever I felt like just to kind of, paint a broad picture.

Steeeve: Yeah, just setting a good example of like, Hey man, I’m living my life well. And I, I happen to also be a zoo and I’d like to share that with you guys so that you can see that, you know, I’m a real valid person and, living well. Yeah. That’s, I think that’s one of the best things we can do.

Mike the Dog: people like Neocount who wrote in. Are, content sort of where they are. And really the truth is you don’t have to be out and about, right? a lot of people are just sort of disconnected and that’s fine. And, I guess really I was thinking about it. There’s a counterpoint to that where there’s something that’s causing me to be out here.

Right. So there’s something different for, I think, most of us who are being in public and so on. And really the thing is that, we look and we see that people are having, you know, this conversation about us without us. They are getting it wrong. They are saying things that are just straight up wrong or bigoted.

the record of course needs to be corrected. Sometimes they’re not willing to correct it. So we have to take it upon ourselves, in our own voice and kind of set things right. a lot of us also see there’s just so much injustice in the world, right? And that brings us really to come in and bring our own voice, bring our own experiences.

So really we’re all here because we’re interested, interested in this space. We have an interest. In the shared communal ideas. Right. And that interest leads us through really what reading responses, reading on Twitter, even, reading articles, seeing things, experiencing media, because if not, if we don’t do that, are we really interested if we’re just here, like tweeting about something without any other kind of engagement? You know, we’re not really that interested in being here

Steeeve: I don’t know. I hate to, to drag his name into this, but, Toggle does something that I feel like is really wonderful and like. I know that he knows that he’s doing it explicitly, like he’s doing it on purpose, and it’s just obsessively posting about Mario Kart,

Mike the Dog: that that’s still he’s still there in the space and Knowing that

Steeeve: he’s

like,

Mike the Dog: has a human being

Steeeve: he’s like, man, I’m not apologizing for my boring, tedious interest in this one specific video game, and

I’m not gonna back down about it just because I happen to also be a zoo, that’s incidental to this. He’s like, look, Both things could be true, man. I can be a zoo and love Mario Kart and I’m gonna make it your problem.

Mike the Dog: We’re, we’re interested in the space and in bringing our full selves to this space, right? Because that’s part of the things that, that are getting it wrong. It’s part of the things that have to be corrected, that we are full people and we’re here. So because of all this, the injustice, we recognize that we have a responsibility to correct the record.

That’s why we’re out here, really,

Steeeve: But it’s, it’s really funny to me. But it’s also funny to him that he just acknowledges like, man, of all the people to get upset with in the zoo community, I’m like the most. boring vanilla person imaginable he’s like i’ve got this stupid mario kart interest like i’m you know just kind of like a a homebody you know he’s and he is man you talk to him and he’s really normal

Mike the Dog: this brings us full circle to the original point, right? Uh, you’d ask me kind of like what my point is in all this. And that’s, the fact that really it’s the shared interest.

Lovecat: Mm hmm. Mm

Mike the Dog: all the things that I will see the, the record to, to correct, bringing myself to this, all of that stuff kind of comes together and, you know, I’ve spent a lot of time reading articles, talking to people, all this kind of stuff.

And it’s all because of those points.

Steeeve: yeah that’s awesome Taro, you were saying that you had a different answer about this?

Tarro: So I definitely agree with everything that you guys are saying. I think that it is really important for zoos to be just, like, visible and, themselves, especially on, like, public forums and whatnot. personally for me, I just, I don’t know, when I joined in, it was in a fit of inspiration from listening to a Zoot episode at the time, You know, not to dox myself, but I have a bit of a background in, like, social media, and just in, like, advertising, and so, I really wanted to come in and try and, like, get more attention on the community and really try to, like, grow an account and create something and try and, like, Just make everything bigger, because what y’all were doing with the podcast was incredible and amazing, but I felt like it could be getting more attention, and so yeah, I really wanted to try and like, help things grow as much as it was just like, showing, you know, zoos are people as well.

