Furry fandom

From Academic Kids

Furry fandom is a subculture of the science fiction and fantasy fandoms. Members of the furry fandom, known as furry fans or simply furries, particularly enjoy media that involves anthropomorphic animals: that is, fictional animals with human traits (such as walking on two feet, talking, wearing clothes, living in houses, etc.). Such media includes popular animated cartoons, comic books, and stories and novels.

Furry fans often refer to any such anthropomorphic animal character as a furry. Other, more mainstream terms for these types of characters are funny animal and talking animal, or kemono in Japan.

The furry fandom, as an umbrella subculture for various interests, has grown with the advent of the Internet. Content created by furry fans (visual art, stories, music, games, etc.) on the World Wide Web covers a wide range of interests including fantasies, philosophy, recipes, sex, politics, religion, and even personal lifestyle and identity.

Contents

1 History and Inspiration 2 Fan Creations 2.1 Art and Writing 2.2 Role Playing Characters ("Fursonas") 3 Conventions 4 Sex and Furry Fandom 5 See also 6 Further reading 7 External links 7.1 Information 7.2 Media 7.3 Other

History and Inspiration

Furry fandom originated as a fusion of science fiction, fantasy, comic book, and animation fandoms during the 1980s and has grown with the advent of the World Wide Web and Internet.

The term "furry" originally came into existance at a sci-fi convention in the late 1970s. Then, the term was used to describe one specific genre of fantasy art. As these "furry fans" became more organized, they began using e-mail and MUCKs to communicate. Notably, one of the oldest and largest mucks in existance is FurryMUCK.

Since the 1980s, furry fandom has focused largely on animal characters (see funny animal or talking animal) from cartoons (e.g. Roger Rabbit, Bugs Bunny, and Mickey Mouse), animated feature films (e.g. Disney's Robin Hood), TV shows (e.g. Father of the Pride), comics (e.g. Usagi Yojimbo, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Omaha the Cat Dancer), novels (e.g. Richard Adams' Watership Down, Andre Norton's Breed to Come, Brian Jacques' Redwall series, Steven Boyett's The Architect of Sleep, S. Andrew Swann's Moreau Series), games (e.g. RuneQuest, EverQuest, the Sonic the Hedgehog series) graphic novels (e.g. Maus) and web comics (e.g. Newshounds, Boomer Express, Suburban Jungle, and Kevin and Kell). Each has been cited as a source of inspiration by those who create works within the furry fandom.

Many members of the fandom have also cited as inspiration the historical usage of anthropomorphism in world mythology, including but not limited to Greek, Egyptian, Japanese and Native American.

Although many of the non-furry creators of such material are aware that some of their audience consists of furry fans, the most common term used by cartoonists to describe anthropomorphic animals is "funny animal," regardless of whether the animals are used in a funny way or not. Additionally, in Japan there is a genre called kemono, a tangentially related but independent genre with different cultural associations.

There are dozens of web comics based on animal characters, such as Newshounds, Boomer Express, Suburban Jungle, and Kevin and Kell. Many are created by furry fans and, as such, are referred to as "furry comics." "Kevin and Kell," by contrast, was created by non-furry illustrator and cartoonist, Bill Holbrook.

Fan Creations

Furry fans are eager for more material than is available from mainstream publishers. The demand is filled by fellow fans--amateur to professional artists, writers, and publishers who produce drawings, paintings, stories, independent comic books, fanzines, web sites, and even small press books. Fans with craft skills put together their own plush furry toys, sometimes referred to as plushies, or build elaborate costumes called fursuits and wear them for fun or to participate in convention masquerades, dances, or fund-raising charity events (as entertainers). While many fursuits look like sports mascots, some fursuits go beyond that and include moving jaw mechanisms, animatronics, prosthetic makeup, or other frills.

Art and Writing

Many furry fans participate in the arts, becoming amateur--and sometimes professional--illustrators, comic strip authors, painters, sculptors, writers, musicians, and craft artists. Primarily, the fandom produces visual art works although there are many three-dimensional sculptures, fabric pieces, stories, filk music pieces, and even photographs.

While the bulk of these fan-created pieces of art are distributed through unprofessional mediums such as personal web sites and via email, some publish their works in anthologies or APAzines. A few have mainstream, professional credits to their names.

Role Playing Characters ("Fursonas")

Some furry fans on the web create anthropomorphic animal characters in order to engage in role-playing sessions on the many furry-themed MUDs on the Internet. The oldest furry role-playing environment is FurryMUCK although predating it was the GE-run BBS, The Beastie Board in which conversation sometimes led to role-play. Another popular online furry social game is called Furcadia, created by Dragon's Eye Productions, though it is generally less popular than FurryMUCK. There is also a club on a massively-multiplayer online game called Second Life called Club Fur.

Furry fans' personal characters (sometimes referred to by furries as "fursonas" or "personal furries") are usually based on their creators' personality or even a whimsical or sexual fantasy. They may become an online handle by which the fan will present themselves to other furries. Due to the isolation of the web, when furry fans meet one another in person, they may be more familiar with one another's online personas than with their real identities.

