The furry fandom and your opinion on it. Descusion thread.

[Talonmaster Zso]

Why does something so specific matter? One can look at a furry character and say with semi-relative certainty whether of not they see said character as a furry.

Yes and no. Part of this debate has cropped up due to definitions that would define, as an example, this as a Furry (the cat-like eyes), but not something like this person's character (being a human who eventually had a dragon-shaped robot body, thus never a biological non-human animal nor an anthropomorphic animal, instead a robot with zoological traits).

As previously stated, being a furry is not just defined by artistic style or subject preferences, but can (and often does) include philisophical beliefs and lifestyle and behavioral choices.

Personally I like to divide these into multiple randoms. Specifically, I tend to divide it into "Furry Fandom; Hobby" and "Furry Fandom; Lifestyle". The main reason for this is, while they overlap, it's similar to the overlap between "Religious buff; Hobby" and "Religious Buff; Philosophical". Someone who is in the Furry Fandom simply because they really enjoy the content and / or themes (one thing to keep in mind is that "Fan" is a shortening of "Fanatic", likewise "Fandom" "Fandom Dominion") isn't necessarily in the Fandom for the same reasons as someone who feels some sort of spiritual or philosophical attachment to the Fandom. Even then there's different sub-cultures within each, but overall having the "Spiritual / Non-Spiritual" distinctions tends to help a lot.

It's not an exact science. One cannot write a formula or flowchart that says with 99.9% certainty that "this is/is not furry".

Oh, I most certainly agree. Hence why my answer tended to beg the question a lot re: "What is a Furry?"

They did not make a line and say "You must do/be this to enter, no exceptions!"

While I don't mean to rain on your parade, I will say this: You have, evidently, not seen a significant portion of the fandom. While this forum is relatively tame, on others I'd strongly suggest lurking before jumping in as there is a fair deal of elitism and cliques within the Furry community. This can especially be apparent amongst cons, or within rivaling artist circles.

While many in this world, (the majority actually) would lynch a furry expressing themselves,

I must disagree here, and refer once more to my "Actually, tangible evidence has shown D&D and Rock and Roll of all things to have faced greater social stigma and resistance than the Furry community as a whole" comment. Furry, for the most part, has been ignored by mass-media, or given a relatively neutral portrayal. This may sound far-fetched, but do recall that Furry has yet to have a 60 Minute presentation wherein supposedly credible authority figures tell concerned parents that it will turn their children into Satanic Death Cultists. It has not had New York Time best sellers published (again, by supposedly credible authority figures) talking about how it has lead to a rise in mass shootings and will continue to do so. It has not had sitcoms made with the basic premise of mocking the community and its focus. Furry, for the most part, has slipped by under the radar, which is most especially obvious through the fact that five minutes of spontaneous, non-planned streaming of SoFurry's front page with an account and mature filter turned off would probably be a more vicious media action against the Furry Fandom than any current coverage or one-off dramatization show (ex: 1000 Ways to Die, which I will also point out has pretty much riffed on everything and every fandom at this point).

Are there people short a few marbles who might pose a bodily risk against such? Yes. Though we still don't have the details of the recent chlorine gas incident so it's hard to say if it had any specific targets and if so who (similarly whether it was intended as an attack, or some fools thinking they were doing a prank with toxic chemicals), the example exists all the same. But the claim that the majority would do so? You'd probably be better off plastering Furry pin-ups all over your bedroom wall than you would have been leaving out a copy of the Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Master rulebook on the kitchen table a generation-or-so ago. Not saying you won't get riffed (if you're plastering pin-ups of any sort on your wall you're probably going to have someone riffing on you), but you probably wouldn't be sent to therapy and slapped with a book by concerned authority figures telling you to see how you're walking a dangerous path and they don't want to see you turn into the next Ted Bundy.

Once we have a starter set of maybe six to ten questions we can start checking specific works against them to classify those works and discover where the starter set is inadequate. Most likely we'll need more questions AND to modify the questions we start with AND to define things more precisely.