Steeeve: That’s awesome. So for me, my primary motivation in doing this activism and engaging in this discourse in these public spaces is pretty simple. It’s, suicide prevention. Because, uh, It’s not a zoo only feature, this is any sexual minority, can, under the wrong circumstances, and this is shockingly common, sadly common, feel really isolated and not supported and attacked and if, you know, even if you’re, you’re in a whole community that mostly is indifferent to you or is supportive even, but one tiny minority is.

Attacking you and heckling you. The tendency is to focus in on that attacker and think that that’s your whole world. You know, that’s like the experience of a comedian getting heckled. There’ll be a whole room full of people laughing, hundreds of people potentially. And if one person is not picking up what they’re laying down, they’ll go back to that person and like, why isn’t that guy having a good time? And it’s, hard to resist that. And until you develop those skills, right? And until you have that support. So for me, reaching those people who feel isolated, like I feel like I’m the only zoo in the world. You’re definitely not, but we’re trying to make that apparent. And I definitely know that’s why I’m here.

I know I’m not alone in that. by putting out the stickers so that people can maybe express themselves in an act of defiance or just help the stickers be made, even if they don’t even personally want them. You know, I’ve had donations from people that I’ve never sent stickers to. They just, they’re like, look, just, I just want to help, but I don’t, I can’t be caught with the stickers.

So,

Mike the Dog: Yeah,

Steeeve: you know, I don’t know everyone’s position in life is a little different, but what I’m really, really hoping Is accomplished is that some people who feel so isolated and afraid and alone and harmed that they feel like the only way out is to end their life. I’m hoping that they will feel supported long enough that they get back on their feet.

And realize, no, life can be really wonderful and it’s worth living, and maybe even get to the point that they feel like they’re so secure and well off, like, like I do, and like our listener who just wrote in does, that they’ll be in a position to help other people who are a little closer to that edge.

You know, to step back from it and keep living and to live well. So, you know, we, we hope that everyone lives long enough to cultivate an insufferable Mario Kart fixation,

you know. Yeah, that’s, that would be awesome. If that happened, we could all quit. There’d be no need for the podcast. Yeah, that’s what I got.

What do you have next, uh, Lovecat?

Lovecat: So, as we’re all out there and we are all familiar, you get a lot of different kinds of responses out there. your views on what you’re doing and how you’re doing it change over time. And the way that you conduct yourself, obviously, as we said, there’s gonna be a lot of, low quality hate coming your way.

I mean, I don’t even honestly call it hate. I don’t think somebody can, hate you who has no understanding of what you actually are, But, there is a lot of that, and it can be trying, and I totally understand why folks don’t want to put themselves in a situation where they’re going to be, targeted by that shit, because it, it does affect you, regardless, and you have to, You know, learn to cope with that, but if that’s all that was out there, then I don’t think any of us would, would be doing it, and that’s not all that’s out there, there are a lot of people who are, also active and indifferent for online, and most of them aren’t going to really say anything to you if they see what you’re putting out.

And so it’s kind of hard to gauge, what effect you, you might be having on, their, worldview. and some do, and in my experience, the ones that, do You know, message you, even if they say they don’t agree or whatever, you know, whatever that means, just the fact that you’ve, inspired them to think a new thought or consider things from a different angle than they might have otherwise, is worth, so much more than, than, uh, All the repetitive, hate and that stuff is, becomes a lot easier to disregard.

and then occasionally we also get, what I think of as like a high value audience, you know, academics, people who are conducting research, people who, whose work might have, uh, an influence on the public policy, And on, you know, social conceptions of, what zoophiles are about, but also more than that, what, the importance is of what zoophiles care about, which is animals first and foremost.

and we’ve seen that recently with, you know, several surveys that have been, conducted, with zoos, we’ve seen that with, an article published in, the Journal of Controversial Ideas, about, it’s called Zoophilia is Morally Permissible. I’ve certainly never seen, well, you know, there, there were one or two legal articles that, that made the argument that there’s no real legal basis for, Just by decree, outlying sexual relations between humans and non humans, but I think we can count on one hand the number that that’s been over the years, and those people are paying attention to us, we know that, both directly and indirectly.

