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Hey Papa Bear,

I been have something on my mind recently and just not really sure how to come out to say it, but here it is. One topic that came up recently by a friends and it’s about it being popular. I know it’s very shallow sounding, but honestly, when they brought it up, we talked, and I came to the realization that I want to become popular within the Fandom or be in the spotlight per se. But is it wrong of me to have that type of mentality? Or say I let it get to me and it agitates me? How do I go about it?

And one thing, thanks for all your help previously, Papabear. You’re awesome and appreciate that you do this for me and everyone else. Thanks.

Anthony Snow

* * *

Hi, Anthony,

Thanks for your kind words. I appreciate them :-3

Let me begin my reply by telling you a story. When Papabear was a cub, he always looked forward to going to bed because that time before I drifted off to sleep would be my time of fantasy. I would imagine myself to be a mighty dragon, or sometimes a wolf, or a bear, or a flying magical buck. In one of these forms, I would interact with characters from my favorite books and movies, such as The Hobbit, The Jungle Book, The Chronicles of Narnia, Bambi, or Mary Poppins(my favorite scene is still when they are in the cartoon world created by Bert with his chalk drawings). In all of them, I was the center of attention in some way—admired by the other characters for my strength or beauty or kindness. I loved these worlds so much that I came to really dislike reality and withdrew into myself more and more. I became so fearful of the world that it led to a very bad period of my life that I didn’t crawl out of until my twenties. Kind of like an addiction, really, that craving for a fantasy world where I am more than I am. It reminds me of a little riddle: Where are all men great? Answer: in their own minds.

It isn’t wrong to want to be wanted, to be admired, to be cherished and loved. It is a very natural impulse we have from childhood. But to want to be famous and popular for the sake of fame and popularity is unhealthy and, as you yourself say, shallow. Here’s a fun video about that:
That is, really, the definition of the popufur, isn’t it? Someone who preens and struts and shows off for the sake of being admired.

American culture is rife with this mental illness, this desire for fame, especially when it comes to things like being on television. “Look at me! Look at me! I’m on TV! Validate me! I’m somebody!” So a camera got stuck up your muzzle, big whoop. Yet Americans ogle and fawn over television personalities as if they were gods and goddesses while people of true substance and accomplishment are too often ignored. The result is things like reality TV shows and Honey Boo Boo, things with absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Indeed, American society has become very shallow, especially over the last couple of decades, but you might chalk that opinion up to the words of a bear who is a bit of a curmudgeon at times.

The problem is you’re putting the cart before the horse. What you are desiring are the things that result from true accomplishment, not the accomplishments themselves. What you should be trying to do with your life is something useful and productive, something that benefits your family, friends, society and the planet in some way. You should do this unselfishly, not for the craving to be admired and respected. And, as this little video shows, giving can feel great!
Personal satisfaction in life comes from accomplishing things for the greater good, not in receiving undeserved attention. A little example is this letter right here. I tried to do something good for furries, and you responded with a very nice compliment. Thank you. It feels especially good because the compliment came because I did something for somebody else, not for myself.

Feel great about yourself by what you do for others and for the world, then you won’t worry about being popular at all because you’ll have something much better: the satisfaction of being a good person.

Hugs,

Papabear

submitted by Siegt_Richter
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Are accountability partners a good thing? For this weekend’s show, we bring on some newer voices to discuss a topic of importance to faith and fellowship. Listen in as we explore the positives and negatives to accountability partners and groups, and some common mistakes to avoid.

Metadata and Credits

WagzTail Podcast 2.0 Episode 44
Runtime: 30m
Cast: Ice_Fire, Levi, Spenser, Wolfin
Editor: Silent
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 30:00 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 by Adrian van Leen, used with permission. Episode 44 - Are accountability partners a good thing? For this weekend's show, we bring on some newer voices to discuss a topic of importance to faith and fellowship. Listen in as we explore the positives and negatives to accountability partners and groups,

submitted by HappyWulf
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submitted by evilsibe
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Forgive me for the long text wall and attempt at sociology

I've had this on my mind for a while, wearing tails out in public outside of cons and other specific events. I know this isn't really original, and I've already read many posts on it, but none of them really gave good input. Some characterize those who wear tails as attention seeking idiots, others just try to avoid them because being a furry in public is too "out of the norm" for them. I mean, there are responses like this one and most of the following comments that view furry apparel as stupidly immature, but without any valid reason other than a social taboo of looking silly.

