A common narrative on discussion boards like Hacker News is that my inclusion of my fursona on my technical blog posts somehow makes them unsuitable for consumption in a business setting. (This claim is made despite the fact that I’ve never posted pornographic art on this blog.)

Well, Internet marketers must have missed that memo!

They keep contacting me through various channels to try to pay me to publish something that promotes some business.

A few years ago, I briefly humored one of these outreach requests just to see if they’d attempt to write it in my distinct style, complete with furry stickers. In the end, I declined payment and fully disclosed their draft blog post and the emails.

If the recent deluge of emails from marketing agencies are indicative of a trend, neither the furry art nor shenanigans have made me enough of a pariah to the advertising industry for them to leave me alone.

A word on emails and incentives

I generally don’t want to make a habit of publishing emails I’ve received, no matter how hilarious they would be to dunk on. This is especially true of hate emails I received over the years.

Part of the reason for my stance here is that it creates perverse incentives: Some people will enhance their negativity in the hopes that their email gets published next. This can lead the blogger to experience more negative feedback from their audience, which can lead to all sorts of toxic outcomes. Even if you avoid those, you still generally feel shittier about your own blog and interacting with people.

Conversely, I receive a lot of positive and thoughtful letters and comments from folks across the world. It’s a delight to hear from most of you.

I even occasionally hear from technical recruiters (and one investor) that are interested in working with cryptography or privacy experts. When this happens, I’ll funnel recruiters towards excellent people I know that are on the market for new jobs, and refer investors to companies staffed by people I’ve worked with before and know to be capable of delivering incredible work.

I actually don’t mind hearing from recruiters or investors in this way because there’s no editorial pressure on my blog’s contents. Connecting people on both sides of a potentially mutually beneficial business transaction is called being part of society and not a burden, nor something I hope to personally extract value from.

The problem is when people think they can pay me to publish their words as my own.

I’m not interested

I’d like to believe that explanation is sufficient and satisfactory, but we clearly don’t live in the ideal world.

So here’s some more reasons why I’m not going to entertain any offers from advertisers.

Your brand sucks

There’s no gentle way to put this, so I’m not going to mince words.

If you’re so desperate to try to get eyeballs on a product or service that you’ll ask furry bloggers that have explicitly made it a point to be hostile towards Advertising as an industry, your product or service is probably (at best) utter shit. In all likelihood, it’s even more likely to be a scam or a grift than merely “not valuable” to potential buyers.

If you’re that desperate, why would I subject my readers to your product or service at all, let alone endorse it?

Your offer sucks

The dollar amount attached to these offers is, in practice, irrelevant. I wouldn’t sell out for any price, after all.

Having said that, the fact that these unsolicited offers are as cheap as they are also makes me feel kind of insulted.

You advertising parasites really think $100 (or less) is going to compel me to sell out? I’m not a middle school kid arguing for a bigger allowance. I have a career and pay a mortgage.

Give me some credit for fucks sake.

$100 wouldn’t even cover my hosting costs for this blog for half a year. Did someone in your network veer into the creepy realm of pick-up artists and suggest negging as an outreach strategy?

Your writing style is uninteresting

I am, much to the chagrin of pedants everywhere, a proponent of conversational English writing.

Every attempt at native advertising copywriting I’ve seen has been painfully corporate and dull. (Maybe the pedants would like it, though?)

You might think you’re being conversational, but you’re about as authentic as the “sugar baby” scammers on Telegram.

You missed the point entirely

Have anyone in the advertising or marketing space ever wondered, “Why would anyone write technical deep dives under their furry fandom persona when all that could instead be written under their professional name to advance their own career?”

It’s not much of a mystery: I’m sufficiently established in my career that writing something that other engineers could use to bolster their career as my fursona isn’t a significant loss to me.

This is aside from the fact that most cryptography experts, and companies that hire cryptography experts, don’t give half a shit about anyone’s hobbies or participation in Internet subcultures, no matter how weird they may seem to Reddit users.

“You’re a gay furry? There’s a private Slack channel if you want to join it. Talk to [person] for an invite.” — every major tech company

In practice, the most of the people who would hold such a thing against you aren’t the sort of people you’d want to work for anyway.

The entire point of writing furry blogs is to have fun; not to make money.

If people want to throw a few bucks my way for a coffee, as a way of showing their appreciation, that’s wonderful. But I don’t expect it, and I don’t take it for granted.

I don’t have a content strategy.

I don’t have monetization goals.

My livelihood doesn’t depend on how well my blog posts are received by strangers on the Internet.

I don’t fit the vague “content creator” box. There is no today’s sponsor. This message isn’t brought to you by anyone but me.

And that’s the way I like things.

I’d be willing to bet, that’s how most of my regular readers like things, too.

I don’t have anything to sell. I don’t want to have anything to sell.

If I ever recommend a piece of technology, it’s always for technical reasons and it’s usually free.

The only thing I do that could be considered mildly promotional is crediting the artists that drew stuff for me when I use it in my blog. (The furry sticker I used in the header image was made by AJ, by the way.)

Why do I do that? Because I want to see people in my community thrive. I don’t want anything in return.

A few years ago, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, I wrote a detailed series about getting into the tech industry for as close to $0 and zero experience as possible, aimed at furry audiences. Between the money I paid to artists to create the illustrations for that series, and the time and expertise that went into writing it, it’s probably worth something like $6,000 to someone in a three-piece suit.

To me, its worth is that a half dozen or so furries (that I know of) have successfully followed the advice given therein to change careers. This is priceless. But it also probably injected damn near half a million dollars into the economy, due to these folks’ increased purchasing power.

If each of them pay it forward and help at least one other person attain their career goals, based on the strategy and guidance I gave away for free, the sky’s the limit on how beneficial it could be.

Me selling out wouldn’t help anyone.

Furries aren’t a marketable demographic

I know that, partly due to the breakneck exponential growth of the furry fandom, it’s inevitable that some marketer would view us as an untapped market.

But every time a major brand has tried to establish themselves in the furry community, they usually get shouted at with lots of porn. This tactic is controversial (especially when the brand in question is one that a lot of kids might follow on social media) yet effective.

Porn is mainly an anathema to marketers because of influences from the likes of MasterCard, who are in bed with “Christian” anti-sex movements like “Exodus Cry”; not because there’s any falsehood to the idea that sex sells.

If I thought it would scare marketers away, and not just cause myself a different kind of headache, I would consider including furry porn on every blog post I ever wrote.

TL;DR

My final answer to any online marketer looking to publish anything on this blog is, “No.”

If anyone is really has money burning a hole in their pocket that they want to send me, you’re certainly free to do so, but you won’t get anything in return.

If it still doesn’t click, I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe my writing isn’t that good after all, and your brand would be better served by a blog that’s easier to understand? Tell yourself whatever keeps your unsolicited marketing emails from being sent.