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Dear Papabear,

I am what you would call “furry” and I have been to several local cons. I don’t really live the “furry” lifestyle in as such that I wear a tail, bark at people, eat out of a dog bowl, or wear a collar. I have certainly been caught “Mooing” at the cows though. I do spend years and years writing furry stories (no yiff… sorry).
I don’t really have any problems with my furriness; I am open, and not prejudiced to almost anything or anyone. In hindsight, I would say that I was very young, about 10 years old, when I can say I had a truly furry-moment.
I have noticed that in the “Fandom” (people who are actively social with their furriness), that there is a very high percentage above the general population of people with conditions considered not “normal”. Many of my furry friends have Asperger syndrome or other autism disorders, Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or Dyslexia. The Fandom also exhibits a very high percentage of Gay/Bi members.
Myself, I am not Gay or Bi, but while growing up, I was slightly autistic with some classical tics now associated with Tourette’s syndrome. I admit that even in my adult years (Nearly 50), I am still not as social as most people, and my brain registers data differently than other people I work with. This is not necessarily a bad thing, I make very good wages and I am the only one where I work who has ever earned the highest award for excellence from the company (in the last 25 years).

The mystery to me is why does the Furry Fandom attract the people it does?
Is “Furry” some undiscovered psychological symptom of another condition?
Please answer this mystery for me so that I can sleep peacefully again.

–Blue-Moo

 

Dear Blue-Moo:

While this column is intended as a way of offering some advice about personal problems, and not to answer such questions as “what is a furry?” I’m going to read in between the lines of your letter and guess that you are troubled about your furriness, even though you say you “don’t really have any problems” with it. If you can’t “sleep peacefully” without knowing the answer, then it clearly is nagging at you.

You describe yourself as a furry who doesn’t follow the “furry lifestyle,” who isn’t interested in writing yiffy stories, and who does not suffer from serious psychological issues, except for mild autism and Tourette’s. You also seem to feel that most furries behave like dogs (wearing collars and drinking from bowls), are gay or bi, and suffer from learning disabilities or other problems such as Asperger syndrome.

I think you would be interested in reading a couple of surveys that have been done on the furry community. The first one was very recently posted right here on FNN at https://web.archive.org/web/www.furrynewsnetwork.com/2012/01/mixed-venue-survey-delineates-furries-therians-otherkin/. The other one is an ongoing survey that is quite interesting at http://www.klisoura.com/furrypoll.php. You can take the survey yourself there and then see the results here: http://www.klisoura.com/ot_furrysurvey2011.php.

I think that, once you read about these surveys, you will see that the furry community is a lot more diverse than you might think.  A LOT of furries are heterosexual, for example, and a lot are really not all that interested in yiff. At least, not any more than any other healthy individual.

For Papabear, a “furry” is simply someone who is interested in anthropomorphic characters in fiction, art, and so on. It is, in a real sense, a subset of the same group of people who enjoy comic book or Star Trek conventions. Comic book fans, sci-fi/fantasy fans, and furry fans all have something in common: they enjoy creative, escapist literature and art.

Like these other sorts of fandom, the community of furries is complex; generalizing what a “typical” furry is can be quite a misguided pursuit. For instance, you are very much a furry, though you do not meet the “definition” of a furry as a gay or bisexual male with a learning disability who drinks from a bowl and doesn’t have a good job.

You ask why the furry fandom attracts these sorts of people, and my answer would be that it attracts them for the same reasons that it attracts you. So, if you explore your own reasons for being drawn toward furries, I think you will find your answer.

Bear hugs to you, Blue-Moo. Papabear is glad you have a good job and are enjoying the fandom.

Thanks for your question!

Papabear

Disclaimer
Opinions and advice expressed in the “Ask Papabear” column are not necessarily those of the Furry News Network, its staff, sponsors, or advertisers. Papabear is not a trained therapist, physician, or social worker, and the author of “Ask Papabear” will refer readers to licensed professionals in cases where such recommendations seem in order.

You have a question for Papabear? Ask right here!

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Hey guys!

