He Feels Guilty about Past Support of Abusive Furry

Papabear,

This year has been very upsetting. I have had my trust in others seriously tested. It had been waning in fact since my school years but this year was arguably the most upsetting I've experienced so far where I felt betrayed, lied to and finding someone I once respected was in fact an awful person with genuine evidence backing it up.

This situation started around my school years when I was naive and young, yet to have my innocence ripped away. I was young and wanted to make friends with everyone. As I've written before, I had my trust in others severed when I was bullied behind my back in primary school. It continued into my high school years and it was deeply upsetting.

Now into this year, there was a furry I once respected and was once liked by the fandom. Kero the Wolf would be his name. I've blocked him on Twitter over his lies of being hacked and finding out the horrific chats and legit videos doing the act of sexually harming his own dog to death. Regardless of the fact he was in a zoosadism group, he lied to the entire fandom and me and I felt a horrible feeling of betrayal.

I was devastated that he lied to me and did those horrible acts. He's a YouTube furry who reached 100 thousand subscribers on his channel after appearing on Shane Dawson's channel. Kero claims to be a wildlife advocate but what he did sickens me.

He's since blamed the fandom for his own horrific acts and acts like the victim on his YouTube channel. I hate what he did.

But that's not even the worst of it. His betrayal has left me paranoid and scared of anyone in the fandom. I'm so scared that I could unknowingly be supporting a popular furry who might be hurting people/animals and I would have have no idea they did anything. It's horrible to think that way but I'm just so scared and upset.

I certainly didn't know of what he did when I initially defended him against what I thought were slanderous claims against Kero who I once respected at the time. Plus, anyone can fake evidence nowadays. It's disturbingly easy to do and ruin someone's life.

I know I wasn't aware of anything he did before finding out and being disgusted/horrified. Defending him makes me sound complicit but frankly, I'm angry at him for doing those horrible things that goes against what I stand for as a furry and essentially treating me like I'm nothing.

Most furries care about animals. They like animals so why would they want to hurt them, especially in such a cruel way?

In fact, the #MeToo scandal ruined whatever respect I once had since I was a kid for so many talented celebrities (too many to count) who once inspired me and it made me feel like it was pointless to even be a mere supporter of those kind of people. The fact many of them exploited people sexually and used their talent to hurt others disgusts me.

Then back in 2015, my parents separated without even telling me beforehand. I still don't completely trust them even though they say they love and care about me.

The point I'm trying to make is that I'm rather upset and genuinely scared of who I can look up to or be a mere supporter of. I'm not saying the furries I like have done anything wrong but I don't want to look complicit in anything. I'm so concerned and stressed about all this. I just like supporting others because I believe in being genuinely kind to others and treating them well. I wanna be a good friend that looks out for them.

Sorry for the long letter. I just wanna ask. Is it okay to be supportive of someone or should I just not bother?

I'm very upset that so many people unknowingly left me feeling betrayed and hurt. I don't want to hurt anyone. I'm a ball of anxiety. Scared to offend anyone and I certainly don't wanna hurt any animal or person. This whole situation has nearly made me fall into despair. I'm honestly about to cry.

I'm an emotionally broken dog. I feel so stupid for ever supporting people and not knowing about what they did. It makes me seem complicit anyway.

Why even bother?

-Sam the dog

* * *

Hi, Sam,

Yes, there has been considerable online chatter about Kero lately. I get where you are coming from that what he did is a big letdown. We often set up heroes in our lives, people we admire, and when they do something awful, we feel betrayed. I've felt that a couple times. For example, I was a big fan of Bill Cosby for the longest time. I loved his "Fat Albert" show as a kid, loved "The Cosby Show," and appreciated his outspokenness about the importance of education, especially for young black people. When I learned about his drugging and raping of women, it felt, indeed, like a betrayal, not just to me, of course, but to all the black people he was a role model for. The same thing for O. J. Simpson. He was my favorite player when I was a kid (him and Joe Namath). Some people might believe he is innocent of murder, but I think the trial was a farce and he was guilty and not "some Mexican guy." John Lasseter, the man behind so many movies I adore, has been accused of multiple sexual offenses. Charlie Rose, a man I always respected as an excellent journalist, was fired for sexual misconduct, too. I used to think Roseanne Barr was cool. Then, of course, there's Bill Clinton, and John F. Kennedy was a noted philanderer.

On the other hand, there are some heroes of mine I feel have been unjustly accused, including George Takei and Neil deGrasse Tyson. I feel the charges against Al Franken were blown out of proportion to get him ousted from Congress.

The thing is, these people were not my family or personal friends; they don't even know me, so their moral failures were not a betrayal to me (or a reflection of me) but to themselves and their community. The same goes for Kero. You shouldn't take it personally. Indeed, just as with your parents' divorce, it actually isn't about you. And you shouldn't feel guilty about trying to defend Kero, because once you learned the truth, you withdrew that support. You did the right thing.

The gist of your question is this: "Whom can I trust without fear of looking like a fool or like someone who is complicit in immoral behavior if it comes to light that they are a bad person?" The answer, really, is that you really can't, because all people are imperfect. The good news is that not everyone will let you down the way Kero did for you and many others in the fandom.

So, if you can't be 100% certain that people won't let you down, should you flee from the world, hide in a cave, and never trust anyone again? Absolutely not. Look, there are two kinds of people in your life: there are those who are close to you who are friends and family, and then there are people we hear about in the news such as celebrities, athletes, and politicians. When it comes to the former, people you love, what you do is love them, even if, on occasion, they might let you down a bit. Usually, they don't mean to, and with a little work, you can reconcile your relationship (which is what you need to do with your parents; talk to them about how you feel).

When it comes to celebrities and other famous people, you can admire them for the good things they do that caused you to like them in the first place while acknowledging and not supporting any bad things they do. It doesn't make you a bad person that you supported good deeds. For example, it doesn't make me a bad person for believing that Bill Clinton did a lot of good stuff for this country because I also acknowledge that he often thought too much with his penis. I will go even farther--and probably shock some people--when I say that I feel President Richard Nixon did some good things for the country (space program, relations with China), and that I feel Watergate was a result of his suffering from the mental disorder of severe paranoia. I'll even say that Trump has done a couple good things, although he is 98% bad and completely immoral, which is why I never supported him. However, I do understand how some people were misled by Trump into believing they should vote for him. Of those people, there are some smart enough to admit they made a mistake and who have withdrawn their support for the Orange One, while others continue to be blinded by hate, fear, and prejudice. Of these people, I feel the former were just foolish and ignorant, while the latter are, well, stupid and hateful.

Making a mistake doesn't make you a bad person. If you continued to support Kero, I would say, yeah, there's something amiss with you, but you haven't done that. You're okay.

In summary, support the good acts that you see people doing; condemn the acts you know to be immoral (such as animal abuse, sexual assault). Your own character will be measured by what you do and not by what you say (talk is cheap--truer words have never been spoken). Your character will be measured by the evidence that you live by moral convictions not by which celebrities or popufurs you once felt were cool.

Hugs,
Papabear