Some of them have, have worked closely with us to design their studies, because they’re in a position where they don’t necessarily know how to study a population as, historically, marginalized as, and secretive as zoos, and they want to do good science. And, that wouldn’t happen if we, if we weren’t visible and, talking out there.

So we need to keep in mind that, who you’re reaching is not necessarily who you know you’re reaching. I think you guys might agree with that.

Steeeve: Oh, yeah.

Tarro: Oh, absolutely.

Lovecat: And, so that’s why it behooves us so much to, constantly be developing our thought and, checking in with how we’re presenting ourselves and, what substance we’re bringing to the table.

Because, we’ll talk about this. There is absolutely, you know, good reason to, put out simple messages too, to let people know that they’re loved and seen and valid. and there is good reason to, bring as much substance to the table as we can because nobody else is bringing it. And there are people out there who really do want to know what we have to

say and why.

Mike the Dog: Well, on Twitter, it’s all out there, right?

which is one point to make, like on Twitter, all the positive messages are already out there. It’s kind of low hanging fruit. Everyone’s already doing it, but there might be some platforms where that is rare to see where it is actually reasonable or needed.

Lovecat: Yeah.

Steeeve: Well, and you say it’s looking for you, but, you know, what is the value of cutting through the noise of hecklers? Like, if I asked it another way, I said, like, okay, imagine, that there’s one person who will kill themselves if you don’t reach out to them. And in between you and that person is, like, waist high sewage,

How much sewage would you be willing to wade through if it meant saving one human life?

And the answer is, like, quite a lot, actually, and, you know, there’s a lot of things to consider, like, I think Lovecat, as he indicated, most of this stuff is not even an approximation of discourse, it’s literally just the equivalent of, like, a kid yelling shit out the window of a passing car.

Right. it’s very low value heckling. It’s on the same tier as like, people trash talking on a Minecraft server. You know, it’s very low effort, low empathy, low engagement. They’re just looking to harass people because it’s anonymous. The cost of harassment is low. Right? There’s no consequences because they’re anonymous.

So they feel like they can pick on us because we’re an easy target and, and they just, I don’t know, they feel bad about themselves. They’re bored. You know, they, they’re not old enough to get a service job yet. And so they’re yelling shit on the internet at people that they don’t know. so if what I do in response to that is I ignore it.

And I block all of it. So my block list has got to be like a million miles long at this point, but I don’t owe them a response. Like, that’s what they would love. And I don’t feel like paying them for their low effort, borderline hateful, you know, heckling. So I just block them. And then they don’t exist for me anymore, just as they didn’t exist before I read their stupid comment.

And they just fade back into non existence, and they’re gone. And then, that frees me up to help people who actually want to engage.

Pretty cool.

Tarro: Yeah. I mean, I

think

a big thing from my point of view is, is something that you touched on there is the idea of goals and how, like, the goal of most people that are going to make an account, especially that are like, Oh, anti zoophile, 666, or whatever. That person’s goal is never, I want to help these people see that they are doing wrong and help them on the right

path.

It’s literally just like,

Steeeve: it’s bad faith.

Tarro: to bully people on the internet.

Steeeve: Or it’d say I’m a zoo and I feel bad about myself and so I’m acting out because of

that.

Tarro: we get that one a lot, for

sure.

Steeeve: really common. Sure.

Tarro: And so, it never bothers me when I receive hate comments, because that’s exactly the lens I view it through, where it’s like This person doesn’t even know me or know about zoos enough to hate us. Like, it’s just someone who has a lot of aggression that’s looking for a way to take it out, and this just happens to be an easy way to do it.

But like, realistically, it doesn’t matter what they say. The only people that I really, like, take the time to engage with or, like, quote unquote argue with are people who are like, Coming at it with more knowledge who have clearly done some amount of research that want to like engage on the topic, as opposed to just being like, animals can’t consent, got em!

Steeeve: Right. It’s like a, it’s like a knee jerk reaction even for people that might end up Eventually coming to understand who we are and how we take care of our animal companions. Maybe the starting point is they just parrot what they’ve heard before, which is that whole animal’s cack, that’s it. Which, Yeah, I think Fausty had the most brilliant response to that, which was like, of course they can consent in the way that they do with members of their own species, and with time and care and attention, we can learn to communicate with them in that context, and Be able to form those connections in a way that they understand from the perspective of their own species and how they consent with each other.