I'm a UK fur studying for a Masters degree in Film & TV Production. At the moment I'm on a temporary work placement at a production company. ^^

As part of my placement, I need to develop pitches (I'm learning how to write them, what channels want what sort of programmes, etc). One of my ideas is a furry documentary that's from a furry perspective. Not an outside person looking in, but actually furries trying to explain their community.

I have no idea if this will go ahead (unlikely) or if it'll just stay as a pitch-writing exercise, but I'd like to ask a few questions.

~ How do you feel about the furry documentaries out there? What do they do right? What do they do wrong? Are there any you like, or any you really disliked?

~ Are there any areas of the community that you think existing documentaries have under-represented? What's over-represented? What do you/don't you want to see?

~ Ideally, what would you like to see from a furry documentary? If you could make one yourself that showed the community in a positive light, what would you include? What wouldn't you include?

Or just your general thoughts? Any input is appreciated. <3 Thanks a bunch!

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Author: E-Mail Hidden (..::XANA::.. Creations)

Fresh from a clean steamy shower, comes a cascade of fan emails, witty jokes, and Wolves That Are Better Than Foxes™.

P.S. Special release! You can now download an exclusive not-so-exclusive separate copy of the post show (not included in the podcast itself.) Just scroll down on the episode archive post, and download!

 

Download MP3 (Right-click, Save)

News:

• ‘Mongrels’ axed by BBC Three by Higgs Raccoon

• Heroic Dog Saves Two Young Girls From Venomous Snake in Australia

• Artists support Belgian fur with fundraiser auctions by GreenReaper
• (Related post)

• My Red Digital Camera, Lost and Reward.

 

E-mails:

• Devin – “Respectful Criticism (for Maddox)”
• Orion “Husky” Moontail – “I.D.D. (Isolation and Dire Decisions)”
• Kleitos Aurelcath – “Another Email”
• Kit – “App”
• BlackFoot – “Ruining the magic”
• Arleon – “Punching bullies in face”
• Larka – “Quick question!”
• Anonymous – “A more or less confused kitty”
• Talon – “Furs, Fursonas, and Acceptance (Cont.)”
• Rennec – “The Paradox is Mattox”
• Abberati – “Re: Relationship question from last week”

 

Shout-outs:

• Talon – “Thanks”
• Kamikaze – (No Subject)

 

Download POST-SHOW MP3 (Right-click, Save)

http://content.xanacreations.com/furcast/ep/fc-69.mp3

Find the full article here: FurCast

The contents of this Podcast may have adult language and adult themes. The content is not produced by Furry News Network, but is posted for your convenience.

Furcast 69: Always In The Shower

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Between Chuck (on NBC) ending and this wonderful song…. it’s been a tough week for me (among other reasons). Here is Every River (Runrig Cover) by Foxamoore and video by  alectorfencer which is one of the newer and rare one I see in these music/picture deals, a girl (yes a real girl) singing. Her name is Ashley Serena who does a amazing job and gettn’ those tunes right into your heart. Check it out and enjoy!

Every River will take you away.

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“Ask Papabear” is an advice column for furries written by a furry. If you’ve ever read “Dear Abby” or Ann Landers’ columns, then you’ve got a good idea what “Ask Papabear” is about.Write ol’ Papabear to get some fresh perspective about issues in your life from a greymuzzle who’s dealt with just about everything in his life at one time or another.

The purpose of this column is to give furries a safe place to express themselves about some of the worries and problems they might have. You can do so anonymously here by filling out the form on this page and giving yourself a pseudonym. That way, when Papabear posts his response you will know who wrote the original letter, but no one else will, unlike when people post on a
furry site or Facebook.

Letters and replies that are judged to be the most useful to the furry community will be posted first. Not all letters will be published, though that does not in any way mean your problems are less important than other people’s! If you wish to hear from Papabear, whether or not your letter is published, please provide an email address (which will never be posted in this column and will remain confidential).

Hopefully, our dialogues here will not only help you but also other furries who have experienced similar problems in their lives. So pull up a chair, sit with Papabear and have a chat, or sit on my lap if you like! You’ll get a hug and a sympathetic fuzzy ear to talk to every time.

