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What does furry mean to you? We’ve tackled this question before, long ago, but this week we have a new group with new experiences and inputs. We talk about the difference between a hobby and a lifestyle, and even ponder where the two overlap, and we each reach our own conclusions.

So how about you? What is furry to you? Tell us in the comments below!

Metadata and Credits WagzTail Podcast 2.0 Episode 97

Runtime: 30m

Cast: Eli, Levi, Pastedos, Wolfin

Editor: Levi

Format: 128kbps ABR split-stereo MP3 Copyright: © 2013 WagzTail.com. Some Rights Reserved. This podcast is released by WagzTail.com as CC BY-ND 3.0. If distributed with a facility that has an existing agreement in place with a Professional Rights Organisation (PRO), file a cue sheet for 26:00 to Fabien Renoult (BMI) 1.67%, Josquin des Pres (BMI) 1.67%, WagzTail.com 96.67%. Rights have been acquired to all content for national and international broadcast and web release with no royalties due. Podcast image belongs to Kosora, used with permission. What does Furry Mean to You? - What does furry mean to you? We've tackled this question before, long ago, but this week we have a new group with new experiences and inputs.

submitted by kerespup
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submitted by AshTR
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Celebrate Christmas early with your fellow furries in Saint Louis, Missouri! We will be having dinner at a Chinese restaurant, A Christmas Story style!

After the Bumpus hounds destroyed the Parker’s Christmas turkey in A Christmas Story, the family headed out for dinner at a Chinese Restaurant, Bo’ Ling Chop Suey Palace.

Obviously, Bo’ Ling is the word Bowling, without the “w”. As a young child, assistant director Ken Goch was riding around with his family looking for a bite to eat. His mother noticed a neon sign that read, “Bo Ling”, and mistook it for a Chinese food restaurant!

This scene was filmed in Toronto, Canada at 744 Gerrard Street East, Toronto, ON M4M 1Y3, Canada, now home to Batifole Restaurant.

This is also where we'll be handing out our Secret Santa gifts. (https://www.facebook.com/events/579587385436305/ for more information)

You do not have to participate in the Secret Santa gift exchange to have dinner with us, just understand that only those who participate in our Secret Santa event will be receiving gifts.

Which restaurant we will be headed to will depend entirely on getting a reservation made. In order for me to make the reservation, I need to know how many are coming.

Please say whether or not you will be attending in the comments below, ideally by November 15th.

submitted by PedigreeTheHusky
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I don't where to go to find furry or yiff friends, I've tried omegle but everyone seems to just do one and done, I'm looking for long term friends to add on skype or something

submitted by C4jeep
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Hi there, I'm a teen furry from California. I've been raising the idea of a novel, more so a series of potential novels, involving Furry characters. I'd ideally like to work with someone around my age or perhaps older (I'm fifteen, but get along very well with adults as well as other adolescents.) The premise for the concept was a Suspense/Adventure story that borders on themes of Friendship, Horror, Cultism, and alludes to social conflict like war, prejudice, politics, religion, etc. This is an extremely abridged version of what I want to say, but the potential threat of someone running off with a full synopsis isn't ideal... So, if you would like to know more, please, by all means, send me a private message, and I'll try and provide my partially-developed synopsis and character list. Thank you for your time, and I hope this is a project worth looking into! Cheers! Sulley the Sheppie EDIT: Ideally, I'd like to exchange ideas and co-write with the collaborator to help the story develop more under more than just one author.

submitted by SulleytheSheppie
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Coming this November from Top Shelf Productions: “Sam Henderson — Ignatz-nominated creator of Magic Whistle, Emmy-nominated writer and storyboard artist for SpongeBob SquarePants… and also the nutty mind behind Scene But Not Heard, the longest-running feature in the history of Nickelodeon Magazine! Now all those strips — the hilarious, wordless adventures of a man and a bear — are collected all in one handsome hardcover. Just try and keep up with Sam’s wild imagination! A full-color hardcover, 6″ x 9″, 128 pages, co-published by Top Shelf Productions and Alternative Comics.” You heard ‘em. Order Scene But Not Heard at Top Shelf’s web site.

image c. 2013 Top Shelf

Welcome all to Fuzzy Logic, episode 93! Red Fall Down.

