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When I write a blog post – either on here or my personal blog – I tend to “stub out” the entry before I even write it, sometimes days or weeks before I get to it.  It’s something like outlining, though not as structured as that implies.  More like jotting down ideas in the order in which they should occur in the article, though more structured than that implies.  For this article, the first line read: “witty comment about the standard furry – fake psych exercise to envision a default furry”.  As an introduction, I was going to come up with some sort of goofy little quip about how one would envision the standard fur.  I’m only referencing it instead, because the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it’s been done before.  Countless times.

With any society come a whole heap of internal stereotypes.  With programmers, there are the hierarchical nerds who strive for alpha status, the quiet smart people who do cool things, the loud smart people who also do cool things, the designers, architects, and engineers.  In music, things generally follow the lines of instrument or voice part, but there are some ideas that cross boundaries, such as the dramatic opera singer, the crazy instrumentalist, or the lazy genius.  One could, perhaps, measure the strength of a subculture by counting the amount of inside jokes contained within it.  Furry is far from immune to this, and there are several recurring threads.

One definite theme within the fandom is that, to quote an old page, “The Animal Kindgom is full of a plethora of amazing and interesting species, and so you’ll probably be a Fox or a Wolf”.  Canids seem to far outstrip other species as far as representation within the fandom.  An informal poll shows them making up nearly a third of all respondents. There are even stereotypes that go along with each species (though these have, admittedly, weakened over time), such as that “foxes beg for it, while huskies are just targets”.

Default fur so far: a wolf.

Age also plays an important factor in the fandom.  It could be that something about furry speaks to those just coming of age, or that the liberal nature of the subculture fits in well with the general liberal nature of youth; the oft miss-attributed quip “if you’re not a liberal by 20,  you have no heart…” seeming appropriate.  With its widely espoused (and practiced, though perhaps to a lesser extent) values of acceptance and tolerance, it’s not really much of a surprise that a good portion of furry falls into the 18-25 age group.  I was pretty firmly entrenched within the fandom, myself, by sixteen or so, and here I am, twenty-five, and writing a slightly satirical blog about furry – which I still love plenty, mind!

Default fur so far: a 22 year old wolf.

Geekdom, particularly computer geekdom, has almost always been dominated by males.  The reasons for this are many and complex, but it seems to be a nearly universal truth that the technologically literate castes for the last several hundred years have been made up primarily of men.  Furry, which is made up in good part by communications taking place on the Internet, can no more escape that than it can escape certain episodes of certain television shows or, if you’ve been around for a while, certain articles from certain magazines.  Gender in furry is a complicated enough issue to warrant several of its own posts, but for now, let’s call it decidedly male.

Default fur so far: a 22 year old male wolf.

Now is when things start to get hairy (har har).  The stereotypes still exist, but have less basis in reality.  Perhaps it would be better to say that the basis is less readily apparent, though.  Take sexual orientation: if one were to go by the way people act, the art that’s posted, and the relationships formed online, one could pretty easily leap to the conclusion that the standard fur is a gay male.  However, this doesn’t quite appear to be the case.  Rather than showing up as predominately homosexual, respondents seem to be fairly evenly divided among different quanta of sexual orientation.  With the decidedly affirming nature of our little subculture, it’s easy to see how this could lead, first of all, to the even distribution of orientations, and second of all, the more visible and vocal nature of the more homosexual portions of the population.  It could possibly be construed that society as a whole is likely divided up fairly evenly along Kinsey’s scale, but that, due to social, evolutionary, and personal prejudices, we’re left with a more uneven seeming distribution.  Even so…

Default fur so far: a 22 year old gay male wolf.

The waters get even muddier as we move on, and even the stereotype gets harder to pin down.  Furries have a reputation of being highly sexual people.  More so than their reputation from the outside, however, furries pretty strongly believe that their subculture is full of highly sexual people.  Things get weird here, especially, because most respondents don’t consider themselves to be very sexual people.  Stranger still, most respondents believe that the majority of the general public views them as highly sexual.  This is certainly a tough metric to judge, and it would be hard to rank the fandom amongst other subcultures when it comes to sexuality, but it appears that furries, by and large, assume that furries are pretty oversexed.

Default fur so far: a 22 year old gay male wolf looking to get laid.

And now we’re getting into some pretty speculative territory.  From within, it seems that most of the fandom is made up of socially awkward people who care very strongly about one thing, which is likely to be computers or games – that is, nerds.  Nerds that drink.  Geeks that party.  People who don’t communicate effectively with each other, but never stop trying.  I have no graph to go along with this; it’s partly based on introspection into my own outlook and partly from listening to others when they talk about the fandom.  I would have left this out due to it being so hard to pin down, but considering how large it figures in all of the satires of the fandom, I’m not sure I could justify that.