Disclaimer
Opinions and advice expressed in the “Ask Papabear” column are not necessarily those of the Furry News Network, its staff, sponsors, or advertisers. Papabear is not a trained therapist, physician, or social worker, and the author of “Ask Papabear” will refer readers to licensed professionals in cases where such recommendations seem in order.

Ask Papabear Need advice? You can ask Papabear.

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Author: Banrai

Staff of 3D role-playing chat simulation game FeralHeart (successor to Impressive Title) have taken it offline for a week, from 24 January 00:00 UTC until 31 January 00:00 UTC.

Owner and founder Razmirz posted a thread on their forums explaining the suspension:

The reason for this is the increasing number of complaints regarding the game/forum. I don’t refer to the ones about the game not working. I’m referring to complaints from users parents.

You might think these are about the staff not doing their jobs well I’m sorry to say it isn’t. Mainly because while people are listed as “staff” we have none. Instead we have some trusted VOLUNTEERS. And as far as I’m concerned its more a case of If you are under 18 and don’t have a parent or guardians permission we are hereby revoking any access to the site and game. If you persist in accessing the site you are in fact stealing our resources without permission.

You all are aware that Feralheart is not designed to accommodate any user under the age of 13. Therefore, the language used both on the site and in game should reflect this. A typical example of this is the term “rape”, despite our kicks and bans over the matter people still return only to persist the same behaviour, so we will be taking some more drastic actions in order to prevent such things happening or being discussed within our community.

What you need to do.

First off, any member of Feralheart who is under the age of 18, you are to have a parent or a guardian check over our website and take a look at the game to judge its suitability for you. If they are not happy with the content or are unwilling to check we henceforth refuse to provide you access to the site and game effective immediately. As stated in out terms we cannot be responsible for the actions of the users here though we do our best to curb users actions with our limited resources. So if a MOD asks you do do something please follow the instruction(s) there will be good reason even if you are not sure why.

As for the inappropriate behaviour. It has reached to a point where users who have been banned before simply return or create new accounts and continue with the actions of which got them banned in the first place. So, as of 00:00 UTC 24/01/12 , any one seen dancing over another user in the appearance of “rape” will be permanently removed from the game and possibly the forum. The same punishment will apply to the simple mention, threat, or implication of the matter. These bans are not up for debate so do not attempt to contact us over them. Again as it states in our terms we can revoke access for anyone with any reason.

This is a very serious issue, which is why the game was taken down for everyone to be able to see this thread.

Hopefully with this new, strict, guideline, you will be forced to listen. Feralheart is to be kept a safe and friendly place for everyone, and this is how such will be enforced.

Members of popular forum Something Awful recently discovered the game as well, and discussed trolling the game earlier this month:

I have found that doing the butt shake in front of people really pisses them off, for the record.

Despite my frequent use of the word, I am more of the opinion that furry is a subculture, rather than a fandom. That’s part of the problem of being a writer and having mostly just one topic to write about: thinking up enough ways to refer to the same concept again and again without sounding repetitive can prove difficult. I think that part of the reason that I keep referring to furry as “the [furry] fandom” is that it is a phrase engrained within our subculture, due to its historical use.  Perhaps at some point in time, furry consisted mostly of a collection of fans, but as furry grows, so do the means with which it’s members connect with it.  That’s why I enjoy subculture as a word to describe us: it is much more all-encompassing and, in the end, perhaps a little more accurate in describing our hodge-podge group.

When I was reading William Gibson’s book Pattern Recognition, I was introduced to the term participation mystique, which comes from early Jungian psychology, adapted from Lévy-Bruhl in order to describe the means by which we, as people, can define a portion of ourselves through membership in a community or association with an object.  This, I think, is the core of the furry subculture.

I don’t think that I could entirely get away with not using “fandom” to refer to furry. While anthropomorphism has figured large in most cultures, I think that what we call furry today stems in large part from a combination of other fandoms, such as those surrounding comic books, cartoons, and science fiction, eventually coalescing into a more coherent group, though still (and as yet) without a enteral nexus. It would be unfair of me to discount not only the formative years of the fandom, but also a still significant portion of furry that relies on their association with some extant product that contains that kernel of anthropomorphism.