Mike the Dog: That’s still just a first order response. Fausty.

Steeeve: and sending you blurry Dr. Robotnik memes and yelling at you in all caps, you know, that’s a child. That’s not legally an adult. Like that person is not old enough to work at a sandwich store, And oh, I’m just saying, and that’s not to say that that person doesn’t have valid hopes and dreams and concerns and feelings and everything, but the point of that heckling is to Just to alleviate their boredom and try to make a stranger feel bad without suffering any consequences personally.

So if you acknowledge that that’s the spirit in which that was offered, then it’s really easy to just ignore and block that person.

Lovecat: yeah, and you know, it was my personal policy not to engage with, with trolls, which, you know, like just about everybody, I fail from time to time. it’s really hard not to when you’ve got so much of it coming at you, but, it’s gotten easier over time as I’ve, come to value other eyes on my material more.

And, One of the ways that, that I’ve dealt with that. is by, considering who I’m actually trying to reach with any given response, even if it’s a response to somebody who was, speaking in bad faith to me, because like I said, there, there are more eyes than, than just that person’s on what you say, and it can be really useful to talk over the head of, uh, you know, some shrieking bigot in order to, you know, reach somebody else who, you know, isn’t going to say anything, but whose mind, might be open to what you say, regardless of who the troll thinks you’re, you’re talking to.

That, person in this respect doesn’t matter. and I don’t know if, if that’s something that you guys keep in mind too, but, that’s something that I try to do. On whatever platform I’m using, and that can take the form of, not directly addressing their, whatever their bad faith contention is, but doing it elliptically by, citing a study or something or by, framing the, the issue in a way that makes sense to me, and I think it’s, it’s very important not to let other people, frame arguments for you, and not to let them define you because you’re out there, as a person to, to be authentic and, you know, a lot of people want to, put you on the back foot by defining you to you.

So that you have to then fight whatever caricature they’ve made of you, if you don’t allow them to do that, and just know who you are and what your purpose is and stick to it, then that technique isn’t going to work because anybody with a brain can see what’s going on there. They can tell who’s real and who’s not.

Steeeve: See, Now that’s exactly the kind of earnest, empathic, caring, compassionate response that I’ve come to expect from Lovecat.

Golly,

Tarro: the name.

Lovecat: Sorry, I’m very fluffy.

Steeeve: what is that guy all about? No, really, he’s like the best of us. I’m a little more hard shelled, I think. And, a little more, I don’t know, critical of a lot of stuff and take a little more pragmatic approach, Lovecat is definitely the best of us and he’s like my moral compass, but he’s right and that’s His voice, as like my Jiminy Cricket, is sort of in the back of my head, right, is guiding me, believe it or not, when I respond to some of these folks, where I am thinking about like, well, you know, am I, am, by saying this, am I setting a, better example and rising above this, level of Attacking, or am I sinking to that level and it’s a race to the bottom?

And like, I recognize I have a choice and that on one shoulder there’s like an angel Lovecat and on the other side there’s like a devil. I don’t always go the

Lovecat

way, but

Tarro: Wait,

who’s the

Steeeve: some other guy. He’s, I don’t know.

He’s a devil. no, no, Fausty was another. He was an additional angel. So with Lovecat and Fausty, then I have like stereo angels.

It’s pretty cool. Surround sound.

Tarro: Yeah.

Mike the Dog: Right.

Steeeve: No, you’re right though. Yeah. And then, I think you had also said something about, you know, taking control of the narrative and framing the issue yourself. And delivering a consistent message that is authentic to your own values. And you’re right. That’s, that’s what in a therapeutic context we would call modeling authentic behavior, which is to say, you know, being your genuine self and that’s.

You know, if you, what’s right for you and what you truly love, like Craig Ferguson had said, you know, if you do that, you’re, you’re bulletproof,

right?