Discussions go all sorts of strange places before Smokey brings us back to the Mighty No. 9 kick starter. Halfwit tells us about her high school reunion in Tennessee. Mitch joins us in place of Kyo and gives us an update about his new job! Isty gives us the word of the week and regales us with his usual goings-on.

Emails come up next and we have eight of them!

Legionbunny is first asking about how to deal with attracting the wrong sort of guy. Seamus follows with his efforts in finding furs in his area and how he’s changed species. Straosfear Tully brings a pretty neat project to our attention, Fox Amoore and his new album over on Indiegogo (go check it out and donate!) Harvest McCormick discusses how he is looking forward to the coming of Fall. Jaye Ventus returns to correct Smokey (shut it, you heard nothing!) and tells us about his gaming group and then reveals the truth of his identity. Umbra comes next with a problem he’s having with his roommate and the effect League of Legends has on him. A fellow who didn’t identify himself who we will call ‘Professional Badass’ explains why we call him that. Flayed finishes us out telling us of the relationship he has with his mother and stepfather, the living situation they are creating, and what direction he is hoping to go.

Our next show is about best friends! Do you have a best friend? Did you have one some time ago? Are you having troubles with your best friend? Of course you can email us about whatever you like but don’t hesitate to do so! Write in!

Mighty No 9 Kickstarter
They’re closing in on a big stretch goal! $2.75 million! Go help them do it! Not much time left!

Fox Amoore’s “Come Find Me” IndieGoGo
Stratosfear Tully told us about this and it’s pretty darn cool! Go donate so he can get a full, live orchestra to perform! ‘Cause orchestras kick ass!

A happy husky running through a big pile of leaves!
Because who doesn’t like a good video of a happy husky running around being silly?

Music Break: Mighty No 9 Main Theme

Episode Summary Music: Mighty No 9 Ambiant Mix

Episode 93 – Red Fall Down - Welcome all to Fuzzy Logic, episode 93! Red Fall Down. Discussions go all sorts of strange places before Smokey brings us back to the Mighty No. 9 kick starter. Halfwit tells us about her high school reunion in Tennessee. Mi[...]

It's always a bit odd having to live among a different culture. But in this case, it's an entirely different species. How is one human going to live among dragons--creatures that are different from him in almost every way?

Eric Luhman is a freelance writer and also a vicar – which is to say, a student pastor in the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod. He has been writing for the past thirteen years, and for the last four, it has served to put him through his seminary training. His hobbies include card games, role-playing, and generally making people look strangely at him.

"A Place to Belong" part 1 by Eric Luhman

Read by Chris Hvidsten

Music cues by Infinity Squared

AD 053 - A Place to Belong, Part 1 - It's always a bit odd having to live among a different culture. But in this case, it's an entirely different species. How is one human going to live among dragons--creatures that are different from him in almost every way? Eric Luhman is a freelance...

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submitted by Rentonn78
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submitted by iCryoPhoenix
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submitted by Clarke311
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I was just wondering if I was going to see any of you all at fangcon

submitted by xargonoth
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So I recently started my HNC in Electronics Engineering and after we got chatting about project ideas for the second year of the course I had an idea, why don't I use my arduino board to try and develop my own version of the Nekomimi ears?

Well after a quick chat with my tutor they said it's a viable idea that has enough mix of coding and electronics to be considered as an electronics based project. I'm really excited about this since I haven't had much of a chance to use my Arduino board for anything although I have no idea how I'm going to do the whole brain waves thing... More likely than not I will keep it simple and make a code that animates the ears and then afterwards try to integrate the mind controlling aspect of it so in the event that fails I still have a product I can show off.

