Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

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Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Yes
149
78%
No
42
22%
 
Total votes: 191

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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by Sleet »

Right. Perfectly fine for an individual's home. Not so much for a convention.

Bottom line: New conventions are often underwhelming, which furries should be wary of.
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by tychoaussie »

I never attended a con until a friend, whose wife had just died, asked if I could meet him at the con. I never had interest in them either. What I found, is that all it takes to meet someone is to open my mouth and start talking. Usually only for a short time. They usually fill in the rest.
So meeting people at a con seems to me to be ridiculously easy.
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by Douglas Collier »

Speaking of conventions, is anyone here going to BLFC in Reno this May? =3
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by dtlux1 »

Hard to believe that today marks an entire day since I got on the path to become a furry. I started to read Prequel on May 1, 2014.
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by JeffCvt »

dtlux1 wrote:an entire day
I'm pretty sure you mean "year." Either that, or I've been confusing years and days my entire life and I really should have paid more attention in school when we leaned that. :P
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by Sleet »

There's a whole path? I must have taken the shortcut. :P
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by Amazee Dayzee »

Then you better get back on the correct path then! xP
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by Radio Blue Heart »

Now that I think about it, I was a furry from a pretty young age. Digging through the back issues of my local comic shop, I found a Marvel comic called "Power Pack". Its about a group of children given super powers by an alien so they can defend Earth. Marvel brought it back a while ago. The good aliens in the comic look like anthropomorphic horses.
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They wanted to protect earth because of its wealth of literature. The comic's writer and creator was influenced heavily be C.S. Lewis.

But I though having a anthro horse for a friend was pretty cool.
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by JonnyNova »

I really didn't expect this question to be so hard to answer. I've typed this post a bunch of times, just trying to find the right words to put this into: I'm a furry and that kinda scares me. I mean some parts of this fandom really do creep me out, though maybe I'll get used to it, and the kind of backlash that furries get across the internet is shocking. I know that furries are generally good people, but so many others aren't willing to see that. I mean, I really want to be able to say "I AM A FURRY" and just be proud of it, but I'm so scared of what people will think of me for that. I've never felt like this before, I've always been myself and never cared about what other people thought, so I really don't know how to deal with this.

Sorry if I'm rambling here, but I really wanted to get this off my chest.
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by JeffCvt »

Furries are no different than regular people. Most are good, some are strange or different (but not bad), and then you have the few that make you shake your head in shame.

The people who think negatively of Furries have usually come into contact with the few who put a bad name on it, or heard stories from other people who have. The same can be said for just about any group. Take Bronies for example (Because I'm a brony and can relate much better to that). I've been on a few brony sites the past few years, including a forum that I have been frequenting now for... 4 or 5 months? Anyway, the entire "Normal user VS Troublemaker" population that I see is... well, no different than any other site like this forum or YouTube. You have the odd troll or guy who gets way too personally involved in everything, but most of the people are just... well, normal people.

If you want to tell people you're a furry, then go for it. If they assume the worst, simply explain that they're wrong and maybe even point them in direction of forums like this one that PROVE not all furries fall into the stereotype.
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by Obbl »

Also since being furry can be just something you enjoy and not something that truly defines you, you can always tell people you're a fan of cartoon animals and let that be that. Labels gather connotations, so circumventing the label to get straight to the heart of what you actually like about the furry fandom is a great way to be true to yourself without directly connecting yourself to the baggage that is associated with the label.
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by Sleet »

Yeah there's really nothing to be ashamed of. It's literally the exact same concept as liking sci-fi or anime. *shrugs* Don't worry about stigmas. They're dumb.
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by tychoaussie »

JonnyNova wrote:I really didn't expect this question to be so hard to answer. I've typed this post a bunch of times, just trying to find the right words to put this into: I'm a furry and that kinda scares me. I mean some parts of this fandom really do creep me out, though maybe I'll get used to it, and the kind of backlash that furries get across the internet is shocking. I know that furries are generally good people, but so many others aren't willing to see that. I mean, I really want to be able to say "I AM A FURRY" and just be proud of it, but I'm so scared of what people will think of me for that. I've never felt like this before, I've always been myself and never cared about what other people thought, so I really don't know how to deal with this.

