Originally published on Medium December 29, 2018.
Lions, Tigers, and Bears, oh my! The Furry Fandom has been making its way into the public view more and more as of late, but a lot of people don’t understand who these people are or where they come from. Furries are people that are a part of a community interested in anthropomorphics. That means people who are interested in animal-like characters with human traits. To put this in a way everyone can understand, think of Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Tony the Tiger. These are all examples of what one would think of as “Furry”. The community encompasses many forms of art and expression from “fursuits” (people dressing up in mascot-like costumes), to artists drawing renditions of people’s characters (otherwise known as fursonas), to the creating of tails and ears or other furry inspired creations.
Despite the fun-loving nature of Furries, they are no stranger to being portrayed in a negative light when it comes to exposure in media. In 2003, a CSI episode called “Fur And Loathing” aired, giving a rather biased and detrimental view into the Furry fandom. Other shows such as Tyra Banks, Maury Povich, and even Jerry Springer have gone after the Furries in an attempt to cash in on the sensationalism of what they saw as a fetish.
The Guest Experience Manager of FurEh (a local Furry Convention in Edmonton), Fernando “bcbreakaway” Po comments on this aspect of the fandom. “I know there’s been, recently, quite a bit of negativity out there regarding certain people, in the sense of furry as a whole. There was a guy [just the other day] that was sentenced to six years for child porn. There are some people that are accused of some pretty heinous things involving animals, and things like that. And something less serious, people are talking about how it’s an overly sexual kind of fandom and they talk about things that happen at conventions.”
Po gives a rather well thought out observation on subcultures in general. “The way that I look at it is this: I’ll bet you that as a cross-section of society, every subculture is going to have [expletive] people and every subculture’s going to have people that do awful things and that’s the price you pay with society as a whole,” He continues with his thoughts on how the fandom can tackle this problem, “There are awful people out there, and all we can do is try to be true to ourselves, be good to ourselves and each other, and we should make sure that people that are doing these things are held accountable. I think that’s an important part of Furry. There are so many different people, so many different types of people, that there are going to be bad ones that we would like to remove, but I don’t know if we will ever remove them completely.”
FurEh’s founder and chairman Dennis “Thallanor” Bilyk also commented on the issue of bad press within the community. “I understand there’s a need to acknowledge this, and there’s a need for due process, and these people to be held accountable, but I struggle with some of these people that dwell on it. I would rather we spend time celebrating what we are actually accomplishing. We focus so much on the negative that no one takes a moment to focus on the good that we do with the community.”
Some of this good includes raising over $14,000 for a charity known as Under Dogs Rescue Society within the last three years. $7,000 of that was raised at FueEh in 2017 from donations collected from attendees. During another convention known as “Anthrocon” in Pittsburgh, attendees generated just over $7 million in revenue for the city and have raised over $240,000 for charity since 1997, according to https://pittsburgh.citymomsblog.com.
It’s not just about the fundraising or the conventions. A social psychologist and one of the world’s foremost experts on the Furry Fandom, Dr. Courtney “Nuka” Plante, an instructor at MacEwan University, points out, “In addition to liking the content . . .we think that people are drawn to the fandom because it gives them a lot of benefits. It’s good for your self-esteem, it’s good for your wellbeing. Research shows that having a group of like-minded people is one of the best predictors of wellbeing there is out there. Having the furry fandom, it sort of gives you an excuse or a way to meet up with people and create that community and create that social support network. Many furries benefit from [the community]. It’s one of the first places in their lives where they had people who were there for them, had people who supported them, they didn’t judge them for who they are, and that’s very valuable to them.”