The most hysterically sane "furry" ever

First: for the record, I really don't give two squirts of warm piss what Fatcat, SA, or any other random idiot else thinks of me. If they want to be stupid like Fatcat is being and dismiss me based on something I am, that's their problem. What's said of me by some J. Random Intarwebber has precisely zero effect on me or mine in the offline world.

Second: Fatcat, you're still being an idiot with the "furry=sex freaks and/or fetishists" thing. If you can't provide evidence you have two or more neurons to rub together, at least learn to fake it.

Third: "Furry" is, in its most basic form liking anthropomorphized animals (that is, animals given human traits; this can be anything from, say, the Kilrathi, with generally humanoid-but-nonhuman bodies, to something like "The Lady and the Tramp", where physically non-anthropomorphic animals are given the ability to speak and interact with their environment in a sapient manner).

For some that just means collecting anthropomorphic (from here on just "anthro" for the sake of convenience) artwork like Disney comic books or anthro animal movies. This is probably one of the larger, if not the largest, sub-groupings of "furry", but since no one blinks at collecting every single issue of Donald Duck comics it doesn't get the dramarama and big noise from the enterta... erm, excuse me, news media.

For others, furry is about identifying with an animal spirit, believing one's soul to be put in the wrong body, or otherwise being about some variety of spirituality more than about the art. The general term for this group is "lifestylers", from furry being more than just a fandom for this group, but a lifestyle or part of one. This is where I fit in, although it's not really something about which I bug others.

For still others (primarily the group that people like Fatcat seem to think is the entirety of "furry"), it's about T3H S3XX0R, whether as or with animals, anthro or not. These are the folks who get mentioned in things like MTV's "Sex2K" or the CSI episode "Fur and Loathing" (or something like that), and often lampooned specifically by such charming folks like SA goons and other intarwebbers who seem to measure their self-worth by how they mock, abuse, or belittle others (not infrequently within close proximity to voicing complaints about how they're mocked, abused, and belittled by other groups). As a percentage of "furry" in general, they're a quite small segment. However, because of the aforementioned people/shows/etc, they're the ones that get the most airtime, often in the form of "look at those freaks, we're so much better than them".

Now, I'm not claiming to be some Grand Guru of Furry™, or otherwise claiming to be definitive, so don't go citing me as a reference. The above is just my opinion.

Finally: cake

(Fuck pie, that's so last week. :p )
 
From my experience with furries, Death's right on the ball when it comes to defining them. While the guys who like their women to wear fur suits (or vice versa) are the types that most typically come to mind, it's more a subculture where people identify with those anthromorphized animals, enjoy depictions of them, or even go so far as to roleplay as them.


Saying that all furries are into make-believe bestiality is like saying that all SCA members are crazed medievalists who enjoy trying to run people through with swords, or that all fans of Wing Commander are losers who spend all their time whining about how Star Wars is fantasy and nowhere near as good. :D In other words, you're stereotyping a group based on a small subset of its members.
 
Haesslich said:
While the [furry] guys who like their women[...]

Or their men, at that. Although not the majority, there seems to be, at least from my viewpoint, a greater proportion of "non-hetero" people in furrydom in general than the general population as a whole.
 
Saying that all furries are into make-believe bestiality is like saying that all SCA members are crazed medievalists who enjoy trying to run people through with swords

Looks up from shapening his sword, "Where not?"

honestly theres others out there that are also deemed "Furry" that are not deviants, and while what fat cat is talking about is sometimes an "intersesting" subsect of the furry, it is not the group as a whole or even a majority. heres some examples online, all are webcomics and are what is considered "Furry"

http://www.kevinandkell.com/
http://freefall.purrsia.com/
http://www.catenamanor.com/comics/03/20030617.html
http://www.furwillfly.com/

also to be included are Sluggy freelance, which if you dont read you should and numerous others.
 
I hadn't heard of the term before and have absolutely no inclination to run around dressed like an animal weirdo, but if I did, I would probably have to call myself McGruff.
 
I'm actually quite amazed that you guys haven't run into this problem with fatcat before/already. I do know him, personally(a bit of why I joined the forums) and he does seem to take a liking to stereotyping and fighting without backing up his points, a lot of "because it's stupid!" kind of stuff, so please, don't take his words too seriously.

I honestly think furries will be the next homosexuals, or alternate race, in a situation where they are currently quite rejected, and have to support eachother, but slowly will become more and more accepted by society. I mean, sure, people know furries make up a good section of internet forumgoers, but people(like fatcat) can be very close minded towards this kind of stuff. I hope that someday, the kids I see visit when I mod Arwing Landing(one of the largest Starfox forums out there) won't all think they're a furry because they think Krystal is "hawt" but rather, they feel that they want to be part of a species seperate from what they dread in the human race. I do know that there are some young and perverted users there(one thirteen year old in particular who says he'll "never be attracted to a human girl") but I know they'll change someday, much like the little boy who thinks he wants to be an astronaut when he grows up at first, but later realizes there are other things to life. If people could just try to learn more about furries, I think it would help a lot in all of this. No, I'm not a furry myself, but somehow I think I'll meet one in real life one day, and just think they're a nice person, probably become good friends too, but deep down it will be because they're a furry online.