Sorry if I'm rambling here, but I really wanted to get this off my chest.
Many furries are actively working to make the fandom a better place (including me). There are parts of the fandom worth sharing with the rest of the world which is fair, and fun, and that's what I choose to emphasize. The past two or three years, public opinion has been changing. Most people with poor opinions of furries are folks who are already spending an inordinate amount of time in the bad places of the internet like 4chan, reddit, the chive, etcetera. Most regular people have no idea what furry is, much less what it's about. Those people, you can usually be the first to create the initial impression. Therefore, make it a good one. Don't be afraid, but instead draw some lines of conduct for yourself about what you will and will not watch & view. That way, you won't have to have any secrets. People with no secrets don't have to tell lies, and they likely will be surrounded by people who trust them.
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by JonnyNova »

Wow guys.... Thank you so much. I'm stunned at just how nice and supportive this whole forum is. Maybe I'm taking this all too seriously, but these replies actually helped me out a lot, as simple as it might seem.

You guys are amazing <3
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by Furryface18 »

Of course I do! That's like my entire being! I'm not one of those super obsessed ones but I think of myself as a furry. I love them and I always will.
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by Czukay »

Alright... Here goes... After long deliberation, I have decided to vote No. It's not anyone else, it's just me. I still respect everyone, and I'm not going to act any differently than I always have. I posted this, which elaborates a bit more: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6937266/
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by Douglas Collier »

I find it just a little ironic that you posted reasons you're not a furry on a Furraffinity account. :P
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by Czukay »

Yep. I'm a complicated case. And quite ironic.
The thing is, I guess that I am treating FA more like an art site, than a place to like, be a furry or something. Anyway, I've seen other non-furries on FA.
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by Amazee Dayzee »

That is how I generally treat FA also.
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by Sleet »

Well it is an art site...

It's actually a pretty terrible social network. :P
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by tychoaussie »

Just never, ever, ever turn the filters off when using FA.
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by kurowolfe »

Erm... well, even with the Mature and Adult filters on, you will still get some... questionable, images even when you type in some innocuous terms in FA's search function. That's the one thing I am not satisfied with the site: some stuffs that should be in Mature are considered General by the general public there, and believe you me, I've seen some images that I wished I never did even in General.

Still, FA is a good starting point if you're a beginner furry artist looking for an audience. And I don't know any other sites that host furry art and have a reasonable filter for SFW stuffs. Some say Weasyl is good, though I'm not sure if that's true because I don't have an account there. Deviantart is honestly okay in my opinion, but some degree of caution is still needed when searching for stuffs, and it's not exactly 'furry-friendly'. Others I just can't recommend because they almost exclusively deal with the naughty stuffs.
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by Amazee Dayzee »

I try not to each terms on FA often and usually just find the artists that I found on DA.
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by Hlaoroo »

Weasyl's filter is very good and the staff seem to be excellent at making sure people stick to it. The only issue with Weasyl is that not to many people are using it, though I think that the more mistakes FA makes the more popular Weasyl will become.

The trouble with FA is that they appear to have very few people on staff considering the number of users they have and those who are moderators do it incognito via alternate accounts. This means that since no one except the admins know who is on staff there's no transparency to the process so the moderators can get away with whatever they like, and given that there's such a backlog of tickets since it's such an active site there's just not enough staff to keep on top of things.

Weasyl is much more open about everything. Their code of conduct for staff is visible to the public alongside the rules for users of the site and every staff member uses their own account as far as I'm aware.

I personally feel that Weasyl is going to take over from FA big time once people get past the stigma of "no one is there yet".

The filters on FA are shockingly bad because people deliberately miscategorise pictures and because there's not enough staff to deal with the complaints, or because the staff don't treat the complaints fairly or sensibly.

I really feel that the sole advantage to FA is that everyone is there. And that, sadly, is a strong advantage in the business world.
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by kurowolfe »

True that. If you're starting out as a furry artist, the best platform for you to start with is the one with the most members, namely FA. I didn't bother opening a Weasyl account because I don't like having too many accounts. I even opened an account in one of the naughtier ones just because two artists that I respect left FA to feature their arts there.

