What is a furry?

Originally Posted by Kaijima

If your culture pool says stuff like Zeal is cool, then of course it's less embarrassing! Or if emo death metal is your thing, of course it's awesome and not lame to go dress up like a goth rocker. Or maybe you're part of the cultural armada of sports fans and armchair quarterbacks, living out their penis-enhancing fantasies via their athletic heroes. It's certainly not stupid or embarrassing to go around wearing imitation football jerseys bearing the name and number of the substitute, modern-day war-god that you worship and identify with to bolster your self-image.

Anything can be made to seem stupid, foolish, or lame, and embarrassing. Sometimes, I think what really pisses certain people off, is seeing somebody happily doing or being something the viewer is embarrassed by personally. It's like a challenge to the onlookers security. I remember knowing a guy who was embarrassed whenever cartoons - any cartoons - were playing on a TV in the room. He thought all cartoons were idiotic and for 5 year old children. He further felt that just by being nearby a cartoon, he would be associated with them and thus seen as "immature".

Zeal here, of course, referencing the gamingforce member that Megalith does his best impersonation of with his posting style. Making that entire rant pretty much pointless on your part, mate.

Aside from that little bit of head-up-your-own-assery, you did a decent job of summing up what everyone else had already said. It is not furries, but a specific group of furries that are the reason most people hate them. However, I do think you're doing your best to obfuscate the point that there are underlying aspects to furry culture that make them easily despised in the public eye. I'd guess it's because, as you said, you have a lot of friends who would self-identify as furries, and possibly would yourself--or perhaps you'd say otherkin, or otakukin or whatever rubbish you prescribe to--and don't wish to slag on the community as a whole. And that's fine. Maybe you have some close friends that are completely normal and like to dress up like animals, or even just like the art. No one is saying furries can't be good people, we're saying that furry culture, inherently, has some pretty overwhelming undercurrents of what-the-fuck going through it. I.E. the martyr complex and the drama that follows them. At the heart, what's been said is this: Like fucked up shit that no one else will care about. That's great. But don't expect hugs and candy for your troubles.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Quote:

The reality with furries is that by any realistic standard, they're /geeks/. Their particular geeky fixation is anthropomorphic animals. The irony of furries being popular for gamer geek and computer geek culture to pick on, is that by the lights of the rest of culture, gamer and computer geeks are often see as "losers who fail at life" precisely because they "don't act, behave, have the manners, or interests" of "the rest of us, who are the NORMAL ones". I've been involved or around furry (and other, such as anime) fandom for a number of years. I've met a lot of people who have issues. Being objective however, I've met just as many people who have issues among Linux geeks, gamers, anime fans, and what have you. People who think they're "normal" and mainstream have just as many issues a lot of the time, that are more easily covered up by those issues blending in to mainstream society.

You do realize being at the bottom of the rung of nerd fandoms is just about as bad as it gets, right?

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by RacinReaver

You do realize being at the bottom of the rung of nerd fandoms is just about as bad as it gets, right?

Not QUITE the bottom...



What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Kaijima

The biggest problem with trying to mention "furries" on the Internets is that the Internets is, by this point, pretty much drunk on its own kool-aid of memes, fads, slang, and a massive filter that is designed to distort everything on it for the amusement of the Internets. Going and finding Youtube videos of people being stupid or trying to make "comedy gold" is not exactly an objective take on reality.

The reality with furries is that by any realistic standard, they're /geeks/. Their particular geeky fixation is anthropomorphic animals. The irony of furries being popular for gamer geek and computer geek culture to pick on, is that by the lights of the rest of culture, gamer and computer geeks are often see as "losers who fail at life" precisely because they "don't act, behave, have the manners, or interests" of "the rest of us, who are the NORMAL ones". I've been involved or around furry (and other, such as anime) fandom for a number of years. I've met a lot of people who have issues. Being objective however, I've met just as many people who have issues among Linux geeks, gamers, anime fans, and what have you. People who think they're "normal" and mainstream have just as many issues a lot of the time, that are more easily covered up by those issues blending in to mainstream society.

Furries do however, stand out because their particular gimmick is especially easy to notice. This does also make it easier for furries who have issues to make more dramatic displays with themselves. It /also/ makes it easier for everyone else to create simple stereotypes and slap them on everyone they possibly can.

Having said all that however, my experience has shown me it is also pretty true that "Internet Furries" do have a higher instance of living up to stereotypes, and that online furry culture is often a wriggling mass of bizarre fandom politics and drama. The problem there, again, is that it's the Internets. Put somebody on the Internet and give them an audience, and every bit of social conditioning that makes them behave in front of real live people flies out the window. For those who actually might be curious about all this wackiness, here's another secret of furry subculture: there's quite a split between "internet" and "real life" furries in many regions. Tons of furries have little to do with the online furry crowd and stay away like the plague. Tons of online furry fans don't even realize that the other kinds of furries exist, and this is one reason why you'll find strange, bizarre statements and explanations of what the whole thing is about in many online quarters.

It's interesting to watch the media's reaction to furry fandom continue to evolve for instance, as furries don't just run away after a few MTV specials. Over the last couple of years there have been more reporters attending furry conventions to see what the "controversy" is about. What has happened is that the reporters have had to go home mostly empty handed, having found a bunch of shockingly normal geeks who are almost indistinguishable from any other group of geeks and fans. Even the costumers, fursuiters, cosplayers, LARPers, and the like, have a regretable tendency to just not be, in person, what the Internet would prefer for its idle amusement. Yes, even with teh pr0n lurking in the corners.