And the main intention of this thread was to show the satire that guy's got on his DA page, which I found quite funny since I seem to run into the whole "13 year old wannabe furry" quite a lot on the internet. Of the people I do know on the internet who've been furries for a good long while, they don't really show it, and you have to really listen to them to finally hear it one day, but they're generally awesomely nice people.
 
I'm actually quite amazed that you guys haven't run into this problem with fatcat before/already. I do know him, personally(a bit of why I joined the forums) and he does seem to take a liking to stereotyping and fighting without backing up his points, a lot of "because it's stupid!" kind of stuff, so please, don't take his words too seriously.

It's not really his fault. "Furry" is what SomethingAwful and some other popular internet sites chose as the acceptable fall guy. That's a sad necessity of running a community - it's like the song says, everybody's gotta have somebody to look down on. It would be very easy to simply assume that because 'furry bashing' is Kosher at SA that it is everywhere else... that is, afterall, how most of the internet works.

I like to think we're different, though, and I would prefer to pattern the Wing Commander community after classical fandom. That means accepting furries as a given - and I find that completely acceptable, given that the Wing Commander community includes a lot of people who are Wing Commander fans because they love the Kilrathi. I'm somewhat entranced by Furry culture, too - they have a great community with their own conventions and causes and strong beliefs and support mechanisms. They have their act together.

Obviously, we have our fall guys... lesser space sims, for the most part: Freespace, Vega Strike, etc. I've always wanted to see a healthy rivalry between the CIC and the LancersReactor people, but it never really materialized. We're different from the rest of the internet, though, so ones generic internet prejudices aren't going to transit here properly.

I honestly think furries will be the next homosexuals, or alternate race, in a situation where they are currently quite rejected, and have to support eachother, but slowly will become more and more accepted by society.

By and large I disagree. The internet happens to be the media's darling this year -- in a while that won't be the case anymore. Furries are a weird and interesting group of people, but they're a tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny... tiny tiny tiny group on the whole -- infinitessimally smaller than a race or a sexual orientation. They'll have some mainstream 'haha, look at that!' type attention as long as the newspapers keep worrying about blogs eating their jobs... but this too shall pass.

(That is to say, we fought a Civil War for race... ultimately we'll only sit through a Leno monologue for furries.)

And the main intention of this thread was to show the satire that guy's got on his DA page, which I found quite funny since I seem to run into the whole "13 year old wannabe furry" quite a lot on the internet.

I think we all *see* the joke... it's just a bit far, far, far too blatant for most of our tastes. JeffK was funny *once*.
 
I don't think so much that people laugh at them for being a bunch of queers/kat lovers/random foolish stereotype but more because, well....
they look udderly ridiculous :D
Somebody that dresses up like a clown should expect to be laughed at.
 
Aplha 1-1 said:
I don't think so much that people laugh at them for being a bunch of queers/kat lovers/random foolish stereotype but more because, well....
they look udderly ridiculous :D
Somebody that dresses up like a clown should expect to be laughed at.

They don't all dress up - and most of them don't. Some of them roleplay as anthromorphic animals either online or in various live-action things (rarely). Most of them are more the type to sit down with a webcomic like one of the above linked, or else they'll draw their own art, or write their own stories which have humanoid (or otherwise anthromorphized) animals which are sapient.

Or should I start laughing at the lot of you who dressed up as Wing Commander pilots this Halloween or at Dragoncon? Or are all Wing Commander and Star Wars fans the type who like pretending they're Kilrathi as they type away at their computers, or who always dress up as Stormtroopers or Black Lance members when they go out in public?

Fuck's sake, the joke may have been funny... 10 years ago. Now, it's like y'all are competing in the Special Olympics to show just how retarded you are in the attempt to make the better 'joke' out of a group which isn't your own.
 
Aplha 1-1 said:
Somebody that dresses up like a clown should expect to be laughed at.

And someone that says stupid things should expect to be laughed at.

Just like I'm laughing at you, now.
 
So. just to clarify my understanding. A "furry" is someone who identifies themselves or enjoys reading about sentient animals (apparently mostly wolves, cats, etc). So by this broad definition of a furry, anyone who enjoys the comic strip, "Peanuts" and likes Snoopy would be considered a furry? Any person who likes Garfield would be a furry?

Secondly there is a subset (but not necessarily a main component of the furry mentality) that enjoys and/or identifies themselves with sexual content of these animals? This smaller group typically likes to see acts between animals but typically doesn't harbor a desire to have relations with an actual animal themselves? Is that a correct understanding?
 