I have to disagree that FA is a bad social platform though., I actually met a few artist friends in FA, even a Japanese kemono artist. This was great, seeing how Japanese artists rarely venture outside of their own art platform Pixiv, including the furry artists. And he is an awesome friend :3

I think in the end, you just follow whoever artist that you have taken a liking to. I think Weasyl now have most of the better ones that either moved there or have multiple accounts. I stay in FA because I'm weird, same with how I always come back here despite me leaving on several occasions.
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by Sleet »

Weasyl is better than FA in pretty much every way except the size of the userbase. They have much more attentive staff, and inappropriately tagged images are dealt with far better. I have yet to see anything dirty on Weasyl. The same can't be said about FA, SFW filter be darned.
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by D-Rock »

Huh, I figured I'd be in the minority, but I didn't think there'd be this many non-furries.


...Of course, only around 100 votes, much too small of a number to say anything definitive.
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by JeffCvt »

We had a topic before this one with about 350 or so votes and the percentage was still the same. 75% to 25%. That seems to be the magic spot for this forum.
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by Sleet »

Ideally I'd like to see that 75% number move down. Furries are great but Housepets! reaching more people is always good!
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by Hlaoroo »

A great quote about furriness I just heard from Uncle Kage who was being interviewed at a convention a few years back:

"People say... 'Why? Why do people draw furry characters? Why do you put on this costume? Why do you act like this? Why do you people do this?' and it was a very wise person who said at one time, simply 'The desire to dream is primordial.' That's why we do it. We are astonishingly creative people. The amount of creative energy contained in this hotel is... is... it's almost ready to become a singularity, the amount of creativity in here. This is just how we express that creativity."

I think that sums up very nicely what being furry is about. It's about being creative and expressing yourself. That doesn't necessarily mean being a great artist or brilliant musician or successful writer. It just means using your imagination, having fun, and letting yourself be yourself.

Here's a link to the first part of the documentary, if you're interested. It's in three parts and goes for around about 40 minutes. It's interesting because it's literally just a bunch of furries including Uncle Kage and 2 Gryphon as well as just regular furries who were attending the con talking about the fandom and about being furry and what it means to them.
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by Sleet »

He's such a great representative of the fandom. He does really well explaining it.
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by Amazee Dayzee »

Is Uncle Kage still around?
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by Sleet »

Yeah! Why wouldn't he be? He's already well older than the average furry. I don't see why he has any reason to leave!
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by RandomGeekNamedBrent »

well there's one big reason someone old would no longer be around. but I don't think he's old enough for that.
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by Dissension »

Nobody's too young to die. Dr. Conway is, however, still among the living.
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by D-Rock »

I think most furries I've come across here and DA tend to range from teens to mid-30s. First furries I came across were in their late teens, so I thought it was a "younger crowd" deal at first (wow, it feels weird to say that when I was in the same age group at the time). I was a bit surprised to learn of those older than that.
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by Amazee Dayzee »

I just wanted to know if he was still active on websites, not if he was still alive. ._.
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by ShadowLightning »

You know, I never really realized how much stigma (Did I use that right?) furries have until I go to certain websites. Like, in FA, obviously they don't get that much flak cause... well, that's what the site is for. But if you go to Facebook or YouTube, and you see some furry-related stuff on there, you could how much people see them in a bad light. I'd just be looking at something there and think, "Haha, that's pretty cool.", but then when I scroll down to the comments section, I'd see hundreds of negative comments about the fandom. I couldn't believe that so many people would think that badly. :(
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by Buster »

This particular video can be quite informative as to why the fandom is how it is, and how it's seen.

[Video Removed]

Oh, should probably mention the video goes into analyzing the fandom's "dark side" (you know what i mean) about half way through.
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Re: Do You Consider Yourself a Furry?

Post by JeffCvt »

While I will say that the video (as to what I've seen right now) is tactful about the subject, it is simply going way too deep into a subject that is not forum appropriate. I'm afraid I'm going to have to remove it.

Just look at it this way Shadow. Yes, there may be people who don't understand and bash the furry fandom, but there are hundreds of thousands who make up the fandom itself, and most of them are good people. You and plenty of other people know the truth, so all you can do is reinforce the good side and help show all of the haters that they're wrong.
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