So much of not only my own childhood, but my early years within furry had to do with the little fandoms that revolved around individual films.  Disney’s Robin Hood, the Redwall books, and even less direct examples, such as animal companions – talking and not – in Saturday morning cartoons or books such as Garth Nix’s Abhorsen series (embarrassing admission: when I first got into furry, I tried to do a comic of Sabriel with the characters being foxes – lets just say it’s good I stuck with music).

These sources are important to us because they give us an extant product to latch onto, a body of work to study, expand upon, and dream up new microcosms in the macrocosm of their world.  For the rare few who are gifted enough to create the world in itself, it can be a little (or very) distressing, but the human mind is always adept at treating a fictional world as a fractal, looking closer and finding – or at least adding – more detail.  It’s doubly important, then that furry itself ‘grew up’ around these sources, at least in part.  It allowed us to start with several very specific ideas, look deeper into them, and come out with something general enough that a group of individuals from different interests could come together and say “this is us”.

Of course, this led to a new way of thinking of furry, especially once its presence on the Internet began to grow.  A new member could find their way inside through some way other than some existing fandom.  Despite being a big fan of all the classic furry books and films, none of them really struck a nerve with me – it was finding that others had built something new from those roots that caught my attention.  I’ve mentioned before my roots in finding the fandom through Yerf! and a few other sites (Side7 and Elfwood, anyone?).  With the disclosure that it’s what I’d call my own point of entry into the fandom, I feel that a good portion of those who call themselves furry today follow much the same route: a general interest in the concept of anthropomorphics not necessarily tied to one single source other than what the fandom has already produced.

I freely admit that this isn’t a very intense association with furry.  For a little bit near when I was first getting into the fandom, I did think about myself as a fox (as I was at the time), and would often spend nights awake in bed imagining myself comfortable with my partner, both of us our cute little fox-sona selves.  I know that for some, this sort of self-zoomorphism can become almost a whole-body species-dysphoria, extending from feeling as though one exhibits characteristics of their animal character to feeling decidedly uncomfortable being a human.  I feel as though I should be careful writing about this, partly because I know relatively little about it beyond my own simple experiences, but mostly due to the fact that it tends to shift at this point into our…lets say “sister subcultures” of therianthropy and the were culture, which are not necessarily the focus of [adjective][species].  That said, this focus on the species as it pertains to the self is still important within furry culture, particularly when it comes to character creation (“I don’t feel like much of seagull, so why would I make my character one?”).

We certainly cannot leave out the spiritual aspects of furry, either.  While this, like most things, seems to go through waves of popularity, it’s never waned so much as to become insignificant as an aspect of the fandom. This is a topic that certainly deserves its own article, so I’m only going to touch on it a little here, but it is interesting to note. As there have been anthropomorphic aspects of many cultures back through time, it’s easy to see these creating “fandoms” of their own. This is its own gradient as well: some may latch onto the legends and play into the roles set down for them, while others, seemingly unattached, will admit that they enjoy the trickster aspect of their coyote-sona or the cleverness inherent in being a fox-based-creature.  There’s so much more that can be said about the spiritual aspects of being a furry, that I really do think it will have to wait until its own article.  I still have to tie this all back together with participation mystique after all!

With something as loose-weaved as furry, it’s difficult to imagine there being anything more than the faintest borders around the subculture.  There are, though, and where there are borders, there’s bound to be someone aiming to push them.  Beyond simply the species available here on earth, many are more content to explore the bounds created in science-fiction and fantasy universes.  At least one of the followers of our twitter account is a Wookiee, and for a while, there were several Kzinti and Skiltaires floating around.

Beyond even the constructed species of these fictional worlds likes the only vaguely-defined realm of post-furry, a sub-sub-culture of sorts with the goal of pushing the limits of anthropomorphics beyond the “pure” combination of animal and human characteristics.  While this may lead to some rather borderline or intentionally humorous character creations, the postmodernist viewpoint that seems to influence the postfurry attitude serves well with its looser sense of reality.  This is another topic probably more deserving of its own post in the future, considering the intriguing variety possible within it, yet the dearth of information available on it.