Additional Spam:


If your culture pool says stuff like Zeal is cool, then of course it's less embarrassing! Or if emo death metal is your thing, of course it's awesome and not lame to go dress up like a goth rocker. Or maybe you're part of the cultural armada of sports fans and armchair quarterbacks, living out their penis-enhancing fantasies via their athletic heroes. It's certainly not stupid or embarrassing to go around wearing imitation football jerseys bearing the name and number of the substitute, modern-day war-god that you worship and identify with to bolster your self-image.

Anything can be made to seem stupid, foolish, or lame, and embarrassing. Sometimes, I think what really pisses certain people off, is seeing somebody happily doing or being something the viewer is embarrassed by personally. It's like a challenge to the onlookers security. I remember knowing a guy who was embarrassed whenever cartoons - any cartoons - were playing on a TV in the room. He thought all cartoons were idiotic and for 5 year old children. He further felt that just by being nearby a cartoon, he would be associated with them and thus seen as "immature".

First, I'd like to thank you for taking the time out to make such a reply.

I think you're quite right in that people feel uncomfortable around others who are engaging in embarassing acts. You'll find that it's human nature to seek privacy when doing embarassing things - taking a shit is a good example. I understand that someone like you would feel that it's a challenge to mainstream society to embarass people around you, but why do you feel this is appropriate? Additionally, to what ends do you see that furry behavior becomes inappropriate?

Additionally I feel that it's important to point out how you chose computer-relating topics as topics of nerditry. There are many nerds for cars, more than there are nerds for Linux, but yet I don't tend to see furries ever claim that sort of hobby. Culinary arts, travelling, carpentry, I see so few furries take on those topics of interest. Why do you suppose that is?

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by a lurker

Culinary arts, travelling, carpentry, I see so few furries take on those topics of interest. Why do you suppose that is?

Not true, there are plenty of furries willing to travel any distance for gay sex, once second life loses its lustre. Followed by posting on LJ about how smelly and mean they are.

The internet breeds furries the same way it breeds otaku, total fuckwads, and zeal clones. It turns socially isolated but relatively normal geeks into raging assholes and gives those of us who've grown out of it something to laugh at. And if you can't laugh at how stupid you were when you were 15, what can you?

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Denicalus

No one is saying furries can't be good people, we're saying that furry culture, inherently, has some pretty overwhelming undercurrents of what-the-fuck going through it. I.E. the martyr complex and the drama that follows them.

It's precisely this inherent difference that makes Furries veritable drama magnets wherever they go. It's not just Furries, either, any subculture in society has to adapt some sort of uniformity to keep from being chastised, exchanging uniqueness for general acceptance. The people we normally identify as "Furries" are the ones who adhere to all the obsessive stereotypes and go against uniformity by wearing cat ears in public, posting erotic art or stories, and generally scoffing at the human condition. The choice, whether it is realized as one or not, is for each person in the fandom (culture, lifestyle, whatever) to decided how much of an outsider they are willing to be, and how far into it they are willing to go. Obviously, the ones that go way off the deep end are the most noticeable, and are inherently the most resented by the general public, who, by and large, practice normality to a degree where this kind of stuff is majorly reprehensible.

The ones who *don't*, though, are less likely to be singled out, and may not even be labeled as Furries at all! Because of this, only the worst of the group are represented at any given time. When I say "worst", I mean the ones who have used the blueprints of society as how *not* to live, and have basically given up any human desire in favor of the ones the group-mind dictates. In short, in their attempts to become more individual, they have only become more homogenized, easily fitting into the stereotypical boundaries set by the net populace by seeking the favor of a small, centralized minority to feel accepted. And in order to *be* accepted, they usually have to submit themselves to some pretty goofy things. It's not just Furries, either, it's several other subcultures, net or otherwise, who package individuality in easily-assemilated pieces: what to wear, what to watch, what to like, each of which has one thing in common: not everyone else is doing it. I'm not trying to generalize the Furry scene here, I'm just making a point about the worst of it.

There's a line somewhere on what makes a person of Furry and someone who just likes Furry stuff. The people who generally just enjoy the art (I do, (some of it) who doesn't like good art?) or hang out with people who happen to watch SatAM Sonic may come across as pretty normal, but they're just being themselves, and that's what I respect. You can call yourself whatever you want, but you need to ask yourself why you're doing what you're doing, and why you like what you like (or *think* you like). If Miles says he just likes Furry art, none of the drama, none of the idol worship, none of the flock-mentality, then he's not a Furry, he's Miles. A guy from California who likes Tails enough to put him in his avatars and maybe call himself a fox from time to time. Of course, if anyone like that still wants to call themselves Furries, by all means. Anyone smart enough can tell the difference.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Dhsu

KalebG is also a fan of furry art, is he not? Perhaps he can shed some light on this matter?

I'm only loosely tied to actual "furry" furry art. I'm more into reptiles and other oddities. Plus, I only really care about the porn.

I'm not saying I will never fursuit. I'm just saying I'm not pursuing it now. But yes, I do attend furry conventions. I got the photos to prove it. I also do something else that a couple people here know about but is still not ready to be unleashed upon the unwilling masses.

You couldn't identify me as being a furry if you just knew me normally. Maybe a hardcore video game nerd, but that's about it. I usually keep my furry activities separate from everything else. Besides, I can't stand all of the retarded words and mannerisms that furries use. Every time I see "hyooman" I want to vomit.

There's nowhere I can't reach.