The main reason I went with the K.I.S.S. solution was that I feel the total number of questions one may need to ask is, well, a bit long shall we say. Contrastingly, and I apologize if I'm getting this wrong, Chris' seems like it could be answered in three:
1) Is it biological?
2) Does it have any human traits?
3) Does it have any non-human animal traits?

If you say yes to all three, it is a Furry. It's an example full of many false positives, but their stance on the matter is seemingly "Better to sweep up as many false positives as possible and let no True Furry(™) be disregarded," an ironic stance seeing my first comment in this spaghetti-post (how Telnac's character would not ping as Furry whereas Sephiroth would).

Where DO we draw the "definitely Furry" and "definitely not-Furry" lines for an individual character?

A very iffy subject, and more often than not - as this subject has shown - a matter of opinion without much in the way of exact science. For Chris, presumably, all of the examples given would ping as "Furry". For me, it's… iffier. Intent matters a moderate bit, as well as current shape (ex: art of Raine in her human form would, to me, not ping as Furry, but in her hybrid or - especially - Keidran form it's much more questionable).

I don't think I've ever said non-biological things would count as furry. I've mentioned mammals, insects, and lizards; all biological living things. But yes, non-human animals displaying human characteristics like speech and human-like intelligence would count as furry in my book.

See above "Sephiroth / Telnac" example.

Bestiality is part of humanity as a whole, so that implicitly extends down into cultures and sub-cultures.

Ah ah, but this is a hand wave trying to detract from the point. You are trying to downplay the existence of an art that has a disproportionately higher presence in the fandom, by your own definition of the fandom (as now keep in mind any other works including any animal with a solitary anthropomorphic trait is, in addition to whatever other fandom it belongs to, also Furry), in an attempt to normalize such.

However, if you want to break away from such and talk about humanity as a whole: 14.94% of Furries identified as Zoophiles, versus the Kinsey Report's average of 5.8% of the population. And before crying out "Trolls messing with the numbers", I should point out that the survey's remarkably consistent over a period of four years, so unless you want to suggest these people have no life to the point of purposefully skewing a survey in a consistent amount over a period of four years for four separate surveys, there does seem to be a correlation. So, would you prefer to continue with the "Zoophilia's in human nature!" argument (wherein Zoophiles seem to, magically, congregate within the fandom at approximately 2-3 times the rate of the average population), or do you want to go back to the initial point of "Doesn't this definition make great deal of bestiality art a part of the fandom?" (wherein you can instead, say, try to challenge a correlation between Zoophilia and Furry).

The same case could be made for the anime or fantasy fandoms, since there are anime and fantasy worlds that contain full on bestiality (that is, with animals that contain no trace of human attributes).

Yes, this is no doubt true. But it is also a moot point re: The discussion at hand (unless you can provide some numbers relating to the presence of zoophilia or zoophilic content within those fandoms), and the fact that you are trying to compare Furry to an entire medium of media and a genre that can be said to define an even greater amount of fiction than your definition of Furry speaks volumes of the attempt of backpedalling you're trying to engage within.

And let's not forget shota and loli in the anime fandom, yet it's not correct to say pedophilia is any more part of anime than it is to humanity itself.

Once again, true but of little relevance. Furthermore, is this the hill on which you wish to lie? I'm asking as, if I recall right, I seem to remember a mass Furry exodus from FurAffinity when Dragoneer said he was banning cub porn (as in not the genre in general, just the porn). I could try digging up the old announcement thread, if you like, wherein Furries were making analogies to him being worse than Hitler for this decision, and saying that they'd rather see the site go down in flames and lack of funding just to get a few more months of cub porn. For perspective, Dragoneer got less flak the times when he made an identified rapist and stalkers known to use administration privileges to gain personal information than he did when he banned porn of adolescent anthropomorphic animals to prevent the site from shutting down.

If this is where you would prefer to make your last stand, well, thank you I guess?

It's not about ownership, it's about definition. Saying something like an anthropomorphic cat isn't furry is like saying water isn't H2O, to me. Sure, they can say their water isn't H2O, but that's still what water is.