Then there are comments such at this one that give a good discussion about it, but still go back to social stigmas and taboos about appearance in public. They do make a good point in some of them:

Skinny anime chicks? Totally. Chunky white dudes? Not so much. If a chunky white dude's walking around with an animal tail, of course mothers are going to freak out and try to keep this somewhat creepy weirdo away from their kids.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not overweight, but I could stand to lose some weight since it's all (literally) on my stomach and thighs (luckily my roommate is in the military and I'm in the process of thinning out), and the only reason I'm overly white is because I live on the Texas/Mexico border. But I've seen people as far up as northern Houston wearing the most ridiculous outfits (number of items on par with full on fur-suiting) and claiming that they wear them because of their "culture". Or people with the hipster or goth look. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't was the argument put forth here, and it seems like a good enough answer. But I want more.

Others gave a simple response that summed up their feelings and reasons in a quick sentence, such as this one. I'd like to see a more valid reason, but I suppose it's the opposite spectrum of the first comment I linked to.

Myself? I'm an 18 year old 6'2" chubby around the waist white guy who can't decide on an accent or style because of all the places I've lived and all the books I've read. I like to keep my life interesting, either by doing interesting things such as skateboarding (up until I broke my leg a year ago, mostly why I'm not in shape now) and trying to play Yu-Gi-Oh with people who drop $100 on a deck and actually make part of their income through the game (one my roommates actually...) or by what I wear. I own two pocket watches, one a decent replica of the Masters fob watch from Doctor Who and another a fully mechanical steam-punkish style, the reddit and the 4-bit binary watches from Cadence, a sonic screw-driver that functions as both a toy and a screw driver, a USB 3.0 drive (unique among itself right now) full of original and downloaded minecraft maps and things I've written, prescription glasses with interesting squares printed on the plastic bits, and more crap than I could fill up a post with. Most of which I add to my outfit or keep on my person throughout the day. Even then I'll radically change my physical appearance on a whim. I've grown my hair out for a year only to one day wake up and decide I want it cut, donated most of it (except the part I kept on my head) to whichever charity uses used hair, and since then haven't grown it out. Or taking No-Shave-November and extending it until the new year (a very full beard is what I'm getting at) until I wake up and don't like the beard anymore. Heck, I don't even keep my bedroom in the same layout for more than half a year. I'm always trying to improve or change something. A tail is just one more thing to add to the medley of dumb and interesting things I do every day.

That being said, most of the reactions I've read via reddit about wearing tails in public on any normal day have been negative. As a counter to the examples of "acceptable" places in which to wear tails/ears/what-have-you: I live so far south and am so much involved in my university (work, a very involved major, and I live in an apartment across the street from it) that I don't have the time or money to make my way halfway up the country to go to a weekend or longer convention, so the mindset of "wearing it only at so and so" is out of the question. Not only that, but I think I've seen maybe one or two other people who -may- be sorta kinda furry, but probably just an anime geek, in all of the Rio Grande Valley, and those are just at my university. So get-togethers with like minded friends are out of the question. I think I've personally known one furry, and that was before I even knew that a more or less formal group of generally like minded people existed. As a result of this, I've never really come into contact with stereotypes and the like.

So I did an experiment. About a week ago, after one of the worst couple of months I've had in a while, I was at Hot Topic with a friend and saw some tails on display. It took about five seconds of though until I bought a cheap, 15 or so inch-long grey tail and wore it for this past week. My friends had no idea that I was even vaguely interested in this kind of stuff outside of my preference for Khajiit in Skyrim and similar races in similar games. At first they where a bit surprised, but like I said, I try to keep my life interesting by doing dumb things so they got used to it after a while. At first it was a bit annoying keeping track of it (IE sitting down and bunching it up awkwardly or closing car doors on it) but after I got used to moving around it, the tail was a big improvement on my wardrobe. Bored? Play with tail. Neck cold? Detach and relocate tail. Still bored? Use tail as cat toy to confuse my kitten. At the emergency room because of a nasty cut caused by a dish-washing incident? Make some sick little girls day by joking about the tail being a medical accident.

