Furry Fandom

[futoshi92 34]

 

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The furry fandom is a subculture interested in anthropomorphic animal characters with human personalities and characteristics. Examples of anthropomorphic attributes include exhibiting human intelligence and facial expressions, speaking, walking on two legs, and wearing clothes. The term "furry fandom" is also used to refer to the community of people who gather on the internet and at furry conventions.

On this thread I wanna share with you guys my thoughts and personal experience with a community, I am part of. Namely furries.

I've discovered and joined the furry fandom in 2009/10, when I was in early high school. What has drawn me into it was the amazing art, cute fursuits and conventions/gatherings with very a friendly atmosphere. But let's start with my personal history. I'm gonna try to keep it brief.

 

Ever since I was a kid, there was a lot of interest and appeal to me in cartoon animal characters. Growing up with cartoons such as Looney Tunes, Animaniacs and a lot of Disney Dreamworks and Don Bluth movies contributed to that a lot. Many cartoon characters, I've had a crush on were anthropomorphic animals. This all happened when the Internet wasn't nearly as popular as then. When I've accidently found DeviantArt around 2009, I've discovered a lot of gorgeous furry and non-furry art, which not only encouraged me to start drawing, but made me realize there I wasn't the only one taking interest in that particular theme  

 

The major aspect of furry fandom, I take part in is creating art, which brought me here in my first place. I've made a separate thread on MH with my art BTW  Back of the topic majority of furries, depict their walking and talking animal version of an alter-ego called "a fursona", giving them a lot of personal traits. I.e. mine is a long haired red fox named Kentaro, design inspired by Japanese mythology, heavy metal and 80s/early 90s visual kei. Also the name is derived from Gargoyle guitarist. The art themes can range from modern world to fantasy, ancient times to cyberpunk, etc. Although just a simple picture of their fursonas is prefered. I also was an art vendor at Dealers Den at Polish furry con called Gdakon 2019, and this is what most of us were drawing. Another popular thing are fursuits, which is basically cosplay of a furry characters. If professionally done they can be incredibly cute and huggable  Although fursuits may seem very common at first, only 15-20% of furries own a fursuit. Mostly due to price, which is caused by efforts and material buying. Now, I don't have a fursuit yet, but plan to get one in the future 😄

 

Aside what I've mentioned, I've personally felt very welcome in the fandom, since it's very accepting towards LGBTQ+ or people with Autism Spectrum. Both make large portion of the fandom. Also furries raised and donated a lot of money for animal shelters and as a help for Australia after the recent bushfires. But just like with any other community there is a dark side of it. The most common is over-sexualization. While I see furry porn as a follow to rule 34, no different than hentai, I strongly believe it shouldn't be a face of the fandom by any means. Something that people need to keep to themselves, unless asked for on nsfw social media accounts. Other awful parts, included cases of animal abuse, destruction of the property or creepiness in chats and conventions  Now, those aren't at all inherent to the fandom, just being a piece of s**t. Luckily I witnessed people who commited such thing were being ostracized from the fandom.

 

To put it up, yes, it is weird and unusual to a lot of people for understandable reasons, it has it's problems to fix, but that still doesn't prevent from following basic decency. Regardless everything, I have a lot to thanks to the furry culture for shaping me and it'll stay close to my heart forever ❤️

 

Maybe anyone else on MH is a furry as well?

If you have any questions or something to discuss, I'll gladly answer  Negative points are welcome too, just keep it civil.

Edited October 8, 2020 by futoshi92

[Senedjem 510]

Guilty as charged lmao ✌️

[nikuman 32]

I'm not a furry but one of my best friends is. 

 

I feel bad because when I was a teenager I used to be one of those edgy "furries suck lolol" people but now I'm an adult and tbh furries are the LEAST of my worries when it comes to the absolute state of people on the internet now. I've come to appreciate furries, in a way. As someone who draws a lot but has trouble making up my own characters, I respect the whole process of creating OCs/fursonas and making costumes for them. 

[platy 3018]

It's not my thing. At all. But I kind of get the appeal, thanks for sharing your experience. I always wondered why a lot of people who are in the furry fandom are LGBT+ or on the spectrum? Is it because there's a lot of roleplaying involved in becoming your fursona? I'm seriously curious. What makes it so welcoming to that audience? I do appreciate the artistic process behind it and I've known a couple of people who are into it, but I was never close enough to them to ask questions.

[Mihenno 4195]

I'm happy the furry community means so much to you and was there for you when you needed it. I'm not a furry and I don't know anyone IRL who is (although I wish I did) but I do follow 1 or 2 on Twitter and they seem like good people. I used to cosplay and I have mad respect for those that make their own fursuits. I've seen so many awesome looking ones at anime conventions and every furry I've interacted with was very friendly. 