But you're just now saying that your definition is of greater importance than that of the content's creator. So you are, directly, saying that your opinion is worth more than the content creator's.

If it was merely about intent, I could claim my documentary on the history of toasters is furry, while this movie with an all-anthro cast isn't. At that point, 'furry' becomes a meaningless term

And yet your current definition that defines the likes of Blue Meanies, Movie-Spiderman and Angels as Furry but not this depiction of Chica (an animatronic chicken) doesn't make Furry into a meaningless term?

Better to have a few "false positives" like Doc Ock

As I've shown above, you're getting a lot of false-positives to the point that you do not come off as attempting to make an actual definition of the fandom, but instead "It's ours, kyahahaha! It's all ours!"

I wouldn't necessarily say a modern portrayal of the Devil is a "false positive".

So again, Satan? Furry. Renamon (you seem to have forgotten that she is an entirely digital construct, which kinda puts them firmly in the realm of "Not a biological animal")? Not a Furry. This is the bed you're making for yourself.

If that someone enjoys Sonic because he is an anthropomorphic hedgehog, yes. If the person couldn't care less that Sonic is an anthropomorphic hedgehog, but just rolls with it because that's what he's designed as, then no.

Now contrastingly, if they are fascinated with Mecha-Sonic for being a Robot Hedgehog, they would classify as… ? Not Furry? Furry?

The point was that the Turtles were (likely) created without any knowledge of "furry" or the furry fandom. But later on, Peter recognized that the furry fandom took a liking to his work,

I think you'll find that I mentioned this sort of thing (something made with no intended connection re: The Furry Fandom being appropriated - or at least widely acknowledged and replicated / supplemented - by said community) way back in one of my first posts within this thread?

and graciously accepted being the Guest of Honor at one of the largest furry conventions in the world, and I presume, directly sold such work to furries while there. If he didn't consider his work to be of interest to furries, why would he care?

Well, disregarding that there's a bit of difference between "being of interest to furries" and "being made as furry content", see the bolded? Furthermore I'm not quite sure I like the precedent you're trying to make of "If you sell your work to curries it must obviously be Furry content".

He could've politely turned down the offer quite easily.

So you're responding to my

Like, this presumes that if he made anthropomorphic content but he didn't consider it Furry that suddenly the convention would refuse to have him as a Guest of Honor / that he would refuse the offer to be a GoH with dramatic flair?

With "He would have refused if he didn't think it relevant"? So your presumption, then, is that he would - nay, must - have refused if he didn't consider it such, but he didn't, ergo it's Furry five ways to Sunday?

The point was that interest in more mature anthropomorphic animal content isn't a new thing.

Why did you immediately jump to "mature", if I may ask? Or have it at all significant?

The furry fandom is relatively new, not really taking hold until the 90s when the internet became publicly accessible,

Ah, but one of the oldest conventions - ConFurence - started back in 1989, and it is by no means the first convention that catered to Furries. I am not someone devoid of information re: The Fandom.

But this also highlights the problem with "furry is about intent". The term "furry" (as used in this context) has only been around for a couple decades, yet there's plenty of work from well before that it could apply to. Work whose creators are long dead, and have no way to speak on whether they would call their work "furry" or not, regardless of how much it appeals to the furry fandom. But even today, it's possible for there to be people to have created anthro work and not really know what "furry" is to be able to call their work "furry" or not.

And what, if I may ask, do you think would be the better way to resolve this? To, perhaps, try and evaluate the deeper traits, known intents, themes, and so-on of their work and compare / contrast such in a meaningful manner - despite the time and effort required - so as to make a roughly educated guess on the matter, or to immediately throw all of it into the fandom with zero regard for the creator's intent or thought process solely because you want to claim ownership of the content for the Pride of the Fandom?

[Chris]

Contrastingly, and I apologize if I'm getting this wrong, Chris' seems like it could be answered in three:
1) Is it biological?
2) Does it have any human traits?
3) Does it have any non-human animal traits?

