Furry fandom and me

I wanted to write about something important to me – furry fandom! Where to even start with this…

Furry? What’s that?

Explaining what’s furry fandom and what’s the appeal behind furry anthropomorphic animals is a tad difficult. There are already places which probably explain it better than I ever will, but you came here for my blog so I shall deliver.

Generally ”furry” can refer to multiple things in this context. A furry can be a person interested in anthropomorphic animals, it can mean the anthropomorphic animal itself or interest in general. In majority however the term is used as an adjective referring to person interested in anthropomorphic animals.

In case you are confused what an ”anthropomorphic animal” actually is, let me help you! You’ve surely seen many anthropomorphic animals in your life. Be it in Disney cartoons, on cornflakes or any other product targeted at children. The term I use the most to describe anthropomorphic animals are ”animals with human characteristics”. Such characteristics as: intelligence (and ability to communicate on level similar to humans), being bipedal (walking on two legs) or having other human like features like posture or body part form. Mickey Mouse? Anthro animal. Simba? Anthro. Asriel Dreemurr from Undertale? Anthro. Anubis from Ancient Egipt? Anthro. The list could go on for a loooong time. Anthropomorphic animals are big part of our culture, mostly appealing to younger audiences. I find it interesting that the following they gained became actually so significant!

Beginnings

First off, whether you are weirded out, curious or grossed out, I were too. 8 years ago I were an innocent student playing Minecraft with his friends daily. When I first learned about all of this furry business (which admittedly, was more or less through porn, don’t judge me) about 8 years ago I didn’t really like it. Human animals looked weird and pretty ugly to me back then. I didn’t understand why people would like them. I looked at ferals (100% animals) however and I liked the art of them (SFW art). So basically, I liked feral art but not anthro art.

This phase didn’t last for too long. Following some kind of psychological process, my preferences inverted, and anthropomorphic characters became something I just enjoyed watching.

Fur, fur and more fur

The proper admission to myself that ”oh, I’m a furry now, cool” happened for me around 29 Jul 2015 which was the date I registered on one of popular furry centred art-sharing websites.
Unfortunately there isn’t much from that time that I have saved regarding my thoughts on the matter, but I’d say that ”becoming a furry” isn’t this one single moment but rather a process.
At first there wasn’t much to me being a furry. I simply enjoyed the work made by others on art sharing websites. There are concepts in the fandom such as “fursona”, “fursuit”, I didn’t dabble into either of those. I didn’t have any ideas and I were still mostly ”new” and exploring.

Identity

So the entire furry thing was a largely side-track, I browsed some arts, found 1-2 that I really REALLY liked and obsessed over them for a while just looking at them like a weirdo. But I wanted to get into the entire furry thing, everyone had their own fursonas, why I couldn’t? One of the most major decisions for a fursona is species you choose. At first for a while I really related to cats - and no surprise, after all, cats are especially good looking to humans (in a aesthetics sense). Cats also are a fairly regular species chosen to be identified with by members of furry community. However I’ve had the feeling of somewhat not doing my personality justice. Or at least, the choice of cat not being the final form I wanted to identify with.

It’s a funny topic - identity. Who we are, what we want, how we want to be seen. I think that my identity is very important to myself. And it was also around the time I joined the fandom where I started realizing it. The question of ”who am I” came up a lot, along with figuring out my sexual orientation, wants, needs, place, relationships. I think starting to have furry as a side-track thing may have impacted that pondering in a sense. Furry fandom provides a safe-space for figuring out yourself by being open and diverse. Just like any other community, it has its own issues (including inclusivity), however nonetheless it stands out as really welcoming place where you can be you without being judged. After all, we all are weird, so why give a fuck about little details like sexual orientation or gender identity. I’d love to understand more how fandom with its vast ocean of pornography as well as SFW focused parts affected me and my identity, but I’m afraid this science goes beyond of what I personally can figure out. However to say that I regret the effect furry fandom had on me would be untrue.