All of these describe different aspects of our participation mystique as furries.  The way we associate portions of our own selves with this abstract noun that is “furry”.  We identify with the fandom in all our myriad ways, and by virtue of our identities, form the fandom in itself.  The question has come up several times in the last few days about what exactly makes a furry.  That’s one of those questions that’s decidedly difficult to answer in a way that’s satisfactory to all.  I think that the best definition that I could come up with is that a furry is someone who claims to be a furry.  There are probably some who fall outside this definition that others would consider as members of the fandom, but it’s part of our mystical participation that it be consensual – one cannot be forced to identify with something.  I guess in that sense, ‘furry’ winds up being more of an adjective than a noun, though the word as an adjective already carries too strong a meaning to be overloaded like that.

That there is a phrase for identifying with a group such as this is evidence that this is not a unique phenomenon. In the context of the aforementioned Gibson book, it was used in much the same way: describing the fascination and partial identity with a fan base for a specific creation (in the book’s case, bits of film slowly appearing on the internet, and in ours, anthropomorphics), but the same idea lends itself to other memberships that form portions of identities in individuals. A good example that comes to mind is one’s political or religious affiliation, which, for some people shapes a good portion of their identities. To state another example, since we’ve covered the belief and fan ends of the spectrum, many members of the LGBT community also base their identities on their membership, adopting styles, modes of speech, and mannerisms from what they believe is the norm for such an identity, thus perpetuating it’s existence.

Given these examples, I’m tempted to ask what modes and mannerisms within the fandom are perpetuated by identity with the fandom? There is certainly a good amount of lingo that comes along with our membership, such as the word ‘fandom’ itself. Beyond that, though, there are certain things that do go along with our culture, at least in the case of conventions: certain styles, stances, and actions can identify the furry from the non-furry.  Again this is something worthy of its own post, but it’s still worth noting that our participation in this larger culture called furry comes with its…perhaps price is the wrong term, but certainly its expectations.  One is no longer necessarily obligated to be familiar with Watership Down or Rescue Rangers (though one should apparently be familiar with dubstep), for instance.  The criteria for participation remain loose enough for us to be a fairly accepting fandom, and it could probably be argued that they have loosened over time, but there are still some lines, however faint and pushed by the post-fur crowd (to name only one example) they are, which identifies us as furries.

Participation mystique, mystical participation, is perhaps one of the best phrases I’ve found to be used to define the fandom.  It’s not something we can (or should) whip out when trying to explain our subculture to those non-members around us.  The concept of basing a part of our existence off something non-spatiotemporal makes it all sound a bit like a strange religion, especially when put in terms like that.  However, with all the different levels of identifying with our animal characters represented, plus the consensual aspect of self-identifying as a furry, I feel we’ve got just about all the bases covered: a connection with our characters, no matter the source, and our participation forming a portion of our identity as the crazy animal-people we are.

There seemed to be a decent amount of interest in a furry art development sub so WTFmoustache set it up for us.

What I'd like to see is an open community for new and experienced artists to share their work and get helpful critiques on how to improve it.

So whoever is interested come check it out. http://www.reddit.com/r/FurryArtSchool/

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Those who only know Underdog from the rather odd 2007 live-action movie, sorry you! Underdog was a hit animated TV series produced by Total Television (who were also responsible for Tennessee Tuxedo), starting in 1964 and running more than 120 episodes until 1973 (and in re-runs ever since). Now Shout Factory have released the complete original series on DVD for the first time, featuring all 124 episodes in a 9-disc box set. Watch as Shoeshine Boy and his super-powered alter ego, Underdog, battle the evil likes of Riff Raff and Simon Bar Sinister to protect his true love, Sweet Polly Purebread. The DVDs also include original episodes of the Underdog back-up shorts GoGo Gophers, Klondike Kat, and Commander McBrag. Check it out at Shout Factory’s web site.

image c. 2012 by Shout Factory

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has anyone been to furry fiesta before? i have never been to a con and an curious if this is worth checking out.

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Ok Chuck I know ya been watching the new series "Grim" on nbc...so whadda
yas think of the "werewolf" whos acting as a helper to the detective?

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