Furry

[rowyn]

I was with with some friends recently, and the subject of "furs" came up. A couple of people there said they weren't furs. I said, "Well, I am."

Some weeks ago, Koogrr offered the following simple definition of "furry": "Animal People Are Beautiful." (I think those were his words.) This is an inclusive definition: if you think the idea of anthropomorphized animals is cool, then you're furry.

One of my friends told me I was too 'normal' to be a furry. My response was: 'For me, saying I'm not "furry" because I don't, I don't know, proclaim my sincere belief that I am a fox mistakenly incarnated as a human, is just as silly as for homosexual man to say he's not gay because he isn't a member of a gay activist organization. I play on a furry muck. I draw pictures of furry people. The book I'm writing now doesn't have any furries in it, but one I write in the future probably will.'

Another friend offered that he preferred the term 'anthro fan' because 'fur' had come to have the wrong connotations. Just as the 'Trekkies' are the obsessives of sf fandom, so have 'furries' and 'furs' become the obsessives of the anthro fandom.

That seems fair enough. In my example above, this is the equivalent of a homosexual refusing a particular label because that label implied 'person obsessed with his sexuality' rather than simply 'person attracted to members of the same gender.'

However, it also means conceding the label. It means admitting that an otherwise reasonable and descriptive term is off-limits because some people have narrowed the field of what it can be applied to. My friend offered that this is the outcome desired by those who embrace the label 'furry' most. The people who vehemently identify themselves as 'furry' don't consider mere afficionados, like me, a part of their world.

And this last is what I wonder about the most. Would the furries of the world rather disown me as too 'normal', as not 'furry' enough, because I don't identify with a totem animal or take to cuddling in large groups, or do whatever else it is that 'real furries' are supposed to do?

Am I furry?

Or is the English language as a whole aided, if I gracefully yield the term to those more devoted than myself, and turn, instead, to 'anthro fan'?

Comments

Purrr!

[koogrr.livejournal.com]

Meandering with Awolf's point, it seems Furries want someone to call themselves a Furry if they're a Big-Name-Fan (BNF), but otherwise don't care. Greywolf leaps to mind as someone who is, but doesn't want to call himself one; however he's on the fringe enough that isn't "as offensive" as Herbie Hamil or Shawn Keller refusing to call themselves furries.

I seem to have lost my ball of yarn. I'm glad you liked that definition, I like it to, for many of the reasons Awolf and you outline. minion_rabbit first told it to me, and I'm not sure if he originated it, or transmitted it. I think it should be spread. Animal people are beautiful. They are, I think so.

I don't speak to my co-workers about Furry fandom. They're gamers, and they read Dork Tower, and they've seen some of my art, so they could guess perhaps. They haven't outright asked me. When I head out to a con, it's 'a science fiction'. Mostly, I am projecting 'cat-lover' using big-cat calendars and photos, followed by 'tech geek'. I do have a couple unusual minatures one a shelf. Mostly, I simply don't like to talk about my interests, furries, martial arts, art, guns, books unless it's with someone I think will appreciate that.

Re: Purrr!

[rowyn]

Mostly, I simply don't like to talk about my interests, furries, martial arts, art, guns, books unless it's with someone I think will appreciate that.

Right. Most hobbies are so esoteric that it's rarely worth the time explaining them to people not involved in them. I remember reading a really funny interview with Robin Williams, who plays internet games, including WarCraft3 and some FPS games. It was obvious that Robin Williams was familiar with existing games, how to play them, and what games had just come out, or were pending. It was equally obvious that the interviewer had NOT ONE CLUE about said games. (I remember he gave NeverWinter Nights the wrong name.) So here Williams' is, trying to explain his interest, and here the interviewer is, totally at sea and dutifully trying to copy down what Williams is telling him (often failing.)

But that's what it's like. If you're not involved in a hobby, everything about it seems foreign to you. Unless you talk to someone with a gift for explaining, there's not much point.

Re: Purrr!

[rowyn]

Furries want someone to call themselves a Furry if they're a Big-Name-Fan (BNF), but otherwise don't care. Greywolf leaps to mind as someone who is, but doesn't want to call himself one; however he's on the fringe enough that isn't "as offensive" as Herbie Hamil or Shawn Keller refusing to call themselves furries.

You know, that reminds me of a time when I did a rant on Margaret Atwood's refusal to let The Handmaid's Tale be called 'science fiction.' ("It's not science fiction! It's speculative fiction.") Part of the problem is expectation. People seem to expect that an sf author will write ONLY sf, or that a furry artist will draw ONLY furries. Most people don't want to be pigeonholed by just one label. I certainly wouldn't want to be labeled a 'furry' if that meant that term was mutually exclusive with being, say, a Shakespeare fan.

I will happily embrace a diversity of labels, but I'm not gonna say that any one of them covers all of my interests. ;)