A week on FurSpace: a look at furry social networking

A screen grab of The Chained Wolf's FurSpace page

In a fandom which mainly rose from the internet, it seems to be expected that furries should embrace social networking.

Of course, there are the main social networking websites such as MySpace and Facebook. However, you could argue that there are some problems. One is that MySpace is owned by NewsCorp and I for one really, really hate Rupert Murdoch. The other is that if you are afraid of coming out as a furry, then you dare not join a furry group for fear of your other friends from knowing.

So, there are social networking websites just for furries. There are lots of different such sites such as FURiends, MyFursona and Pounced.org. However, I decided to join FurSpace, because I was aware of a few furries on it.

So far, I have been a member of FurSpace for a week and it has been a great experience. Over the course of the week I managed to become friends with 16 other members of the site (I also spotted that I have become friends with one more as I write this article) and joined several groups, from writing to yiffing. I also set up my own group, devoted to QI (for which I work for as a "Newshound" on the website). During the course of the week I also did a bit of blogging, and with the bad weather I had quite a bit of stuff to talk about.

I talked quite a bit with some furries, in particular one from Sheffield. One reason why we talked is because it turned out that he was a fan of my Furtean Times articles. This resulted in a few things. For starters of, I fully realised that I now have a fanbase, which is quite an achievement (cheers to all my fans). The main thing to come up however was furmeets.

I have sadly never been to a furmeet because I’m from Teesside, and the closest furmeets to me are in York ("Largest plastic-bottomed lake in Europe"), which is organised by the Northern Furs, and Newcastle, which organised by the NoTzFurs, Both of these meets are too far away for me. What is worse, Teesside is right on the NoTzFurs/Northern Furs border. The bits north of the Tees (like Stockton and Darlington) are NoTzFurs territory, while parts south of the Tees (like Middlesbrough and Redcar) are Northern Furs operated. I would therefore like to take this chance to ask for someone to attempt to organise a Teesside furmeet. Maybe the two groups can join forces or a new group can be created. I know a few furries in Middlesbrough who might be interested.

So, my first week on FurSpace has been great, and I hope it will continue to be. I can recommend to all furries for two reasons. One: Everyone on it is a furry, so you have at least one thing in common with everyone on it. Two: It is like MySpace, but you do not have to give any cash to that Aussie yiffer Murdoch. You can see my page at The Chained Wolf.