 

I feel sorry for you guys because the media loves to portray furries in such a negative light. Honestly though, I feel like every fandom/community has those people who make the rest look bad. 

[少女椿 343]

At first I was like "ew, furry...", but then I realized I was a part of sonic the hedgehog fandom when I was 12 or 13, and their furry roleplay was a common thing... 🤔 

[futoshi92 34]

15 hours ago, nikuman said:

I'm not a furry but one of my best friends is. 

 

I feel bad because when I was a teenager I used to be one of those edgy "furries suck lolol" people but now I'm an adult and tbh furries are the LEAST of my worries when it comes to the absolute state of people on the internet now. I've come to appreciate furries, in a way. As someone who draws a lot but has trouble making up my own characters, I respect the whole process of creating OCs/fursonas and making costumes for them. 

Great point! When color theory and sense of aestethics are your best freinds, one can design so much adorable, colorful and eye pleasing furry characters. And I speak it as someone who graduated graphic design. Aside my fursona, I have a few OCs as well, which include a coffee coloured fox, lotus flower lynx and azure-blue Tibetan flag inspired snow leopard  Not only it can look wholesome, but one you see a fursuit of such character, I can't imagine not wanting to hug it ❤️ 
As I'm an artist too, this helped me find some crative approach to the character design.

 

9 hours ago, platy said:

It's not my thing. At all. But I kind of get the appeal, thanks for sharing your experience. I always wondered why a lot of people who are in the furry fandom are LGBT+ or on the spectrum? Is it because there's a lot of roleplaying involved in becoming your fursona? I'm seriously curious. What makes it so welcoming to that audience? I do appreciate the artistic process behind it and I've known a couple of people who are into it, but I was never close enough to them to ask questions.

Thank you for your thoughts and I understand  The fandom is roughly 1/3 bi, 1/3 gay and other 1/3 straight. That itself is pretty curious question. I've seen various approaches, some people just are into art, some love the idea of fursuits. But from my POV since furries are in general accepting and open community (boundaries exist, but still), and autistic and LGBT+ people definetly tend to feel marginalized and alienated, they discover a fandom with like-minded people, this is what brings them in the first place.  I wanna say it as someone in the autism spectrum and at one point in my life I did question my sexuality. Also I went through a lot of horrible experiences with my peers as a kid and teen, just don't wish to speak in depth about it 😕 The warm, fluffy atmosphere from the art and furcons, which me and many other furries have felt really brought a lot of light to their lives. It doesn't apply to entire fandom, but a good portion off furries joined the fandom that way, combined with love for anthro animals, which at many points we've seen in our childhood cartoons. As for the art, like I already said, I am a furry artist. What really appeals to me is how expressive it is, and the unvierse that is created behind that, which can resemble something like in Zootopia. 

 

Still, I hope I explained it in clear way  Also there has been a documentary made about the furry fandom, mostly telling about it's history and what makes some people become furries. To anyone has time and interest, I highly reccommend watching it! 😁

 

 

6 hours ago, Mihenno said:

I'm happy the furry community means so much to you and was there for you when you needed it. I'm not a furry and I don't know anyone IRL who is (although I wish I did) but I do follow 1 or 2 on Twitter and they seem like good people. I used to cosplay and I have mad respect for those that make their own fursuits. I've seen so many awesome looking ones at anime conventions and every furry I've interacted with was very friendly. 

 

I feel sorry for you guys because the media loves to portray furries in such a negative light. Honestly though, I feel like every fandom/community has those people who make the rest look bad. 

D'awww, thank you so much 😍

Always great to hear it from different perspective. I attend to local anime cons and I always had so much respect for cosplayers. I've seen cosplayers hugging, admiring the fursuiters and taking selfies with them. Trust me, a lot of us are into anime  If things go good, I do plan to commission a fursuit soon enough or make one myself with some assistance  As for mass media, it is sad that they paint all furries as sexual degenerates. But on the other hand they hardly ever potrayed anything on geeky side in good light. We have yearly furry conventions, one in Gdańsk, Poland named Gdakon and we've managed to make a really nice impression on hotel staff. Same with the largest furcon in Europe - Eurofurence in Berlin (I was at 2019 edition).

EDIT: Oh, and how could I forget one thing. At the furcons we make one hell of great room and dance parties. Pun very much intended - we really are party animals 😎

 

In the end it doesn't matter if we're anime fans, sci-fi fans or belong to any music subculture, decency 101 is still important  

Edited October 9, 2020 by futoshi92