With time I remember specifically one art of a hyena by Chica that for some reason really really hit home at that time¹. I cherished this art piece posted somewhere on the Internet by pseudo-anonymous artist on a furry website. It also inspired me to remake my identity and relationship with anthropomorphic animals to the point where I said my fursona would be a hyena-cat hybrid, or something of this sort. Polish friend called it ”hienokotek”. It was a bit strange to have less usual species and my indecision and wanting to combine best of cat and hyena made me want to do a hybrid.

But my interactions with the people of furry fandom still were non-existant, i passively lurked out of sheer curiosity. Being the curious cookie I tried to learn way more about what furry fandom is, who makes it and what are the scientific reasoning why people like anthropomorphic animals to begin with. I’ve visited furscience.com, a website of International Anthropomorphic Research Project – an actual organization which legitimately tries to answer those questions! I’ve read many surveys, discussions about this entire topic. I learned a lot, and I found how fascinating the entire community is. The sole fact that all of the surveys indicate incredibly abnormal distribution of sexual orientations of people² in the fandom compared to the regular distributions is worth a big ”woah” from me. Are queer people joining the fandom because its open and allows those people to feel at home? Do people join fandom and then realize they are queer? Or is interacting with fandom an environmental factor that may impact one’s sexual orientation? I don’t know! But it’s fricking fascinating to me and I want to learn more!

And what better way to learn about people of fandom than to join an online furry community (furry fandom is mostly an online community now)! So yes, I did just that. Being someone who casually liked to listen to the music I’ve been a regular of a website called plug.dj. This now defunct website was then a music sharing platform that allowed users to play and watch YouTube and Soundcloud media. I joined it in order to interact and meet community following Approaching Nirvana, but things were about to take a weirder turn. I’ve located a furry community in there and infiltrated it to the point of becoming a Co-Host - a high rank in a plug.dj room. I were in, and I were in hard. I’ve realized that boykissing competition is no laughing matter and I need to participate as my superiors in furry fandom organization ordered me to. So I did, and my partner in boykissing is my boykisser #1 to this day.

I’ve realized that labels help a lot but also are annoying, to this day I struggle with saying exactly where I’m on spectrum of gender kissing and gender kissing but other way, however what I did learn is that I don’t have to be so insistent on finding my own label. I can figure it out with time, I can be some of that and some of that, honestly, why does it matter anyways. If someone really wants to know I’ll likely say I’m gay, but if someone wants to know better I’ll say it’s complicated, because it is and I refuse to pretend its not.

That one video game

In life of every man there comes a time where they’ll cry. I were no exception, in fact I cried twice, probably thrice and certainly more than 10 times. And that’s as a result of Undertale – a video game that in no small terms changed my life, which probably doesn’t surprise you reading this blog post on frisk.space³.
And while I’d certainly write at least a dozen paragraphs on why Undertale is important to me, it’s not exactly a furry game even though it features plenty of anthropomorphic characters. The main impact it had on me and my furry identity is the goat fursona, or rather the fact it inspired me to actually finalize first more polished idea of how my fursona should look like rather than only knowing what species it is.

When choosing characteristics for my fursona I’ve put great effort into associating characteristics with personality traits it should have, to properly reflect me, character I want it to have. Ultimately my fursona is ”Frisk I’d like to be” – a better yet not ideal version of myself. It reflects personality traits that are mix of my current self as well as ones I’d like to have.

My current iteration is a demon-goat. He is mischievous, horny but also caring and compassionate. The characteristics of demons are represented by the first two traits. The demon part is important to me, it’s representing my rebellious attitude towards religion, it’s laughing at the idea of ”wrong” in religious contexts, especially christian disgust towards sex and casual sexual activities. Mischievous is also a marvelous word to describe his character. He isn’t evil, being the lower impish demon he is simply goofy, there is no malice behind his action, even if his actions do feel evil sometimes.

Also I adore the idea of horns and spaded tail – body parts often associated with demons. Image of demons as we know them came to be through a long process, but main point I want to stress is that it came from humans. There was nothing supernatural in how this image was shaped, how demons began to be characterized as satyr like humanoids, in fact some scholars believe that some characteristics derive from Christians vilifying other cultures and religions. Meaning of how a demon – this supernatural incarnation of ”evil” looks like has been created by human imagination. It’s a simple human fiction, a tale.

