A fond farewell to furry.
Back in the 90s, as the internet was getting started, I discovered something. Furry - or as it was called at the time "anthropomorphics" - was the idea of adopting an alter-ego in the form of an animalistic human, either from real life or mythology, or even something of your own creation. It kind of allowed you to take on a different aspect and be someone else, especially when you put on a costume that hid your true face. You could be a complete clown and have fun, and that was the animal - not you.
Like all things of that nature, it followed the Star Trek idea. People started to get together and discuss the concept of furry. Gatherings were held. More people showed up, conventions were organized, and the Furry Fandom was born.
Now, this isn't to say that the concept of anthropomorphism hasn't been around since forever ago, because it has - especially when we accept that as humans, we tend to assign human traits to things that aren't human. We see faces on our cars, we assign temperaments to devices, we assume our pets and other animals think like we do. Mesoamericans wore suits like birds. The ancient Norse wore shirts made of bear skin to gather that animal's power. Even today, some cultures think that griding the keratin "horn" of a rhinoceros will grant them a stiff pecker. We see animals doing things that we cannot, and we try to gather some of that power and strength for ourselves by using parts of the animal we admire.
As media advanced, talking animals showed up because they could do those things we could not, and it was used to comedic or dramatic effect. Sometimes it was simply used to present old stories to younger audiences, stories like those of Reynard the Fox, or even fables and parables that featured a non-human protagonist. Certain companies used this to great effect, cranking out animals in cartoons and impressing ideas on young minds.
And there we arrive at the 90s. The internet allowed those ideas to propagate and expand and all of a sudden the aforementioned fandom appeared. While there were some sparks well before that, it was really the usenet and internet that lit the fire.
It may not have started out as such, but it quickly evolved into a permissive, liberal-minded thing. Furry itself was an alternate way of thinking, and it attracted those with ideas that didn't necessarily have an outlet in the mainstream yet. It attracted a lot of alternate sexualities including gay and bi, and trans among others. For that matter, the acceptance of being gay is one of the things that originally attracted me, and that's where I found the person I gave my heart to. We're still together, so I guess something was right.
Furry has always been a very open thing with regards to your sexuality, and that has always been a major focus of the fandom. Much of the art revolves around sexual themes. Some participants use it as a crutch to support a very oversexualized lifestyle where their attendance in the fandom is only because there is a never-ending stream of partners who need a hole to dump in. That's where my farewell begins.
Now, don't get me wrong. A well drawn sexual (pornographic) art piece will certainly get me all hot and bothered, but that's not the only thing I like to present. I have other interests, other goals.
For me, these cracks appeared early. People abusing hotel facilities during conventions, sex in public areas, bodily fluids in places they should not be, with the affected conventions suffering because of it. While I was all for people expressing who they are, being kind to your host is a must and some of these early conventions degraded into a kink-fest where attendees thought that since they were there, the entire venue was available for whatever they wanted. That's not to say furries are the only groups doing that, but they are quite visible when it happens.
Those incidents slowed (but never fully vanished) as events and event hosts cleaned themselves up and refused to tolerate that behavior. We moved on and some respect was gained back. Even the internet seems to have forgotten those early days and the diaper fetishist wandering the public halls wearing nothing but said accoutrements. They never fully vanished, and even as late as 2015 a prominent event was permanently terminated due to said shenanigans.
Event space doesn't want to be associated with that kind of thing because they want to make money. If you have the reputation as "the place where that disgusting public sex happened" then you don't get other business. You don't want barely-legal men getting one another off in the hot tub, or diaper clad 40 year-old men dumping stuff in places it shouldn't be. That just doesn't work.
There are other things, darker corners of the fandom. I noticed early on that some prominent faces at the conventions I attended suddenly weren't there. What happened? Well - they got caught with a child, and I think you know what I mean.
There's an entire sub-genre of furry dedicated to placing apparent under-age individuals in situations that they simply could not, or should not be in - sometimes to the detriment of the subject matter. This was just a small portion of the fandom, but as it aged and more people joined, it started to show up more and more. It wasn't uncommon to hear about a well-known person who got caught with offending material of a real nature, and there were plenty of other accusations made with some vanishing from the scene once called upon to prove innocence. There were even some more out-in-the-open events where a notable trust and security team member was removed from a popular gaming chat service due to their rampant in-your-face I'm-right-you're-wrong support of this material.
While that type of art isn't illegal in the United States, the fact that there's so much of it belies a deeper problem in the fandom. There are many artists who draw this, some exclusively - but they'll usually tell you that they aren't interested in it personally. But as it was charmingly put to me: "The Free Candy Van Man drives that van for a reason." The law tended to take care of those who were doing it for real, so stepping back from the darker parts of the fandom was easy enough. It was just kind of saddening to know that this stuff was happening, and the more it happened the more the fandom as a whole became tainted. There are some that believe furry is nothing more than recruiting schemes meant to get children into those situations, and really - I can't blame them for thinking that. I don't want to be involved with that, even by distant association.