I wouldn't strictly say "any". I suppose "non-negligible" would be a better qualifier. Speech and human-like intelligence are non-negligible human traits, while paws, a muzzle, and a tail are non-negligible animal traits. Slitted irises, on their own, are negligible IMO.

Now, exactly what point does a feature or set of features become "non-negligible"? I'm not sure I can say without more examples, and it probably varies a bit from person to person, but you can can get a rough consensus. Things will inevitably become blurrier as you head towards the dividing line, but Furry would hardly be the only thing something like this applies to.

Ah ah, but this is a hand wave trying to detract from the point. You are trying to downplay the existence of an art that has a disproportionately higher presence in the fandom, by your own definition of the fandom

Am I trying to downplay the presence of such art? The point I'm making is that these fetishes come from humanity itself, and your typical furry would no more condone bestiality than your typical otaku would condone pedophilia. Furry does not imply bestiality, and bestiality does not imply furry, even if furry can include bestiality.

However, if you want to break away from such and talk about humanity as a whole: 14.94% of Furries identified as Zoophiles, versus the Kinsey Report's average of 5.8% of the population.

Apples and oranges. The Kinsey Reports say the percentage of bestiality is/was reported as 8% of men and 3.6% of women (for your average of 5.8%) having engaged in it at least once, but actually reaches up to 40% to 50% on farms. He then goes on to say "These must be minimum data, for there has undoubtedly been some cover-up in the reports of these activities," meaning these numbers are low, and are likely higher in reality. These statistics were gathered in the 50s, back when even admitting you were gay could mean a jail sentence (and in fact, some agencies did try to compel Kinsey to turn over a list of people that identified as gay in his reports).

Zoophilia, in contrast, does not mean bestiality -- bestiality is the actual act of sexual intercourse between a human and non-human animal, while zoophilia simply means a love of animals. Though it can mean a sexual type of love, and that is how the general population tends to think of it, it is not necessarily sexual. It can also be a strong fondness (in ways that are completely acceptable by modern society) or a romantic bond. Furries, being as their interests include an affinity of animals, would generally know this distinction better than the general population.

Furthermore, is this the hill on which you wish to lie? I'm asking as, if I recall right, I seem to remember a mass Furry exodus from FurAffinity when Dragoneer said he was banning cub porn (as in not the genre in general, just the porn).

It was hardly a mass exodus. It was a loud reaction, to be sure, but that doesn't mean it wasn't still only a minority. I can't count the number of times there's been a "mass exodus" because of things Dragoneer has done, yet FA remains the largest furry art site in the world. Obviously most furries aren't being affected.

It's not about ownership, it's about definition. Saying something like an anthropomorphic cat isn't furry is like saying water isn't H2O, to me. Sure, they can say their water isn't H2O, but that's still what water is.

But you're just now saying that your definition is of greater importance than that of the content's creator.

It is possible for a creator to be wrong. As a similar example, if a chef puts together and cooks up a pizza, then says it's a hot dog, is the chef's definition of their work as a hot dog more meaningful and more important than my definition of what a pizza is?

As I've shown above, you're getting a lot of false-positives to the point that you do not come off as attempting to make an actual definition of the fandom, but instead "It's ours, kyahahaha! It's all ours!"

Again, it's not about ownership. A fandom can't own anything, but it can define (as a consensus of its members) things that are of interest. I don't know any furry that says "this is furry and so it must belong to the fandom!"

Renamon (you seem to have forgotten that she is an entirely digital construct, which kinda puts them firmly in the realm of "Not a biological animal")? Not a Furry.

.
Now you're pulling at straws. You know there's a difference between something like Renamon and The Brave Little Toaster. Renamon certainly has the appearance of a being an entity that's part biological animal.

Now contrastingly, if they are fascinated with Mecha-Sonic for being a Robot Hedgehog, they would classify as… ? Not Furry? Furry?

That would be an interesting discussion. But if it's about him being a robot hedgehog, and the human aspects are inconsequential to them liking it, then I'd say no, they wouldn't classify as furry.

