ARLINGTON, VA—Bringing the digital world to a sudden standstill, the internet went completely offline Friday after the entirety of the IT workforce departed en masse to attend Anthrolington, a furry convention being held in Arlington, Virginia throughout the weekend.

Across the globe, spanning Europe, Africa, Asia, the Americas, Oceania, and Middle-Earth, the sudden collapse of the world wide web plunged towns and cities into panic and chaos. Airlines immediately began grounding flights, financial institutions scrambled to secure their digital assets, drivers were left stranded without GPS navigation, and Reddit users were suddenly stripped of their ability to project an air of smug superiority over one another.

Citizens across the planet had begun to reverting back to primitive forms of communication, including postal services, paper airplanes, face-to-face conversations, carrier pigeons, and aggressively throwing bricks through windows with notes attached. Meanwhile, major digital-first companies like Google, Amazon, Meta, Spotify, Netflix, OpenAI, X/Twitter, MySpace, and wasteof.money panicked as they feared a catastrophic decline in share prices. Those immediate worries, however, were quickly alleviated when executives realised that global stock markets were not functioning either, as they relied on the internet.

Meanwhile, sysadmins and other IT specialists were descending upon Anthrolington, blissfully unaware of the chaos unfolding outside of the convention. "This is awesome!" shouted Jase Rich, a sysadmin at Cloudflare, dressed in a blue wolf fursuit adorned with antlers, proudly telling reporters his fursona was named Roughtail Oddbones. "I've been looking forward to this convention for ages! It took quite a lot of time and money to get my suit ready, but I'm pretty stoked with how it turned out! Tons of people have said I look awesome! I took some time off work as well, I'm sure things will be fine without me for a little bit," Mr. Rich said, as riots and looting broke out beyond the convention doors after the internet blackout halted all online food delivery.

"It is quite astonishing just how much of our digital infrastructure relies entirely upon the furry community," said Faith Poole, a tech journalist from lesser news outlet The Verge. "I've been covering this sector for over 13 years, and in all that time, I have yet to meet a single IT professional who doesn't have a fursona." Furthermore, Ms. Poole estimated that roughly 99% of individuals working in the IT industry identify as furries, with the remaining 1% instead identifying as bronies.

As the world has grown increasingly reliant on the internet and other technologies to operate, governments all over the globe have instituted measures to ensure the survival of their fursuit-wearing IT specialists. A recent example comes from the United States, where Congress passed a bipartisan bill last year prohibiting airlines from allowing more than 25% of a flight's passengers to be furries, designed to prevent any major losses to the global sysadmin workforce in the event of a fatal plane crash.

"It's like The Purge out here!" sobbed Paolo Morante, a 34-year-old accountant in Milan who spoke to The Wasted Onion from inside his home, which he had barricaded with sandbags, rocks, and half-opened bags of pasta. "I've watched my neighbours turn into absolute savages! They're eating each other! Seriously, what the fuck?! I'm not leaving this house until that furry convention ends. Honestly, I might need to start adding the dates of upcoming furry conventions to my calendar so I can prep for the next apocalypse."

Meanwhile, attendees of Anthrolington were partaking in various activities as the world outside collapsed in their absence. Between events like a "fursuit dance competition," the "Critterlympics," "PAWaoke," and "keep the dying masses from breaching the convention doors," attendees partook without worry. While the U.S. military secured a perimeter around Arlington to prevent violent mobs from entering Anthrolington, fursuiters, their handlers, and other furries continued to casually socialise and buy art from sellers, oblivious to the world burning just beyond the convention walls.

Just as vital facilities like hospitals began running out of life-saving medical supplies due to the inability to use Amazon Prime, governments across the world instituted national emergencies, declared martial law, or simply dissolved their countries altogether. As of the time of writing, 7 countries have ceased existence, including Latvia, Timor-Leste, Chad, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Samoa, and New Rearendia. Following the cessation of various nations, the United Nations released a brief statement announcing that "we give up."

At press time, U.S. government officials were seen attempting to negotiate with the tech-minded furries by trying to coax them out of the convention centre with bowls of pet food, unaware that fursuiters are human beings beneath the costumes.