This is a journey from knowing nothing about the furries to knowing too much
I was on the train the other day, doing non-furry things, and that old Flash game Neopets came up in conversation. The appearance of the characters reminded me of something a furry would be into, and it got me thinking… is this where the furry fandom began?
After a quick Google search of my baseless claim, I found out I was very wrong. In fact, just a Wikipedia article alone was enough to convince me to throw my daily KPIs out the window and dive deep into what the furry fandom actually is, where it started and what it has become.
So, as a millennial who knows how to use Google, and after approximately five hours of researching, this is everything I’ve learned about furries.
Firstly, what is a furry?
A ‘furry’ is just a person celebrating and bringing an anthropomorphic animal character to life. You could just say that they are fans of said animal, which is why it is described sometimes as a fandom.
We are already very used to this idea with anthropomorphic characters such as; Donald Duck, Bugs Bunny and Yogi Bear. A more recent example would be Disney’s ZooTopia.
The major difference between you and a furry, is that furries create something known as a ‘fursona,’ which is essentially a representation of themselves, based off an animal which can be real or mythical. They use this ‘fursona’ to interact with other members of the fandom.
There’s no particular way that you are supposed to create one – you could pull everything from your imagination, creating every aspect of your personality, or you could do as I have done and take an online quiz I found at the top of the Google results for ‘fursona quiz’. We don’t do those page 2 results here.
Take the quiz I took HERE to find your fursona before you go any further.
Hello, I am Puck the Snake.
The Short Haired History
Now that we all have our own fursona, we can jump right into the history of the fandom. Fair warning: take this all with a grain of salt because everything is word of mouth. Come to think of it, that’s kind of what history is… just words written down… regardless, this is on GOAT.com.au, so it has to be true.
If you don’t wanna read this in-depth history, scroll until I tell you to stop or if you are looking for a real abridged version of everything check out the video below:
The beginning of the furry fandom has been pinned to August 29 – September 1 1980, at NorEas Con II World Science Fiction Convention in Boston.
Steve Gallaci entered a painting of Erma Felna, an animal character in a realistic high-tech military setting that had been bioengineered for war. This led to fans of the painting, and character, gathering to look at Gallaci’s notes about the story behind the painting and the lore he had created surrounding it.
Soon, it became a recurring gathering at other science-fiction conventions to discuss antroporphomics in science fiction media. These meetings continued from 1980 through to 1985 before this group eventually became Rowrbrazzle.
Rowrbrazzle was a funny-animal cartoon illustration magazine, and was considered for a long time as a bulwark for the furry fandom. (The fandom didn’t originally refer to the media they consumed as ‘furry’ but instead as funny-animal cartoons.)
The first unofficial furry meetup was held at the Prancing Skiltaire, a private residence in Orange County, California in 1985 where a group of fans were in town for the Westercon which was on at the time.
The following year, the first openly “Furry Party” was held by Mark Merlino and Rod O’Riley who would later go on to co-found ConFurence, the first furry convention, in 1989. It ran for 15 years peaking in 1998 with over 1200 people registering for the event.
STOP! Here’s the TL:DR of Furry History:
Basically, it started out as a bunch of people who were interested in science fiction that found it interesting the way that anthropomorphic animals were presented in the media. They kept meeting up as their numbers grew, until they had enough to do their own conventions and there you go, a furry fandom.
The above paragraphs are there just so you know the research was done, no shade if you just skipped to this.
The Stats Behind The Suit
So now that we have a fursona and we understand the history, how about we get to know the rest of our community now?
In 2012, data was gathered and statistics created by the International Anthropomorphic Research Project. The data was collected over several years from people who considered themselves a furry, but was then split into two types – those who attended conventions and those who were mostly an online presence.
Here are the bits I found interesting. I’ve put them in bullet points too, because that seems more scientific and the paper itself is actually very scientific, at least for a paper on furries:
- The fandom skews young. The average age of a furry attending conventions is 24-27 years old. Those who consider themselves a furry, but don’t attend cons, are younger at 23-25. The project attributes this to the monetary cost of attending events and those older will have better incomes allowing them to.