Excited wuffs but lots of research ahead of me! =3

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submitted by fluffywulfie
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I'm in need of new artist looking for practice. Reason I say this is because I have no way of paying someone, unless we could do physical money exchange. Anyone interested just send me a message

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submitted by Adezu
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The idea that furry is a slice of ordinary society is one well worth keeping in mind. I wrote about it as my very first article on this site, even. It’s important to consider the ways in which we, as furries, are not somehow separate from the rest of the world; furry does not take place in a vacuum, as I believe I’ve said before. We are all members of our own social structures both within and without this subculture, and it’s that mixture of individualities and social ideals that belong to its members that help to make us who we are as a fandom

The very phrase ‘social structures’, however, is telling, in that that is precisely what some of us seek to escape by means of our membership to this social group: structure. For many, furry is seen as something apart from the social structures that surround them in their day-to-day lives. That has come up several times before here, of course. I wrote about leadership in a decentralized subculture, and JM and I have both written about the intersection of furry and the wider cultures to which we belong, both in terms of conformity and non-conformity. This puts us in something of an interesting – and ever-changing – space, as furries. We exist somewhat apart from the wider cultural contexts of which we are a part, though at the same time we cannot escape the connections entirely, for they inform a large portion of the way our own social group works.

This tension between conformity and non-conformity, belonging and not belonging, being a part of society or rejecting it, is a type of liminality, exiting between states, on the threshold, and certainly worth taking a moment to explore.

Let’s take a step back and figure out what liminality is, along with the closely related concept of marginality. Liminality (from the Latin word limen, meaning threshold) began as an anthropological term to describe the process of ritual, wherein those involved enter as part of the social structure, become something separate outside of but on the threshold of that structure, before returning to society. This can easily be seen in a simple ritual which has continued until today such as marriage: those who are to be married enter as separate people, and through the process of ritual, are socially, even legally, set aside from the social structure during the ceremony, before they are re-inducted back into society, this time as a single social (and often legal) unit.

I noticed this myself recently with my own civil union ceremony: JD and I entered as two separate people, and then, even though we were simply signing papers for five or ten minutes, we entered a ritual sort of liminality where we were not separate, but not together – one step removed from society – before we were welcomed back by the county clerk as a single, legally recognized couple, complete with an announcement that got a small round of applause from the few others in the room.

At that point, following Victor Turner’s definition, we were liminars: liminal entities wrapped up in the process of ritual. However, the concept of liminality has been extended beyond the idea of ritual in several ways since then. This delightful essay describes the ways in which the concept can be and has been applied outside the context of ritual. Liminal states are all around us, and a regular part of life. The author of the essay takes liminality far beyond the ritual, as have others, and elevates it to state valid in life, or even within aspects of life. There are ways in which we are betwixt and between that tie into our lives quite a bit, setting us somewhat apart from society into a sort of anti-structure.

This anti-structure, as a lack of the wider social structure, is described as communitas, which is a social anti-structure that places emphasis on humanity, equality, and togetherness rather than the hierarchies and strictures of society’s more standardized forms. This is evident in many social movements, such as feminism and the gay rights movement, where, by virtue of this status of being set apart, elements of – if not all of – social structure are set aside in favor of communitas: a sense of “we’re all in this together” and yet “we’re still all human.”

In some sense, then, liminality is very similar to marginality, and there are certainly discussions worth having on both subjects, but I think it’s important to first differentiate between marginality and liminality as outsidership. I mentioned in the previous paragraph that this often happens with social movements, and I think that this shows a good example of marginality, in a way. Those at the edges of society who, by their very existence, are set apart from society in some way experience outsidership just as those in a liminal, between state do. However, there is an important distinction to be made, and that’s one of choice. While liminality is often a something that one can choose to take part in – the author of the aforementioned article chose to accept his job in a foreign country, setting himself up in a state of not-quite-beloning to both his native, western culture as well as the Korean culture in which he was embedded – whereas marginality, as a social sciences term, generally refers to those statuses which place one outside of social structures through no choice of their own, such as race, class, sexual orientation, and so on.

Of course, I’m sure you can see where I’m going with all of this. In a way, furry itself, like many subcultures, is a form of outsidership, and thus something of a liminal space. We experience our own communitas within the fandom, and I think this is evident in a few notable ways.

The characters that we create for ourselves are, in a way, liminars – items betwixt and between the two worlds of the imaginary and the real. Yes, they are fictional constructs to many of us. There is no Makyo, per se, only Matthew Scott and this idea of Makyo. And yet they are expressed in the real world in several different ways. Art, fursuits, role-play, and even just plain talking about characters (as in the species selection and character creation panel at RMFC) is a way in which we bring them closer to what we consider real. They are on the threshold of both purely imaginary and totally real.