Tarro: I also think that any time you try to argue against the person that they are trying to make you out to be, almost like, enforcing their position. Because if you have something to defend, like, showing that you are at least enough of that thing that you feel the need to push back, whereas sometimes it’s way better to just say nothing.

Leave them to realize that you are a person, and not whatever this boogeyman construct they have in your head of you is.

Steeeve: Or, I mean, if, if you feel like there’s truth to what they’re saying and their criticism of you, then maybe that’s an opportunity to think about why you felt that way. Right? But if it’s, just like a blind attack and that doesn’t evoke anything from you where you’re like, man, I don’t, I don’t feel like there’s any truth to this at all.

this doesn’t feel like this person is really making an accurate assessment of me, then it’s okay to Not engage with that on those terms and say like, okay, you know, hey I get that you feel like that’s who I am, but I honestly just don’t I don’t feel that way about myself Here’s how I do feel about myself and it includes more Mario Kart than you would imagine

Lovecat: Mm hmm.

Steeeve: That’s toggle totally taking control of the narrative to an embarrassing degree like that guy really likes Mario Kart a lot And he wants the world to know it.

Tarro: He’s been Mario Kart posting less, and I feel like you’ve gotta poke him and be like, Yo, where where is it?

Steeeve: Yeah. Are you

Lovecat: Yeah.

Tarro: are you in the Grand Prix right now?

Lovecat: Yeah.

Tarro: But, you know, it’s like, um, if I accused Mike of murdering someone in the woods in Montana in 1968, and Mike

says, I definitely did not do that, that’s exactly what a fucking murderer would say.

So, like, there’s no way to get out of that situation. Even if you’re denying it, because by denying it, you’re acknowledging it. And so even just like giving it your attention in any capacity can still come back to hurt you.

Steeeve: Yeah. it’s totally true. Just recognizing like, okay, I know this about myself. I don’t feel like engaging with bad faith attacks on myself right now. I got other stuff to do. I’m just gonna put this out of my mind. Delete, ignore, block, whatever, I’m just not going to engage with this person. Just keep in mind the sheer scale of the human, you know, infestation of our planet, right?

There’s, there’s 8. 1 billion with a B human souls alive on the planet right now at the same time, right?

I’m not talking to them either. So why should I talk to somebody who’s like going out of their way to attack me? I really super don’t have to.

There’s like really good people that I still don’t make time for, that would love to hang out with me.

And I’m like, man, if I only had enough time, right? But there’s 8. 1 billion of you. I can’t, you know, sit down to tea with all y’alls.

So, you gotta, you gotta make those decisions for yourself and like, it’s really cool that we get to do that.

Lovecat: And so when we’re putting out, you know, the messages that we want to put out, I’m thinking in terms of, uh, you know, it seems like at least here at the podcast, our, our general concept of what we’re doing has grown and developed, it started out as, you know, Specifically, zoophile advocacy, and as we’ve gone, I mean, some of us already had this in mind, and some of us, like me, you know, learned it as, as we all kind of came to it, that animal welfare, has to come before, zoophile advocacy, because if it doesn’t, then we fail both, And, so, what I’ve begun doing when I talk publicly is, and, and just, genuinely, in myself, I’ve just been learning more and more about, the animal welfare issues th that we face.

You know, we talked about, the, the, the torture and murder of a wolf earlier. you know, that’s something that’s allowed to happen, because that’s, that’s what the system is, allows for. And, that’s, if it’s ever going to change, it’s going to have to be, , more and more and more people becoming aware of it, and, demanding that it stop.

and there’s, there’s any number of, of issues, uh, that that’s true of. I’ve been, uh, really interested in, Wayne Cheung lately, who’s been fighting an amazing battle to, you know, stop the abuse of, nonhumans in, animal agriculture and in, medical testing. I think right now he’s, trying to get, animal personhood recognized.

there, there’s any number of, other, activists and, behaviorists that I’ve, you know, taken an interest in and, and learned a lot myself. And, you know, it’s revolutionized, the way that I, that I think about the world and I think about being a zoo in the world and, what I’m here to do and what I hope more and more of us are here to do.

and it’s hard to gauge, you know, how much of an effect that has, but again, There are people seeing that, and if we’re out here to advocate, then they’re going to have to take that into account. and, you know, who knows what effect that might have on them. So, that’s the kind of thing that I’m thinking about when I, when we stop talking about bigots and start talking about who we do want to, , what eyes we do want to reach.

what do you guys think about that?