Default fur: a tipsy, awkward, 22 year old gay male wolf looking to get laid.  Cute, huh?

So, given our wolf guy here, what’s right and what’s wrong?  Sure, he’ll fit in pretty well, he’s certainly welcome within the fandom, but what, in his construction, is just due to demographics and what’s due to stereotypes?  Judging by the few datasets we have, our RandomWolf here is probably a young adult male wolf due simply to the make up of furry itself.  Given any one member of the group, and that member is likely to be a male canid somewhere in his early twenties.  As for the awkward, gay, and oversexed parts, though, these aspects of our fictional character are more likely stereotypes than anything (however attractive or not you may find them).

Just like any group, our nutty little fandom has its fair share of preconceptions, misconceptions, and stereotypes.  We’ve got our in jokes and our quips (I’ve heard “by and large, furries are bi and large” enough to turn the study of it into this article, after all), and we’ve got our reactions to those.  As a group, we’re introspective enough to recognize trends and turn them into stereotypes.  The visualization on sexuality in the fandom is most telling: there’s the way we perceive ourselves, the way we perceive our fellows, and the way we imagine the world perceives us – they may not always align, but that’s just the warp and woof of subcultures, and I think just adds to the fun.  Me, I’m gonna go hit on this awkward wolf guy, buy him a drink, and see if I can get him to come up to my room with me.

Hi r/furry,

I'm in need of a little assistance that someone in r/howto thought you might be able to provide. Here's the link to that thread and what I posted: http://www.reddit.com/r/howto/comments/m6632/how_do_i_make_a_mascot_head/

"Hi r/howto! I was wondering if anyone here might be able to give me some tips or suggestions on how to make a mascot head. I'm currently working on making a Mr. McGibblets costume and I'm currently stumped trying to figure out the ideal way to make the head. Here are two pictures for reference: http://images.wikia.com/theleague/images/a/af/1x04_Mr.McGibblets.jpg http://www.dvdizzy.com/images/l-o/league1-15.jpg I was thinking about a giant foam head, then cutting out an area for a bicycle helmet that I could wear to secure it. I just don't know if this is the best approach or not. If it is, any suggestions on how to make it happen. Thanks for any help!"

Any help would be incredibly appreciated. If this post isn't right for this subreddit at all, mods, feel free to delete it. Thanks for any information or assistance!

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So I'm kind of new to furry fandom here, although I guess in another way I've always been interested in anthropomorphized animals. So with anything else I'm interested in, I'd like to read more about it.

Are there some resources talking about the history and ideas behind anthropomorphized animals? I know some of the myths like with Anubis and of course the contemporary cartoons. But is there some resource where I can read about interpretation, analysis, and symbolism of anthropomorphism?

Thanks in advance!

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Author: Fred

Or “by Franz Kafka & Coleridge Cook”, as the cover and title page say. This is a rewriting by Cook of Kafka’s famous novella to turn Gregor Samsa from a giant insect into an adorably cute kitten.

This is a straightforward copy of Kafka’s text, with just the descriptions of Samsa-as-an-insect changed to make him a kitten and to do kittenish things. “He lay in bed on his soft, fuzzy back and saw, as he lifted his head a little, his brown arched abdomen divided into striped bowlike sections.”

Upon seeing the picture of a woman in a fur hat and fur boa, “Samsa felt a powerful urge to leap upon the sample clothes and scratch at them thoroughly, but as soon as it had come, it passed.”

Illustrations by Matthew Richardson. Quirk Books, May 2011. Trade paperback, $ 12.95 (206 pages)

read more

Find the full article here: flayrah – furry food for thought

Creative Commons: Full post may be available under a free license.

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Author: crossaffliction

Solatorobo: Red the Hunter is a story-based role-playing game for the Nintendo DS, featuring character design that should more than appeal to furries. If anything, it’s as furry as any Star Fox game, and the characters’ animal nature has more effect on the story than just punny names.

The game is some sort of prequel/sequel/something to a game called Tail Concerto. I missed that one, so this was my first introduction to the setting.

I would recommend Solatorobo: Red the Hunter on the art alone, but I do add some reservations. The game came out a month ago, but it isn’t so difficult it took me a month to beat it. The problem is that neither the story nor the gameplay were good enough to keep my interest, and I often put it aside.

There was nothing wrong with either, but nor was there anything right. The gameplay was not gripping, while the story had few real moments.

read more

I recommend the game as furry art that you can play; as a game by itself, it is weak.

Xseed, September 2011 – $ 34.99 on Amazon

 

Find the full article here: flayrah – furry food for thought

Creative Commons: Full post may be available under a free license.

Author: Xiath

Hello once again!

This episode is like a throwback from the early days of FursonaPod 2.0 because this time it’s just Rainstar and myself behind the mic. Rainstar was also the host for this episode! He did a fine job if I do say so myself.

