Furry is an evolving phenomenon. This article is an attempt to capture where our community is now, and how we got here.
Furry’s First Wave, its origin and consolidation as a unique phenomenon, lasted up until the turn of the century. Furry is currently in its Second Wave, a fast-growing adolescence.
The First Wave of furry is neatly captured in Retrospective: An Illustrated Chronology of Furry Fandom, hosted on Flayrah (http://www.flayrah.com/4117/retrospective-illustrated-chronology-furry-fandom-1966-1996).
The First Wave defined the furry community. Furry began as an offshoot of sci-fi fandom and almost immediately become notable for production of original anthropomorphic content. Furry had less of a focus toward pre-existing art than sci-fi fandom, and in this way furry started to transcend the usual boundaries of a fandom. Over time, furries started to explore the idea of “being” a furry, and a struggle developed between those who considered furry a part of their personal identity, and those who saw furry as a fandom. Furries roughly spilt into these two groups: so-called ‘lifestylers’ and ‘fans’.
Culture wars between the lifestylers and the fans defined the First Wave. The lifestylers openly incorporated sexuality into their identity. The fans were dismayed by the permissiveness shown towards extremes of behaviour, particularly where sex was involved. The furry fans put a premium on quality and family-friendliness, creating Yerf; the furry lifestylers put a premium on acceptance and open sexuality, creating VCL.
The fundamental conflict was simple. For the fans, furry was something you enjoy. For the lifestylers, furry was something you are.
The lifestylers won the culture wars and, in the Second Wave, have become the furry mainstream. There are still furry ‘fans’ however they have typically been around since the First Wave. Furry is a broad church and fans are not excluded: it’s simply that new furries tend to take up an animal-person identity with a species and a new name by default.
Furry is still maturing. Second Wave furries are continuing to explore the idea of furry identity, and also starting to consider the community’s culture and values.
(A note on terminology: I like ‘community’ as a description of our collective although ‘fandom’ is probably more common, and is used by other writers on this site. I’d argue that ‘fandom’ is deprecated because, while there are many fans within furry – anime, MLP, Redwall, etc – we are collectively not fans of anything in particular. This is where furry deviates from fandom: we created and propagate a furry universe, a virtual reality of animal-people that exists parallel to the real world.)
Early expressions of Second Wave furry included some conventions (notably ConFurence, which received a lot of criticism for being overtly sexual) and FurryMUCK. In these spaces, furries presented as if they were their animal-person avatar, a furry cultural norm that is now widely accepted. Most furry spaces are Second Wave although this is not always the case: arguably of the two Australian furry conventions, MiDFur (with occasional non-furry guests) is First Wave, whereas the newer Furry Down Under (with a focus on socializing and fursuiting) is Second Wave.
The maturation of furry is reflected in media coverage. During the First Wave, those willing to publicly discuss furry were often on the fringes of the group, and were largely selected to reinforce the freakshow element. Serious attempts to understand furry, such as a 2001 Vanity Fair article, were largely hijacked by furries who were unwilling or unable to act in a socially appropriate fashion. As I have said before here on [a][s], the most visible members of a minority are rarely the best ambassadors. The result was cringeworthy, and furries ran a mile from the image portrayed in the media.
This is no longer the case. Second Wave furries are collectively comfortable with the idea of furry as an identity. Media outlets, regardless of whether they have honourable intentions, are presented with a community that knows how to present itself. Coverage often tends to focus on the more unusual aspects of furry, or even the range of sexualities on display, but the overall vibe is usually one of disinterested acceptance. The visibility and city-wide acceptance of Anthrocon during its annual residency in Pittsburgh is a good example.
I saw Anthrocon’s Sam Conway speak a few years ago, and he went out of his way to talk about furries who held respectable positions in the real world. He mentioned furry aeronautical engineers, medical doctors, and the like. It was a speech from someone who was trying to convince himself – and his audience – that the First Wave furry stereotypes no longer apply. He was, like Ophelia*, protesting too much, as if he could will such a situation into being. They were the words of someone who had experienced the worst of the First Wave furry culture first-hand, where furry’s reputation was repeatedly tarnished in the media by extreme elements of the group.
Conway’s concerns are reasonable but out-of-date. Nowadays, the idea that furries might be innately unemployable is all but nonsensical.
However the perceptions of the furry group in the First Wave suffered from the actions of a visible minority. Furries distanced themselves from such behaviour, insisting that real furries are people who simply, “have an appreciation for anthropomorphic characters”.
Pre-emptively defensive sentiments like Conway’s persist on Wikipedia. There are hardworking wiki-guardians who maintain furry’s entry, the highest-profile source of information for someone unfamiliar with the community. It opens with:
“The furry fandom is a subculture interested in fictional anthropomorphic animal characters with human personalities and characteristics.”