Steeeve: Yeah, that’s the, furtherance of the idea that zoo positivity is important, but it’s only like a first step.

Lovecat: All right.

Steeeve: And I, I also think about, you know, the, you can’t really tease out which is more important because they’re interrelated. Like, behind every well cared for animal. You know, there’s a functioning, healthy human, right?

So it’s the idea that you, put on your own oxygen mask before you try to help other people put on theirs, that kind of thing.

Lovecat: Yeah, yeah. Mm

Steeeve: I think that once you get to a stage where like you’re doing okay, then we’re in a position to do outreach. And also once zoos are in place. a good position themselves, they can also better care for animal companions. And I think, further down that road, you have somebody like, the fellow you mentioned who gets arrested a lot for doing public activism and, and really putting his, his own freedom at risk. At risk to help animals. He’s really making a lot of sacrifices and a lot of people would not make that choice.

I mean, I didn’t. I chose my family over getting arrested, right? And other people wouldn’t make the sacrifices that I make in terms of making time away from my family to do this podcast and incurring the expense and trouble of Distributing 9, 000 stickers worldwide, you know, like it’s a hassle, man, but I feel like it’s worth it if it keeps one zoo from killing themselves and allows them to live a healthy, fulfilling life and better care for animals.

So I think not losing sight of the follow on effect of like zoopositivity is that you have a zoo who’s able to take care of Better care of animals and make their lives

Lovecat: Mm hmm.

Steeeve: is, it’s really worth keeping in mind.

Tarro: I also think that the zoo message is just like innately intrinsically linked to a lot of like animal positivity stuff. Like so much of the relationship that we form with our companions is based off of the idea that they have autonomy and they have personalities and individuality and they’re smarter than people give them credit for.

And so, by sort of displaying that part of ourselves and why we love our partners so much, at the same time we are sort of advocating for the rights of animals, similarly, like, I feel like so much of the zooey message involves, like, veganism, for instance, or being a vegetarian, or even if it’s just to the extent of, like, Making healthier choices as far as where you are getting your meat, or limiting the intake and stuff, like, all of that I think is so core to the zoo message, , to the extent that sometimes I even see people that refuse to give up meat arguing against it, but, I think that, caring about animals in the way that we do, It sort of forces the question of, okay, well, how can we care about animals outside of our relationships and just in the world around us as well?

So that side of the community, I think, is something that we should really try and like uplift and talk about more, because I think that it’s so much more powerful than trying to just sort of like debate with people on Twitter.

Lovecat: hmm. Mm hmm. That’s funny because actually it’s occurred to me before that, being vegan is more controversial than being a zoophile, you know, because you’ll get the same level of pushback in and outside of zoo spaces on that, on that issue. You know, it can be pretty tough to, To bring up with people and, you know, got very strong feelings on the matter, that’s for sure.

Steeeve: Oh

man, and if our listener who wrote in thinks that we’re spending too much time, you know, whining about being zoos, like, wait until he runs into a group of vegans, because

they will let you know, man.

They’ll let you know about their whole vegan thing. Like, they are not gonna sit back and be like anonymous vegans.

That’s not. That’s not a thing I’ve ever seen.

Tarro: ha! Yeah. No, anytime, we at the magazine publish an article about veganism, we always get at least a couple of responses from zoos being like, why are you guys talking about this? Like, this isn’t like a zoo thing. And I would, I would push back on that so heavily.

Steeeve: Yeah, and it’s, it’s, you know, it’s not the, you know, the right choice for everybody, but it’s, I think at the core of this whole episode is empathy. So if we care about animals enough to not End their lives in a preventable way, then I think we owe it to them to try to, mitigate that and reduce the, instances of that.