Well, disregarding that there's a bit of difference between "being of interest to furries" and "being made as furry content", see the bolded?

But that's the thing, where's the separation between "being of interest to furries" and "being made as furry content", particularly for works created before "furry" became an applicable term?

So you're responding to my

Like, this presumes that if he made anthropomorphic content but he didn't consider it Furry that suddenly the convention would refuse to have him as a Guest of Honor / that he would refuse the offer to be a GoH with dramatic flair?

With "He would have refused if he didn't think it relevant"? So your presumption, then, is that he would - nay, must - have refused if he didn't consider it such, but he didn't, ergo it's Furry five ways to Sunday?

That's what your definition brings. If something being labeled as "furry" is all about the creator's intent, and the creator's intent can be questioned, where does that leave you? If someone creates a piece of work and doesn't consider it furry, but then accepts an invitation to be honored at a furry convention for that work, it will cast doubt in people's minds.

Descriptions are supposed to be useful guides to identifying and designating things. If something being "furry" is simply at the whim of the creator, it becomes useless since it doesn't at all help at identifying that thing. It says more about the creator than it does the creation.

The point was that interest in more mature anthropomorphic animal content isn't a new thing.

Why did you immediately jump to "mature", if I may ask? Or have it at all significant?

That was where this line of discussion stemmed from:

There is a big misconception that I more or less have devoted myself to revealing: There has been serious ADULT furry art and stories for centuries.

While the examples you cite are more questionable, I must disagree and say that no, there haven't. Or at least there haven't in an appreciable / numerically significant manner.

Ah, but one of the oldest conventions - ConFurence - started back in 1989, and it is by no means the first convention that catered to Furries.

How big were these conventions, and what were they like compared to today? Were Tezuka and Laird aware of them, and if so what did they think?

And what, if I may ask, do you think would be the better way to resolve this?

Perhaps to evaluate a particular piece of work on its own merits, to observe and measure the traits it displays and determine if it's of interest to the fandom. Whether or not the fandom finds interest in it doesn't change ownership of the piece, it does not change the creator's intent behind the piece, it's merely a helpful description of the piece.

Where do you keep getting the idea that this is about wanting to "immediately" label anything they want as furry to "take it as their own"? That's the exact opposite of what I want, because if anything can be immediately labeled as furry without consideration of the piece's contents, that's just as useless as "furry" being up to the whims of the creator.

[InceptionBwaaa]

How about this?

Everything is furry, and everything isn't. No exceptions.[/joke]

But seriously, I feel a bit too much passive aggression coming from this thread. If it were up to me, I'd lock it. Unfortunately.... no mod powers of moddingness. So all I have to say is this: casting a wide net, over everything, "furry" is in the eye of the beholder.

There. Can we stop arguing now?

Edit: also, Talonmaster Zso, who and from what is your avatar? I vaguely recognize him, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

[Arcaim]

Until about a month ago I was not a part of this fandom. Anthropomorphic art had always been interesting to me. I had been doing a lot of looking into it[the fandom], and it seemed kind of like just a bunch of misunderstood people. One of my local radio stations even had an interview with a couple of furries that regularly attend cons. They were trying to dispel the notion that furries were all "weirdos who dress up in animal suits."

As an outsider to the fandom, I had always seen it as strange that people would associate themselves with anthropomorphic characters so closely. Then I found Two Kinds and instantly connected with Keith. Then I understood a bit more. I think that there is no absolute definition. It seems to be how you personally associate with it. Not to go into politics or anything, but like the definition of a Democrat, (in the American system, anyway), there are a lot of general feelings toward a certain subject, but not every single person has to feel the same way.

[Bellhead]

*snip* There are a lot of general feelings toward a certain subject, but not every single person has to feel the same way.

This.

I agree, Arcaim. And welcome to the forums.

[Tesla Foxtrot]

A wierd thing I noticed thru the new guy, I quickly related to Trace due to his ''problems'' when I started Reading 3 years ago.