My goal of characterizing my fursona as embodiment of evil is not to scare people away, but to point out that there is nothing to be scared of in the first place, that ”evil” and ”degeneration” as concepts in (mainly) religion aren’t really evil. That Frisk, even though he might be embodiment of ”evil” – is actually kind and compassionate being just trying to live his life like everyone.

That is not to say that those characteristics are there just because of some kind of proving a point. They are there because I personally find them really cute AND I give them additional meaning through words on this blog post.
Goat part goes with it very well, goats are already associated with demons and Satan. Another plus is that goats are GOAT! If it were just a humanoid demon it wouldn’t be as epic as furred demonic goat, like, cmon.

Yiff

A big part of furry fandom is sexual freedom. There is no need to conceal the fact, because it isn’t bad or wrong to begin with (as humans are inherently sexual to begin with nor sex inherently hurts anyone). What’s important to distinguish is that furry fandom is not exclusively sexual in nature, rather sexuality is a part of it. But there is nothing in your way if your interest in anthro characters and fandom is purely non-sexual in nature. Amount of pornographic material created by furries is staggering, and it’s not surprising if you look at age demographics of the fandom - mainly oscillating around 20yo. Many, just like me feel open to explore their own sexuality through the fandom and this extremely diverse playground to experiment is open to everyone.

What is furry fandom for me today

A long while has passed since I joined the fandom, so what exactly does fandom mean to 24 years old person? What do I like in it and what I don’t?

A few of the most powerful drives behind this fandom is creativity and identity. Thanks to creativity and skill in crafts people of the fandom are able to express themselves in form of characters, art, fursuits and many other fandom specific creations. This power of wacky self-expression, the use of arts and freedom of sexual expression are among of few extremely important aspects of furry fandom which I LOVE it for. This self-expression fills me with unexplainable yet undeniable joy, seeing others finding their way to show who they are to the world is making me happy.

Fandom and its creations allow for some escapism in day-to-day life grind. Uncountable times in sadness or distress I’ve found my relief in art – something that in my kid days felt like a stupid concept.

As to the community at large, while I joined a few subgroups, and consider myself part of furry community, I’ve never really ”joined” furry fandom at large. But one has to ask themselves what would that mean, and what would that imply. While I’m curious of furry conventions (and their room parties), I never were a person liking crowds nor I’m doing well with strangers. I think it would be a great opportunity to break some barriers by participating in one, however furry conventions are a bit of expensive adventure to a point and don’t think I’d feel well going there alone.

Furries are also known for fursuits – those are incredibly expensive costumes created with incredible craftsmanship. I’d certainly consider a fursuit ”nice to have” in furry world (and by extent like to have one), I just can’t personally justify cost of it to actually obtain one.

Ultimately furry fandom provides me with a community of people that I feel free to talk to in our own language which we have. It delivers creations made by others which I find relatable, inspiring as well as therapeutic. It introduced me to communities and people that I’m happy to have connections with. Furry fandom was part of myself figuring things out, growing up and for the foreseeable future I’ll stay in it because what it means to me and… Because I like anthropomorphic animals.

Lessons learned

The biggest lesson that furry fandom helped me realize is just how different yet similar we all are. How we all are our own people, with our own goals, needs, quirks, likes, personalities, experiences, memories, priorities. And it’s just fine to be who you are. It’s also important to understand that the differences aren’t good or bad, they are just differences. If I were to truthfully judge someone as a person I’d have to sit with them 1 on 1, talk freely for days, that would be barely scratching the surface. Because what makes a person is much more than some defining qualities we see on the surface.

Furries are really weird. That was my initial reaction when I were entering the fandom, and it’s my opinion of furries to this day. What changed is that I no longer associate weird with bad, same reason why cringe culture is dead. Be happy, be yourself, care less what others think about your quirks, care more if those things make the world and yourself better, and your happiness makes the world around a better place.