But also if you, I think it’s a slippery slope, because if you, If you extend your care to other species, then you also extend your care to other people. And if you keep that up, I don’t know if you guys know this, but, Jim Henson, the reason that he created Fraggle Rock, the show, was because he said he wanted to end war.

and it’s weird because like in the show, you know, there’s human characters, right? The fraggles interact with the human world from time to time and the extent to which they resolve their differences and try to bridge that interspecies cross world kind of divide. Right? I think that’s where the rubber meets the road, where Jim Henson was explicitly trying to get people to empathize with other people in a way that ultimately would prevent them from being able end human lives.

Right, so I think we’re kind of in the same business on our

ends, you know,

Lovecat: yeah,

Tarro: I certainly like to think so.

Steeeve: yeah, if you empathize with other species, you’re a lot less likely to murder them and Also, maybe as a side benefit you’re less likely to murder other humans too, like You know, Penn Jillette would say, I’ve murdered exactly the number of people that I’ve wanted to, which is zero, And I

I don’t know any murdery zoos that I know of, right?

Mike the Dog: I know quite a few,

Steeeve: Well, that’s, you just know the ones that are left after, you know, the ones that didn’t yet get murdered.

Mike the Dog: 90 percent of them,

Steeeve: Mike’s like, I’ve got a long list, okay? I’m murdering as fast as

I can over here.

But yeah, generally zoos are a little more like, Lovecat, and they’re generally really chill, empathic, earnest, caring, super sweet people. They’re like, really, really good people.

Tarro: That are the angels on your shoulders that always lead you into the right path, that never do anything morally wrong. They’ve never even lied once in their lives.

Steeeve: that would be a fascinating episode. The dark side of Lovecat.

Tarro: An expose.

Steeeve: Yeah, right?

Lovecat: The dark

side of Lovecat is that I pick my nose too much, probably.

Steeeve: not enough if you ask me. Yeah, how about share some with the rest of us?

Lovecat: Hey, if it ain’t bleeding, it ain’t enough.

Steeeve: Right? Gotta dig deeper, freely reach down

Mike the Dog: oh,

Steeeve: into your nostril.

Tarro: Really, what we’ve learned about discourse this episode is everyone should just copy Lovecat.

Steeeve: Yeah,

I

feel like we could do worse.

So to, to wrap all this up, Lovecat, I think you had some thoughts about engagement.

Lovecat: yeah, so, you know, we’ve talked about, because this is mostly about public engagement, and, what we’re talking about now is, a lot of stuff that we have kind of come to, I don’t know if a consensus is exactly the word, yeah, close enough, through our, our private discourse just on discussing, um, with each other, what really matters to us.

and, you know, I think we’ve all seen, changes in all of us, which is, you know, to be expected from genuine, interaction with other human beings, obviously. but in addition to, to that, you know, it occurs to me like there are other, platforms of discourse. I mean, this podcast is one, this podcast exists because, Zoos never really had before a public facing space that was all our own, that was meant to be as inclusive of members of the community as we could make it, and, apparently not inclusive enough, uh, but we’re trying, in, in which we, didn’t have to, deal with pushback that, anybody who was interested in, in what we actually, are about and, and have to say, you know, could find out.

and that’s new. and it’s, also something that, you know, this podcast is well established now that we’re into our sixth season here. but it’s, it’s kind of amazing to think that nothing like this existed until, 2019. before that you had to rely on, the Twitters and the Quora’s and the, the whatever else is, or, you know, you had to only exist in some, message board backwater or private chat, which obviously also have their, their value.

but that’s another realm that people might want to think about, where you can, you know, Put yourself out there, as you are, Zooey. pub is another one, , which is, incredibly prolific, I despair of ever reading the entire thing, I mean, there’s already so much, and you guys have only been around for like, what, a year or something?

Tarro: Our two year anniversary is at the end of next month.

Lovecat: Yeah. And in that two years, I mean, you’ve put out so much content and, it’s all stuff that’s not really being said anywhere else.

Steeeve: Well, and it’s, well enough established that it’s even been referenced in a published academic

article.

Tarro: so cool to see.

That literally made my day. If you ask a lot of, different, like, AIs questions about zoosexuality, we’re usually referenced in the information that they’re drawing from there as well.

So,

Steeeve: you’ve arrived.