Furry fans often have strong feelings towards their animal personas, and many create or commission artwork, stories, or fursuits featuring them.

Conventions

Sufficient membership and interest has allowed for the creation of many annual furry conventions in North America and Europe, the largest being Anthrocon in Philadelphia each July. Further Confusion, held in San Jose, California each January, is almost as large. The total number of people attending furry conventions exceeded 7,681 in 2004, a growth of 25% over the previous year. In 2005, 18 such conventions will take place around the world. The original furry convention, ConFurence, is no longer held and was based in southern California.

Many conventions feature an auction or fundraising event with the proceeds often going to an animal-related charity. For example, Further Confusion has raised more than $34,000 for various charitable beneficiaries over its 5 year history, and Anthrocon has raised more than $50,000 for animal-related charities since 1997.

Sex and Furry Fandom

Because funny animal characters are often used in children's entertainment, furry fandom has long faced a dilemma resulting in arguments and divisions within the subculture. Many furry fans are adults who enjoy themes that are considered unsuitable for children. In particular, many artists in the furry fandom produce pornographic artwork and stories, which in furry slang may be referred to as yiffy or spooge. These works are often posted on public forums, personal web sites, and online art archives.

Furry fans may also engage in cybersex, particularly on MUCKs, MUSHs, MUDs and other online roleplay environments. Such environments frequently have age-restricted areas for this kind of activity, though some MUD-style furry games are restricted in their entirety to "adults only," such as Tapestries MUCK.

The media has frequently focused on the more extreme aspects of furry sexuality; mainstream media sources frequently portray furry fandom as a fetish-based subculture. For example, articles in Vanity Fair and Loaded magazines and dramatized fiction or documentaries portrayed on television shows like ER, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and MTV's Sex2K have focused on the more peculiar sexual aspects of furry fandom and sexuality.

Whether or not fans themselves engage in these behaviours as the media dramatacizes them to, there is a sizeable amount of adult furry material available. The prevalence of erotic furry content has not gone unnoticed by the furry fans, either. Many fans embrace the adult material, considering censorship a breach of freedom of speech. Though perhaps they do not have fetishes themselves, these people usually do find anthropomorphic animals kinky. Furry erotica and pornography may also center on an additional kinks, notably transformation, infantilism (see: babyfurs), and inflation.

Other furries scorn the adult material, claiming that such content gives furry fandom a bad reputation. In an attempt to clean up the fandom, splinter groups of the furry fandom, such as the short-lived Burned Fur movement (http://burnedfur.mv.com/), have formed in vocal opposition to sexually explicit material. Others take a less extreme approach, such as creating furry art archives free of sexual content. (See: Yerf)

There are also somewhat frequent accusations from critics of the furry fandom that its members are prone to practicing bestiality and zoophilia. By and large, members of the furry fandom reject these accusations, and the general counter claim is that a fondness for anthropomorphic animal characters (whether sexual or otherwise) does not inherently imply a similar attraction to real-world animals.

See also

• Funny animal
• Talking animal
• Animal transformation fantasy
• Clinical lycanthropy
• Otherkin
• List of furry comics

Further reading

• Craig Hilton: Furry Fandom - An Insider's View from the Outside, parts 1 & 2, South Fur Lands #2 & #3, 1995, 1996

External links

Information

• A Chronology of Furry Fandom (early days through 1996) (http://www.arclight.net/~yarf/YARF_Chronology.html)
• The Sociology of Furry Fandom (http://www.visi.com/~phantos/furrysoc.html) written and researched by David J. Rust; a member of both SF Fandom and Furry Fandom.
• Furry fandom category (http://dmoz.org/Society/People/Furry/) at DMOZ
• PeterCat's Furry InfoPage (http://www.tigerden.com/infopage/furry/index.html) - Repository for FAQs, lists, periodic postings
• Flayrah Furry News Portal (http://www.flayrah.com/) - Current news of interest to Furry Fandom

Media

• Yerf (http://www.yerf.com) - A furry art archive with restrictions on quality and mature subject matter.
• VCL (http://vclart.net/) - A mostly-unrestricted archive of furry art and fiction.
• DeviantART Traditional Media Drawings (Anthros) (http://traditional.deviantart.com/drawings/anthro/) - An anthropomorphic art subsection of the enormous DeviantART repository; also check the corresponding section in Digital Art
• Furaffinity (http://www.furaffinity.net) - A recent furry art archive using a DeviantART template
• Furry Media Archive (http://www.lildobe.net/furry/) - An Archive of recent media attention that the Furry Fandom has attracted.

Other

• Furbid (http://www.furbid.ws/cgi-bin/auction/main.pl) - An auction site specializing in furry materials
• Furnation (http://www.furnation.com) - A furry webhosting service and adult furry comic publisher.
• The Furry Code (http://www.vulpine.pp.se/cgi-bin/furcode) - A furry version of the Geek Code
• Invasion of the Furries (http://www.xydexx.com/anthrofurry/furries.htm) - 2001 Newspaper article on the fandomde:Furry