A musing by Fluke
I went on YouTube today, it happens sometimes. It is a good place to go find some easy entertainment of some idiot sticking fireworks in his trousers or something. So there I was having a laugh at all these videos when I see a certain video of the most recent exploits at Anthrocon.
I laugh, I enjoy the video, I go to leave a comment. Already many furs had left their opinions on how awesome it is; the comments all positive and cheery! But all of a sudden they exploded! Where there were happy furs they were replaced with angry, screaming furs! All shouting nasty comments at the 'dirty mundanes'...
I took a double take and I wondered what could have triggered such uproar, I had to squint to see it but I found it...
"Furfags"
A single word, one that was not even capitalized, one measly word and it already had so many people battening down the hatches and bracing for the biggest flame war the internet had ever seen!
This made me angry, not at this little insignificant speck that said furfag but rather the reaction. Fur-fag, or Furry Faggot. Now seeing as everyone he was insulting WAS a Furry this means all he did was just shout "You are gay." At everyone.
Why does everyone take offence to being called a fag by some stranger? If someone called you gay in the middle of the street would you start running around screaming?
I can understand that people do take offence to insults, not everyone can let these things just roll off their backs but sometimes you can just not care. I think a lot of furs need to learn to just ignore people who try to insult them because it is going to happen in life, if you are Furry or not.
However the internet is one of the few places that if you ignore something it WILL eventually go away. By reacting in such absurd ways you are only egging them on.
With love,
Fluke
Comments
Well you raise an interesting point, albeit I do think that rather than the word "furfag" itself but more the concepts behind it that people take offense to. When someone simply utters the term it's like shouting "I am a furry hater I am here to destroy you." - Okay that might be a little OTT but that's what it, along with the 'tard stereotype, can say. Furries have a tendancy to be the fun loving types, and we do get a little peeved when someone comes along and says that we have to stop, even if they have no authority to do so.
So yeah, I don't tend to find "furfag" offensive, nor have I met anyone else who has found it more than mildly annoying. But it's the principles that the anonymous have put behind it that are the real cause of such disruption amongst the furry folk.
I've never been called a furfag, but would probably react violently if I were, though I've been attempting to "de-sensitize" myself to trolls and whatnot. And it's not really calling you gay. Like Alexander Grey said, they really aren't calling you gay (in fact probably don't care about your sexual preferance) but are in fact saying, "You are a furry, therefore, you are something bad to be avoided. GTFO."
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