- The furry fandom is predominantly biologically male ranging from 79-85% self reporting as biologically male. At the time, the project theorised that this number would change over time as more biological females entered the fandom and it was seen as more socially acceptable for them to join. Spoiler: they were right, all thanks to TikTok, but we will get to that.
- Another misconception is that the project looked into was the idea that furries see themselves as ‘animals’ in a human body. The results that they found was that only 30-35% of furries considered themselves less than 100% human and only 10% of them believed this in a physical sense with the majority leaning more towards mentally or spiritually being a furry. So the idea that furry is using their fursona as a means of escape from the reality they live in is mostly untrue for the majority of the fandom it would seem.
- This is all wrapped up in an interesting final question that the project posed; are furries maladjusted/ broken people? Using several different measures of well-being the project found that compared to non-furries, furries did not differ significantly from the average American with regard to self esteem, psychological health and with regard to health of their relationships.
- There was one statistically significant difference though between non-furries and furries, however. Furries did, in fact, have a better sense of coherent identity and a more developed sense of self compared to the average American.
While there are many obvious differences between someone who is a furry and the average person, the project has established that one of these differences is NOT dysfunction.
Furries Entering The Mainstream
When you think of furries what do you think of?
I’m not going to lie to you, I think it’s odd and that there is a whole sexual/ fetish side to it. It comes back to one of the main issues we have in the world at the moment which is, ‘the media’.
As the fandom grew in popularity from the late 90s onwards, it was inevitable that it would eventually leak into the mainstream.
Through the early 2000s, you can find interviews on talk shows or in publications that come from a place of curiosity, that really aren’t that mean spirited. However, this all changed when an episode of CSI aired on October 30, 2003, that portrayed furry conventions as nothing more then lectures and sex orgies. The episode, ‘Fur and Loathing’ even showed a scene featuring a ‘furpile’.
A furpile is typically not sexual, it’s literally just a group of furries laying on top of each other. But because of being featured in the media such as the ‘Fur and Loathing’ episode it is now associated with essentially being a fur orgy.
This episode of CSI is what you can best attribute the image of furries being a sexual/ kink thing that the fandom has never been able to shake since.
Appearances on The Tyra Banks Show, once again focused on the kinky aspect of the community and have really embedded into our collective mindset of what it is.
There is a sexual aspect to the fandom, no doubt. Many people who consider themselves furries definitely find other members of the fandom a turn on in their suits, however the way the media has painted the fandom as this fetish like group is just wrong. They are still human beings with a sex drive at the end of the day.
Who would’ve thought that the way this perception is being challenged is through TikTok?
Furries & TikTok
TikTok is the social media app that has rose to prominence over the last couple of years. It’s kind of like Vine in the sense you are creating rough-and-ready, short clips for others to see. It has trends and challenges, just like the rest, and has become a new platform for furries to interact and create content that anybody can consume.
Christmas of 2018 birthed what was known as the Furries VS. Gamers War meme, where users created memes using the ‘duet’ feature.
The fandom has since carved out its own niche spot on the platform, with multiple furries and their fursona becoming ‘TikTok famous.’
TikTok famous furry ‘Pyxe, A 23-year-old from Houston, Texas’, says 73% of his followers are between the ages of 13 and 18, and that most of them are female. Not the norm of what has been reported in the past of the community being made up of 80% males; a change that the project predicted could happen.
With TikTok having a much younger audience, kids on the app see furries as characters, not as humans, like seeing Elsa or Captain America which is why they may be more interested and slower to dismiss them. Furry content creators are doing all the same trends others do just instead they do them in their fur suits.
Rolling Stone interviewed Barry, a yellow-and-black dragon, and former U.S. Air Force field technician who said: “Before TikTok got big, parents [were] scared to bring their kids to a furry convention. If one parent sees a TikTok and they say, ‘this isn’t too bad,’ then they tell another parent too.”
I would be lying if I said I didn’t find the furry fandom a bit strange. Like, if someone was walking towards me, in the middle of the night, in a full fursuit, I’d probably cross the road – but that doesn’t mean it’s something that should be viewed as ‘intimidating’ or even ‘wrong’.
I’m not saying it’s time to order a suit and become part of the fandom, but maybe next time furries come up in conversation, instead of immediately talking shit about them, just smile and nod. They aren’t hurting you, they’re just doing their own thing.