Most people didn't really care, aside from kids and their parents being really interested in it, nothing really happened. I mean, I felt people staring at me, but it was akin to when I'd go to class in a full suit (complete with a chrome-skull topped cane and a fedora) one day and a torn up Disturbed T-shirt and the jeans I used to skateboard in the next. It could be that I'm a college student and that we're expected to do "dumb" things like this, but no one spoke to me any more or less than normal. Not to mention I'm a math tutor in the best tutoring lab at my uni, and I see and am recognized by probably half the university over the course of a semester. Granted, the winter semester barely ended yesterday and we are just starting the Spring semester Monday, so I'll see how that turns out later on. But I didn't run into anyone that fit any description I've read so far. Nobody gave me a look like I was an attention seeking whore, nobody called me out for being a bestiality prone sex crazed maniac, nobody really cared at all.

I actually want to get a better tail that matches my fursona, just to see what the reaction will be then. It could be my location, it could be because a great deal of people already know me and know that I'm a mostly well adjusted member of society, but the reactions stated above (aside from the third, "positive" example that goes with just about anything out of the norm) just didn't happen.

So my question is, in a civil and detailed manner, what is your opinion of wearing tails in public? Why or why not? Support it with over 5000 characters of examples and half as many in a personal story. Attack my post in the same manner or as you please. If you're asking yourself why? Then why not?

TL;DR I am not nearly clever enough to make this funny nor am I good enough at summarizing to make this short, so skim the post to get the gist of it all

EDIT: So after about a day or so of checking in on this and replying to everyone, I think I've got a good enough answer. As stated in my pathetic attempt at a TL;DR, I suck at summarizing. I'd say the gist of it all is that there is a balance. Older furs are less likely to wear tails or other apparel outside of a specific location, such as a con or planned get together with friends, and us younger furs generally don't care about appearance or opinion and we're more likely to let it out in the open. It's just another balancing act, apparently

submitted by shichigatsu
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Archive-name: furry/faq
Posting-Frequency: Posted on the 8th and 25th of each month.
URL: [link]
Last-Modified: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 00:26:59 -0800 (PST)
Changes: Updated various URLs and MUCK addresses to bring up to date.

an Alt.Fan.Furry Frequently-Asked-Questions Sheet

Fuzzy Notes: B-Sides is where Potoroo flips the disk and plays three additional tracks by artists featured last week, a mini-cast which will happen between full episodes every other Friday. Think of it like the b-side to a single! This week, we hear from Berserker Shark, Scales (aka. Dragontaur Productions) and Martyrs of Apathy! Contact: fuzzynotespodcast@gmail.com Podomatic: http://fuzzynotes.podomatic.com Twitter: http://twitter.com/Potoroo THE MUSIC Berserker Shark - The Run Track: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/9437595/ FurAffinity: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/berserker-shark Scales (aka. Dragontaur Productions) - Alone Track: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/8891146/ FurAffinity: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/dragontaur-productions Martyrs of Apathy - Rise of Artificial - Sonata in A Minor (Martyrs' Dubstyle Remix) Track: http://martyrsofapathy.bandcamp.com/track/rise-of-artificial-sonata-in-a-minor-martyrs-dubstyle-remix Bandcamp: http://martyrsofapathy.bandcamp.com/ B-Sides: Episode 4 - Fuzzy Notes: B-Sides is where Potoroo flips the disk and plays three additional tracks by artists...

I've recently started taking an interest in the furry fandom, mostly due to this subreddit. The art and writing is amazing, the people seem so friendly and the NSFW stuff is...

I'm getting off topic. How did you come to see you were a part of the fandom, and what did you do from there?

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Author: Fred The WWA Gallery, which featured the “Gag Me With a Toon 4” art exhibition last March & April, has a new exhibition: “Creepy Cute”, from January 12th through February 9th, 2013, featuring seven artists and sixty-six paintings. All the paintings are shown on and may be purchased from the gallery’s website. The majority are [...]

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Author: GreenReaper MiDFur staff have chosen a new name, ConFurgence, after a month-long selection process – but pre-registration of the chosen domain name suggests a pick made prior to the final poll. ConFurgence’s Flash the Dingo as drawn by Kat Aclysm The event’s growth had become an increasing issue with its December timeslot (the ‘D’ [...]

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