Don’t Judge a Furry by their Fandom
Posted By Kathleen David on April 26, 2007
With the rainstorm that came through last night, it is cooler than it has been recently. But it should warm up today to a nice temperature. Caroline has already set up all her puppies for a sleep over and is now playing with her Diego Tree house and all her animals who are getting ready for some adventure.
I need to get something done today since so far the week has been a wash. Motivation has given away to fatigue right now but I have to get past the fatigue and get moving. I think it comes down to that I am tired of being tired.
Fandom is a funny thing. It evolves and morphs into all kinds of things. I can remember when the Star Trek factions started showing up once New Generation started to air. Now you have Star Wars purists (Han shot first) vs. the Lucas faithful (it’s George’s movie to do and redo as much as he wants so there). One thing I have noticed is that at lot of forms of fandom like to look down on other forms of fandom. Low man on the totem pole for years were the anime fans and the furries. Anime has gone mainstream and took off into its own fandom. And somewhere along the way being a Furry became a lifestyle choice and therefore unless you are a furry, you won’t understand them according to a few radical members of the group.
Now I have had furry friends since before they were called furry. My first encounter with the genre was through my buddy Jerry Collins who was/is a wonderful artist. He did some commercial art for me for some theater groups I was working with. He and his wife Becky lived in half a house that did all right for them. I met Jerry because of his love for anime and found out about the whole anthropomorphic style of art and fans. I still have some drawing he did for me of anime characters as Wurfs (a creature of his own creation). He introduced me to other anthropomorphic artists and fans over the years.
Since then I have known a lot of furries. For the most part, they are rational people who have a hobby that others find strange. Yeah there are those chosen few that make the rest of the group look crazy and unfortunately those are the ones that the media gravitates towards. But then the same thing happens at a Star Trek convention. I have been to a few of those and a majority of people are not in costume. The same is true of DragonCon, but you would never know by the pictures the media shows you. So don’t judge furry fandom on the media’s sampling of the people involved in it. In fact I don’t think there is a group that you can judge by the media’s sampling of them with the possible exception of politicians.
I am grateful to my furry friends.
Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you.
Folks in the Furry fandom pretty much will span the whole gamut of people, freaky, strange, average and whatever passes for normal these days.
But for the most part at the end of the day we just have an appreciation for funny people animals.
Thanks for understanding, YOU ROCK!
The Ratsmith
Jerry Collins. Man, there’s a name I’ve not heard in years and years. Since I moved away from Atlanta.
It is sad that Furries have gotten such a bum rap in recent years (particularly on the net). That dámņ CSI episode certainly didn’t help. The furs I know are all nice, friendly and fun people and never once have I heard one discuss wanting to have sex in a rabbit costume.
But, I guess its just the latest variation on ‘All Trek fans are fat geeks who run around in Spock ears’ That I grew up with.