The time were the keidrians were nothing special to me untill 3 years later I put them in the furry category and can't relate to any of the characters...

[Winter-huntsman]

Ok this is getting hard to follow now, I can't tell if there is a debate going on trying to prove or disprove rumors. I don't know there is to much to read. This thread is suppose to be a light cheerful conversation about things in the fandom you found intresting or what you have questions about. I know this might not change what is being told so let me start a fresh here. Anyone ever watched a video of uncle kage or 2therantinggrphon? Those 2 are so funny to listen to.

[tony1695]

In news related to the furry fandom, the Midwest Furfest was the target of a deliberate chlorine gas attack.

[Winter-huntsman]

Glad I decided not to go its so close to me I can't believe I did not here about this happening. Well If I get up the courage to ask my parents to let me go there next year I might bring some gas masks.

[Bellhead]

You know, for a news article on NBC, that was quite poorly written. And there was nothing on how they knew the leak itself was intentional, either..
I wonder if anyone higher up had anything to do with that.

Also, Who are uncle kage and 2therantinggrphon? I haven't heard the names.

[Winter-huntsman]

Look them up 2 the ranting gryphon is a comedian in the fandom and uncle kage( real name Samuel Conway ) runs the largest furry con in the world, anthrocon. These two have greate videos on YouTube just search them.

[Ja3k_Frost]

Holy cow... Thought this was a discussion not a courtroom.

Regardless of what it is or was, we have some excellent points cropping up here. I think one of the more important, if not controversial ones is the historical aspect to the furry mythos.
Some of us believe that furries can be historically traced back hundreds of years. As for my opinion of the older anthro animal stories, I think they are no more furry then UFO's are a distinctly Trekkie thing. I guess where the Furry history ends is where it can be claimed by another group/mythos/subculture/genre and gets a more fuzzy outline as to where it stands. I'll admit, I cant name a group that might claim the anthro stories of ye old times but I think that there might be one on the same level as the Furries.

Thats all I got right now...

[Warrl]

I guess where the Furry history ends is where it can be claimed by another group/mythos/subculture/genre and gets a more fuzzy outline as to where it stands.

I'll disagree because genres overlap and have subcategories, and their defining characteristics aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. So even when two (or more) genres do NOT overlap, a single work can be in more than one.

Different genres aren't even necessarily defined by *similar* things. "Furry" is defined by the characters' species. "Goth" is defined by the characters' behavior. "Science fiction" is defined by the setting. "Murder mystery" is defined by the plot. So a furry-goth science-fiction murder mystery may be a somewhat confused work, but it isn't a contradiction.

[Shawnyall]

I don't like the fursuits and [most of the] non-anthropomorphised stuff. I also don't really like a lot of furry art, but when I find an artist that I think is good, I can't get tired of their stuff no matter how non-anthro it is/gets.

I'm not a furry. Someone's once told me they thought I was, and I didn't mind. I'm a brony, so I'm not afraid to say I'm a part of some other fandoms/groups, but I just don't think I'm into fur stuff enough to be considered a furry. Then again, I guess it's kind of a personal thing. People identify as a furry even if they don't do any of the fursuit stuff or etc. Some people are crazy into it, like all fandoms, and the rest just aren't as into it as them.

I've always viewed furry communities as being more volatile and "crazy" when compared to others, but I've never really heard/seen positive things about them. Since what's considered "furry" is pretty broad, though, I've definitely been overly judgemental. I did the same thing to bronies when they started posting on 4chan about the show (take a look at my icon to see how that turned out).

I'm not 100% sure on what's been discussed here so far (just signed up!), but I'm up for some discussion.

[Damien203]

I'm not 100% sure on what's been discussed here so far

Basically, we were discussing when and how we noticed we were part of,
or joined the furry fandom, and the view people had about it.
But then the discussion turned to: "what is furry, what is not" and a lot of argumentation on both sides.
So, first of all, welcome. And whether using a fursuit or not, is up to those who enjoy it as a hobby.
The discussion about how people see the fandom was well explained in the first few pages, specially by Chris.