This episode we talk about the similarities and differences between the Furry fandom and the Anime fandom.

 Remember to send us listenermail! 

 ~Xiath

Find the full article here: FURSONAPOD.COM

The contents of this Podcast may have adult language and adult themes. The content is not produced by Furry News Network, but is posted for your convenience.

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We talk about the similarities of the fur fandom and the anime fandom FursonaPod Ep. 35 - The Furry Fandom and the Anime Fandom.

I'm shooting a commercial this Sunday (Nov. 13th) here in Chicago that requires one of the actors to be in a fursuit (looking for a grayish cat suit in particular but can be flexible), something with a hood instead of a head. The actor's face needs to be seen. Anyone know of a rental place? Or anyone in Chicago willing to rent their suit out for a commercial production?

Edit: Thanks for the responses ladies and gents. Admittedly, I don't know much about the furry culture, but as a director / art director, I do admire the suits and what not you all make. Obviously a lot of time goes into these. I've decided to undertake making a suit myself with a friend who's good with a sewing machine (I foresee some long nights ahead). I'll let you know how it turns out and post the commercial when it's done.

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From The Enchanted Duplicator, the classic allegory of "True Fandom":

http://www.fanac.org/fanzines/Enchanted_Duplicator/Enchanted-11.html


"Well, you see," said Dedwood awkwardly, "it's to impress the Public. They wouldn't be impressed by Trufandom, so some of us thought we'd erect this City of Serious Constructivism to give them a better idea of our importance . . ."

"But surely the Public never come into Fandom?" protested Jophan.

"Well, no," admitted Dedwood, "but they sometimes send a representative in, usually a Mr Press."

He seemed to have difficulty in meeting Jophan's gaze, and the reflection from Jophan's Shield of Umor seemed to be hurting his eyes, so that while he was talking he glanced sideways up and down the street.

Abruptly he broke off with a cry of excitement. "Why, there he is now!" he exclaimed. "This is a great day . . ."

The rest of his words were lost as he ran helter-skelter down the street to where a little man with a notebook had appeared as if from nowhere, accompanied by another little man with an easel under his arm.

Jophan followed more slowly and found Dedwood already talking volubly to the stranger, while the other little man set up his easel and began to make sketches. At great length Dedwood expatiated on the glories of the City, on the Magnificent Work that was being accomplished there, on the grandeur of its buildings, on the intelligence and forethought of the inhabitants, on their sobriety of deportment and the importance of their work to Humanity, on the various functions and important duties they performed, and on the contributions he himself made to these mighty achievements. Jophan noticed, however, that the little man was writing very little of all this down in his notebook, and as Dedwood drew to the close of his impressive oration he sidled behind Mr Press and looked over his shoulder. The page was perfectly blank except for one cryptic sentence which Jophan could not understand. He knew only that it bore no relationship whatever to what Dedwood had been saying. It read, simply, "Gosh-wow-oh-boy-oh-boy'. Puzzled, Jophan moved behind the artist, who had already completed several sketches. Jophan noted that they were all recognisable caricatures of Dedwood, but that for some reason the artist had in each case shown him as wearing a peculiarly shaped headgear which incorporated a small propeller.

Completely baffled by these quite extraordinary phenomena, Jophan withdrew and waited quietly until Dedwood had finished talking. Mr Press and his assistant thanked Dedwood effusively, promised to give the Public a full and accurate report of all that he had told them, and said goodbye. Their shoulders were shaking as they walked off, but Dedwood did not seem to notice. Becoming once more conscious of Jophan's existence, he turned to him with pride. "There!" he said smugly, "I flatter myself that this time the Public will learn the truth about us."



The above was written in 1954.

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EDIT: there are some serious bugs with the editor.

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With the new ThunderCats series on Cartoon Network doing very well and picking up lots of fans, it seems a good time to take another look at the original series from the 1980′s. That’s the purpose of Hear the Roar: The Unofficial and Unauthorized Guide to Thundercats, available now in softcover from Telos Publishing. Even though it’s “Unofficial and Unauthorized”, editor and lead writer David Chrichton managed to interview numerous people associated with the production of the original series, which began airing in 1985. From the publisher’s release notes: “Featuring over 80 exclusive interviews with cast and crew members, this definitive reference guide charts ThunderCats’ creation and development, drawing on a wealth of never-before-seen production paperwork and leaving no stone unturned.  Dedicated chapters highlight the writing, animating, scoring and recording of ThunderCats, while a comprehensive story guide reviews all 130 episodes, including notes from the scriptwriters themselves! The legendary ThunderCats toy line from LJN Toys is documented too, and even the associated series SilverHawks is explored. ” You can find out more about the book on Amazon.

image c. 2011 Telos Publishing

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