On a similar note, conventions are another good example, and a more complex one at that. Cons are liminal spaces, wherein we, as a subculture, experience our communitas more completely than perhaps we might outside of them. We try to build the world that we want Furry to be for a few short days, and we often do a pretty good job of it. One of the aspects of communitas that I find interesting is that, by virtue of this anti-structure, even leaders are still members, and so it is in most cases with con staff and board: they are furries there to enjoy the convention as well. And yet all of this takes place in the middle of San Jose, or Pittsburgh, or Magdeburg. All around the convention, keeping us from transitioning entirely to some other, more furry state, is the rest of a bustling city that is not partaking in this communitas (and indeed, often rejects it outright).

This applies to time as well as the space around conventions. While conventions get closer to Turner’s ritual definition of liminality, a ritual setting aside of social structures in favor of communitas, so to does the ritual of traveling to and from conventions. This year, on the way to Further Confusion, I just happened to run into a few furries by pure chance in the San Francisco airport. We even wound up on the same train down to San Jose together. This, and so many experiences like it, help to show the ritual nature of travel, the setting aside into a space not quite society, where hierarchies are blurred and you’re all just Passengers, Travelers, or Pilgrims.

As I mentioned before, however, subcultures are their own kind of outsidership. All of these things are not strictly furry, not even the conventions. Any other group that gathers around a central idea such as this has the chance to set themselves apart and yet still on the threshold, in that between space. The anime culture has their own conventions, interests, and communitas, as do so many other social groups out there.

So how has furry changed over time?

A curious question that came up in the process of researching this post is that, while it’s understandable that the difference between marginality and liminality is one of choice, how exactly that choice works. That is, are there aspects of marginality to our fandom? Is it marginal to be into something by virtue of personality, or not understand the outsidership role interest plays in our lives? This is a question that JM has touched on before, and I think it’s worth at least a look.

In some ways, geek culture as a whole, but also our furry subculture, has been making a slow shift from marginality to liminality. No small amount of words have been spilled over the topic of how nerds are in, it’s chic to be geek, et cetera ad nauseum. However, that it is so obvious is, I think, a sign of the roles that interest play in choice. Is it a choice to participate in a subculture such as this? Of course. One need not partake in the social aspects of interest to simply be interested. Is interest a choice though? That is a tougher question, I think, and I would hesitate to say so. It shows, then, that as participation increases, the liminal aspects of interest – those based around choosing outsidership – grow in their perceived importance, even as the marginal aspects – those based around having outsidership forced upon one – shrink.

This is simple membership draw, of course, and nothing mystical, but interesting all the same, notably in the ways in which one reacts to having one’s outsidership acknowledged, or even challenged. There is a great lead into this article about what it means to have sexual orientation (a marginal state for some) acknowledged, and I think that similar reactions can be seen in furry. The ways in which we reacted to MTV’s Sex2k episode, or the Salon article are different than the ways in which we react to Maxim’s recent nod to furries, and I think that, too, is a sign of us feeling less marginal and more liminal: it’s easier to feel proud of outsidership that is freely chosen, because, to us, that outsidership is eminently enjoyable, or even a core part of our lives.

This brings me to my standard conclusion (since I’ve already tackled “is it furry?”): what does this get us? Liminality is a part of life, whether we notice it or not. Often we do not, but it does form a core of who we are: the ability to step outside, to gather in this communitas with our equals, and to set ourselves outside social structure on the threshold of real and imaginary, even if only for a time. Intentional liminality such as membership in a subculture can help or harm depending on the individual and how it’s used, of course. We all know of the trope of the furry so entrenched in the fandom that they cannot hold down a job, pay bills, or interact well in social situations outside of furry by virtue of their membership. However, furry is certainly of incredible importance to a great many of us, and the form of escapism involved in it is hardly unhealthy. We’ve created ourselves a space neither here in society at large, nor, by necessity, there, in this fictional world of our zoomorphized selves. It’s a safe space, a space of communitas, that draws us in.