Any person who likes Garfield would be a furry?

Well, no -- consider that enjoying Star Trek doesn't make you a Trekkie. There's a level of self identification necessary here.
 
A "furry" is someone who identifies themselves or enjoys reading about sentient animals (apparently mostly wolves, cats, etc).
...consider that enjoying Star Trek doesn't make you a Trekkie. There's a level of self identification necessary here.
Loaf's right. The mildest of Furries go a little beyond identifying with a cartoon character. Not everyone who thinks the Kilrathi are cool are Furries. More dedicated Furries are people who obsess over the Lion King and write fanfic.

If you really want the full scoop, go to http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=2142 WARNING: If ye value your sanity, look 'ne further. Here is the opening paragraph:
Some of you nice, nice folks out there may mistakenly believe that us professional retards running Something Awful give the poor, innocent members of the furry community a bad rap. You might think that we unfairly criticize and mock these shunned individuals out of racism, bigotry, and pure ignorance. Our webpage could appear to be a spiteful, hate-mongering tribute to the depths of our writers' blatant insensitivity and outright animosity towards a sexual lifestyle we cannot understand. I will not attempt to argue on our behalf, as I feel the best way to further a dialogue revolves around presenting an opposing viewpoint, one which challenges the accepted norm and attempts to expand the minds of those interested. Today's update will deviate from our standard uncultured, merciless mockery of the furry lifestyle that we normally spew forth, instead offering you, the viewer, an unfiltered look inside the furry mind and a chance to get to know these unique individuals yourself, without any vicious attacks from the SA writing staff to cloud your opinion.
 
Loaf's right. The mildest of Furries go a little beyond identifying with a cartoon character. Not everyone who thinks the Kilrathi are cool are Furries. More dedicated Furries are people who obsess over the Lion King and write fanfic.

That's not what I'm saying at all. Being a Wing Commander fan isn't the same thing as enjoying Wing Commander. For all practical, measurable purposes the actions of these two types of people may be exactly the same -- there's just a self identification in the former that isn't present in the latter.


Stop being stupid on my internet.
 
If you could take every wrongful statement on Wikipedia, convert it all to insults, and slap it on a website, you'd probably get something like SomethingAwful. SomethingAwful is a website for criticizing the first person you see on the street. Don't go using it as a reference.

I guess you're right about the whole minority thing Loaf, but then again, sometimes things do turn out drawing in minorities, in rare cases. I didn't necessarily mean that we'd get the whole "respect them" thing in the real world, but rather, across the internet. The internet will always be filled with jerks and morons who think that it doesn't mean anything to insult those you don't know in real life, but I do believe furries will start getting a lot more respect across the net in the comming years.

I think the best defenition of a furry is someone who believes they are a furry, admits it, and follows through on that. Furries themselves seem to do anything from comics to roleplaying, to just being a furry and living normally. It's not so much something you can see in their actions and say "Oh look! A furry!" for every last one. I've known someone quite well on a forum for a year now only to find out recently that they did in fact, consider themselves a bit of a furry, but only in one aspect, that they would always represent themselves in their art as an anthro dragon, and that was it. Really, it's hard to tell if someone's a furry, the best way, I guess, is to just ask, and explain why you're asking if they become offended by it, showing that furries can be quite concealed at times.
 
Fatcat said:
Loaf's right. The mildest of Furries go a little beyond identifying with a cartoon character. Not everyone who thinks the Kilrathi are cool are Furries. More dedicated Furries are people who obsess over the Lion King and write fanfic.

If you really want the full scoop, go to http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=2142 WARNING: If ye value your sanity, look 'ne further. Here is the opening paragraph:

Well, that was about as insightful an article on furrydom as Joshua's posts here were an intelligent and indepth discussion on Wing Commander tactics and technology. I really ought to do an article about the deviancy of Wing Commander fans and their Thrakath/Maverick slash obsessions here sometime. You even managed to completely misinterpret LOAF's statement in the process - just because a person identifies themselves as a Trekker does not mean that they try to dress potential significant others up as Orion slave girls or Vulcans or write a lot of Kirk/Spock or Skip/Archer slash fanfics. Again, categorizing them all as sexual deviants, or potential ones is about as logical as claiming to be an authority on Wing Commander because you saw a demo trailer for WC3 once upon a time and because you read an article in PC Gamer about how Wing Commander Prophecy caused the death of the Space Sim market.

Congratulations on winning the "Dumbass Award" for December 2005. Here's your prize for thinking SomethingAwful is an authoritative source.
 

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Congratulations on winning the "Dumbass Award" for December 2005. Here's your prize for thinking SomethingAwful is an authoritative source.

While I agree with your post, this bit is just piling on more generic internet stupidity.
 
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