Tarro: yeah, no, it feels, it feels very cool that we, uh, we’re getting to actually, like, see the impact of the work that we’ve been putting in the

past couple years, because, it’s been fun, but it’s been a lot.

Steeeve: that’s

awesome.

Lovecat: I, know there have been other attempts in the, in the past to, make, you know, a zoo magazine. I can think of one from like the late nineties, at least, but I don’t think most of them last very long. and maybe that was just because, you know, I’m You know, of the time that these things were made or something, maybe now is just the right time and you’re the right people, but I think it’s important for people to, you know, think creatively about, making their own spaces, because if the place for you to express yourself as you will doesn’t exist, you may have to just make it.

And, that can be a pretty huge, undertaking, but, the value can be immense, there have been serious academic articles that have, referenced zooey. pub and, I’m sure, you know, other, z spaces, so the eyes are on us that, that we want, To get and, the more of us that can think outside the established, system as far as getting our messages across, , the more of those eyes we can reach and, the bigger difference we can make in the world.

Tarro: And for every single person that’s out there, there’s a different way that they like to experience content or receive messages and stuff. And so, like, A lot of the kind of topics that, you guys do on Zoot, are things that we could never really cover in an article in a way that felt sufficient because they’re just like bigger topics.

Whereas similarly, I think we get away with being able to talk about a lot of smaller things

because we don’t feel the need to sort of have two hours worth of,

dialogue about it, you

know? And, there’s so much room for someone to create like YouTube shorts or like TikToks or longer form sort of essay content or.

You know, like, there’s, there’s a million different things. Art, art’s a huge one,

especially with the overlap with the furry fandom. so like, if there’s a message that you have that you think would be valuable to hear in the community, like, create it. It, like, there’s so much energy towards any kind of project, like, a couple of friends of mine just launched a Discord server that’s, entirely for zoo artists, the Zooey Art Collective, it’s all just people that are coming together to share art and talk about, like, Art tips and technique and drawings and it’s, incredible, like there’s so much room for growth in the community.

Lovecat: There’s so many niches that haven’t been filled. Well, folks, we hope that this, discursive conversation about conversation has helped you think in ways that you maybe hadn’t considered before.

Steeeve: Yeah, and if you don’t already have a Lovecat conscience angel on your shoulder, you can order one for a modest contribution to donate at zoo. wtf. I

Mike the Dog: I think you’d like it himself.

Donate directly to Lovecat and I’m sure he’ll sit on your shoulder for you for a thousand bucks.

Steeeve: He’ll sit

Lovecat: Yeah.

Steeeve: face, too. He

Lovecat: Oh, yeah.

Steeeve: nom nom nom.

Outro

Lovecat: Thanks friends for listening to Zoo or than thou

Steeeve: Our next episode is on June 22nd. In our new format, every second episode will be a bigger one with a variety of skits!

Tarro: It’s bound to be surprising, so don’t miss it.

Mike the Dog: You can subscribe to the podcast via our zoo, ERSS Feed. Just point your favorite podcast client At RSS Zoo wtf. You can also check out our extensive bonus content at Bonus Zoo. Do wtf. If you wanna show your support financially, head on over to Donate Zoo. wtf. Find some blue sky at you. Guessed it.

Zoo. wtf.

Lovecat: follow Mike the dog on Twitter at Dog Mike Zcc. Steve at Stories Zoo Tarot at here for the zoo. And follow me on Mastodon at Love [email protected]. Our podcast website hasn’t changed and you can find a form there that enables anonymous submissions to the podcast. You can also simply email us at [email protected].

Steeeve: Share this podcast with a new zoo to help THEM raise the discourse too!

Tarro: Taro, and I’m still on Twitter for some reason.

Steeeve: I’m Stephen Zoo Discourse Aficionado.

Lovecat: I’m Lovecat, telling y’all to wiggle your squiggle whether it’s a big one or little.

Mike the Dog: And I’m Mike the dog wooing through the night, except when I’m already in bed, sleeping, and you’ve almost finished listening to zooier than thou, stay defiant fellow zoos. We’ll see you next time you feel like howling at the moon!