What really broke me was the cultural shift that furry has experienced over the years. As more people came in, more younger people - and that's not a bad thing, you need new blood - the ideas of what furry was changed more and more. There's always been a lot of sex, but that started to take on new meaning. It wasn't about the having of, but that of "my sexual preference is the only correct one, and I will go nuclear on you if you do not cater to my words." It became a game of highly politicized people bringing dogma in to the fandom and putting it front and center instead of the celebration of our animal selves that it should be. Telling someone that only my way of thinking matters and if you don't agree then you are not wanted isn't a way to create a group. Inclusiveness by exclusion doesn't make any sense, and it doesn't make for good neighbors.
With the swelling crowds, furry had gained a heart of hate and a voice of anger. Those that didn't go along with the new hivemind were fascists, worse than Hitler himself. The political thing of the day was suddenly the only proper thing to believe. These crowds weren't going to do anything FOR that thing, but they were more than happy to interfere in your life and tell you what you should do - and then screech at you if you refused to do so - especially if they saw you as having any kind of means of your own. Talk, as always, is very cheap. It goes deeper than this. Some of those crowds were indeed actual people who were there for the fandom, but many were just there because it was popular at the moment...
There is a phenomenon you see with groups like furry. There are people in this world that simply cannot be happy that you're happy in your group. They demand you let them in, or they just come in because it's open door. They don't have an interest in what you're doing beyond whatever it is being popular at the moment. They may not even have the skills or drive to do it. But they want to be there because it's popular and they bring their new ideas with them. Again, new blood isn't a bad thing, but when that new blood is all political then that destroys the group from within. If you aren't with that newspeak, or simply don't care and want to continue doing the thing you started with, then you're out. Not wanted. You leave. Sometime after, something new becomes popular, or those that showed up when they were young move on. The people who were there because of the fandom are gone, and all you have is a small group of die-hards that wonder what happened. That hasn't happened for furry yet, but you can see it happening in other areas like gaming, or popular franchises that changed their focus from spaceships and explosions to political rhetoric.
To me, it's the fact I'm not interested in that political newspeak.
I lost furry friends - some of whom were mundane friends previously - because they found a fetish and that's all they want to talk about. One who doesn't have anything of his own and lives in a friend's spare room started our last conversation out by immediately criticizing where I lived after I said hello, and then called me a fascist because I didn't think where I lived should pay for those here illegally with my tax dollars. I can't talk to some anymore because they invariably drag the conversation to how a certain red political party is deliberately injuring them. Some went full-victim mode, and it got tiresome. I even had one tell me I was a fool for not moving to a more progressive area because I was gay, as if the fact of my sexuality was the only defining thing I had. He apparently overlooked that the city I lived in (and still do) had always been considered quite progressive in that regard, and is one of the original progressive cities for such things.
When I said I wasn't going to simply abandon the life I'd built here over 30 years because he believed I needed to go to some place in California, he told me I should go move in with my boyfriend who lived in a very rural, non-progressive area with absolutely no jobs to speak of. He was going through a rough financial patch at the time, and we were considering bringing him here to me. (He's since landed a good job with an environmental firm doing cleanup.) When I questioned him about where I would work to support the both of us, it was "They have a Wal-Mart there." In the same breath, he said to go apply at this company he works for, you can be a janitor at one of the offices in New Jersey or something, all decidedly conflicting with his first statement of I need to go somewhere he thinks is more progressive because that's what you do when you're gay. Just toss your career away because I said so. He'd always had this odd idea of what it actually meant to be to be gay, his confusion at my non-interest in female furry artwork being one of those. I guess this is just something you do in your spare time.
He, of course, was dating someone that lived very close to my chosen - as in the next county over, but he was completely unwilling to drop everything he had and move to that same rural, no job area. Talk is cheap, especially when you're telling someone else what they should do because you saw it on X or Facebook, or because the transsexual individual he was dating at the time told him that's the way it works.
Why do I bring that up? Because, that's how furry is these days. It's full of political hate. Hate from by people who are just doing the screaming because that's what they were told to do by the internet or the television or whatever media they follow. They don't care or understand that you're here for a particular reason, they simply require you to do the current thing that they believe in today, or you may as well change your name to Stalin. That's really what it boils down to.
I've changed. I grew older. Perhaps it was because I found my place. Furry found a new place, and we were no longer compatible. It became political, and we grew apart. I simply wanted to enjoy things, but my fellow furs didn't want me there unless I was into the politics.
Some of it I still keep in touch with, but by and large it's not what I remember. It's gained many things that, as a professional with titles to my name, I do not want to be associated with (and in some cases, cannot be associated with.) It's not all bad, technology has improved and costuming/artwork is now simply amazing, in many cases exceeding what commercial offerings can give you. But, that's all there is for me. It got far too big, far to political. It's not fun anymore.
The early days was our gang, but now it's not. It's their gang.
I admit I've changed because I had to - you do that as you get older. At the same time, Furry took on it's own distinct personality. That personality doesn't allow for much beyond the hivemind's thoughts. Some of us are simply NOKD at this point because we came in at a different time and we don't repeat the narrative.
Is this a rage quit? Maybe, kind of, possibly, probably but not really, but some will take it as such. For me it's simply closing that chapter of my life and moving on. It's not what I remember or want, so I find things that are.
Catch you later, furry - I'll check in every once in a while to see how things are, but until then...See ya in the funny (animal) pages.
Chirp. (">
harmlessgryphon 2024, 2025, 2026.
This page changes some as I organize my thoughts.