The article provides an alternative definition of furry for “furry lifestylers”, quoting a line from Usenet that is about 20 years old:
“…a person with an important emotional/spiritual connection with an animal or animals, real, fictional or symbolic.”
Wikipedia’s portrayal of furry, like Conway’s speech, is firmly First Wave. We no longer need to act so defensively: our collective image is no longer shaped by a few outliers.
Fandom, as opposed to furry, is still largely perceived as a collection of social rejects. In many cases it’s reasonably applicable: if you are obsessed with Hamtaro (say), it’s likely that you are either very young or you have a very limited relationship with the wider world. The stereotype of the narrow-minded geek, that of Comic Book Guy or the stock action-figure-collecting sitcom character, is one of fandom. Furries are still pretty geeky and fandom-oriented – 61% of us describe ourselves as ‘a fan of science fiction’ (Ref Furry Survey) – but it’s no longer the driving force of our community.
(I don’t want to suggest that fandom geeks are any better or worse than furries. I’m merely trying to describe the progression from furry’s First Wave and its fandom origins, to today’s Second Wave. I appreciate that my embrace of fandom stereotypes is reductive and possibly a little insulting. I mean to say that fans will be over-represented by Comic Book Guy, not that all fans are like that.)
Furry media is largely Second Wave. Our social sites – Fur Affinity, Inkbunny, Sofurry – are Second Wave almost by definition, as furries socialize nearly exclusively as animal-people. Meta furry sites, like Flayrah and [adjective][species], who look at furry with a critical eye, are also Second Wave. There are still echoes of the First Wave culture wars however these are largely marginalized to ‘below the line’ forums, comment threads, and the juvenalia of 4Chan and Encyclopaedia Dramatica.
One of furry’s greatest features is that it is decentralized. We do not have a universally-respected figurehead or a formal code of conduct. Our culture and our community are fluid. Our most useful tools are those which allow furries to come together as a loose collective: conventions, social media, art depositories.
As we grow – and we are growing worldwide, fast – our culture is consolidating. New furries learn to abide by the unwritten rules of the pre-existing furry culture. This maturation is the furry Second Wave. Keep your whiskers erect and your ears perked for signs of the next step forward.
* corrected typo on 20-Dec-12 spotted by the furcast.fm crew. Thanks guys.
I’m… the first word that comes to mind is ‘relieved’ to see that someone else sees things this way, since I’ve sorta been thinking this was the case of a while, but never totally sure if it was just my odd perspective or not.
If we use those dates from the Illustrated Chronology as gospel, I came in right at the beginning of the second wave; the first furry thing I encountered was Furcadia, in early ’97, which, at the time, was at its best a First Wave endeavor, with its emphasis on secondary-world fantasy, and for many folks, not even that; plenty of people seemed to use it as a free chat client with incidental animal-people trappings. I found out about the rest of furry through the few people who actually wanted to engage with the setting and animal nature of the characters. Personally I headed right for the lifestyle stuff, it was a matter of months before I was on alt.lifestyle.furry on usenet and fully immersed in a furry identity. Fast forward through ten years of cons and eye-rolling at Burned Furs and frustration with media, and I looked around at some point a few years ago and realized I wasn’t really part of a fringe anymore.
The real funny thing I’ve seen more recently has been how folks sometimes still us ‘lifestyler’ as a pejorative denoting “being too extreme and making the fandom look bad” but at this point, the folks doing that still invariably have established furry names, definite reasons for their species choice, and are happy to be referred to and thought of as that species and that identity–all the stuff that’s the very definition of “lifestyler” as I first learned it!
Hi Indi, thanks for the kind comments.
I think I’ve had a pretty similar experience to you. I remember going onto a furry IRC for the first time and being asked whether I was a ‘fan’ or a ‘lifestyler’. I’m pretty confident that doesn’t happen to new furries any more.
This topic has been rolling around in my head for a while, but I only felt like I could tackle it after writing about various other aspects of the furry experience here on [adjective][species]. I was concerned that I’d be marginalizing – and possibly offending – any number of furry fans. Hopefully I’ve managed to avoid that. (Although we’d be happy to publish a counterpoint as a guest post.)
I like to playfully refer to First Wave as “that time when people used to argue about digitigrade vs. plantigrade.”
Hahaha, excellent. I might have to steal that line at some point :)
This all strikes me as considerably less stringent than your segmentation suggests. Where, for instance, do you slot in the people behind ConFurence? You imply they’re Second Wave, but they’re (arguably) the folks who coined the term “furry” in the first place — chronologically, you don’t get much more First Wave than that. The first time I was asked “what species are you” was, I’m pretty sure, 1989.
The most genuinely unique thing about furries is that we really *are* fans of something particular: the things we create for ourselves. We’re not dependent on any corporation, any media property, for direction. That’s pretty awesome. But I think at times we need to be a little more aware of how much we have in *common* with existing science fiction and comics fandom. We’ve invented our own fannish jargon to replace theirs — “fursona” instead of “fan name,” “fursuit” instead of “costume,” “lifestyler” instead of “trufan” — but that doesn’t make us any less fannish. The dichotomy you’re really getting at is one named by sci-fi fandom a very long time ago: FIAWOL vs. FIJAGH. “Fandom is a way of life” versus “fandom is just a goddamn hobby.”
Hi Watts, thanks for your thoughtful comments.
I mentioned ConFurence because they were one of the first group to explore furry as a phenomenon beyond its fandom roots. Early ConFurences were criticized (perhaps fairly) for being overtly sexual and attracting a non-fandom crowd. I make the approximate definition of Second Wave as the point at which furry as an identity became the norm. You could certainly make an argument as to the date this occurred (or even whether it has occurred at all). There is no obvious point at which furry changed.
You’re not the first person to suggest that furries are fans, that we are fans of things we create. I think that’s a perfectly reasonable way of looking at it, and I totally agree that it’s awesome. Although, obviously, I’d argue that we’ve moved past FIAWOL vs. FIJAGH and that nowadays furry is about exploring identity through an imaginary animal-person.
>The most genuinely unique thing about furries is that we really *are* fans of something particular: the things we create for ourselves.
Isn’t this stretching the definition of “fans” and “fandom” a bit too far though? People who are into making indie music or making theatre or tinkering with homemade electronics can be called “fans” of these things as well, but their communities don’t quite work like the anime fandom or the Star Wars fandom.
Just my two cents, but I think a fandom is by definition a group of people who *don’t* produce the things they like, or that produce mostly stuff derived from them (fan fiction etc.). Once a community stops being about a specific set of commercial products and starts revolving mostly around its own production there is little point in calling it a fandom and comparing it to proper fandoms, since proper fandoms are based on different mechanics and different artistic goals. There are several signs that calling the furry community a “fandom” is a forced comparison at this point. See for example how actual fandoms are much better organized to promote the products and concepts they are about.
Maybe it’s time to embrace the idea that the furry community has evolved into a different beast and fandom logic no longer really applies to it.
That’s an interesting initial question, and my first thoughts were, “I don’t think so” followed by “maybe” followed by “it’s complicated.” :) Two points, neither of which is really a direct answer. Both point toward “no,” but they don’t exactly contradict your definition of fandom, either.
(1) Furry has always been thus, which was really my initial point to JM — our version of FIJAGH vs. FIAWOL has also been with us from the beginning. Even back in the late ’80s the seminal “furry” works were primarily from people involved, to one degree or another, with the fandom. We’ve been creating our own stuff from the start. (I’m pretty sure part of what I wrote in that comment to JM echoes something I wrote for the con book for ConFurence 3 or 4.)
(2) When you or I say something “we’ve been creating our own stuff from the start,” it’s a minority of furries who are actually creating stuff with any significant reach — just like any (other?) fandom, the majority of us are along the long tail, not at the top. We blur the distinction between creator and fan in a pretty unique and wonderful way, but at the end of the day there’s still many, many more furries who are consuming furry media of various sorts than there are furries creating it.
Digging into this more, I think the distinction you’re making that I’m not (or vice-versa) revolves around commercialism. Furry is unlike other fandoms — and I think I said this in about these words — because it’s not driven by corporations and commercial creators who are entirely removed from the fandom. But I don’t think that difference makes it *not* a fandom. Instead it makes it a community-owned fandom, if you will.
Watts is on-target! “The most genuinely unique thing about furries is that we really *are* fans of something particular: the things we create for ourselves.” That reminds me of one of the most curious comments I heard from anthrocon
GoH1: Who are they fans of?
GoH2: each other!
As to jargon, EVERY fandom or niche or group has that. Just being on a ConCom (convention committee) leads to jargon, abbreviations & acronyms unique to running a sci fi/fantasy/anime convention. Being active with an APA vs a Fanzine means learning new acronyms & rules for participation, and that’s for ay fandom.
@adjspecies there was a pre-Internet wave, too, that used mass post office mailings of ‘zines and BBSs to trade art.
Interesting as this starts out you lost me with your distinction between furry fans and lifestylers. I think there is a difference but I think your explanation is way off the mark. I don’t think that sex or sexuality has anything to do with the difference between the two of them.
I’m not sure what you mean by “new furries take up an animal-person identity with a species and a new name by default.” That sounds a lot like therianism, which is something separate. I’m guessing that you mean having a fursona but again I don’t think that has anything to do with a distinction between fan and lifestyler. Both fans and lifestylers have fursonas and the idea of taking a new name and an avatar is something that permeates the entire internet and gaming culture, it’s not an exclusively furry thing.
The difference I see is that fans see furry as an interest or hobby, regardless of how involved they are. I’d count myself as a fan. A furry lifestylers are ones that see furry as a way of life, something akin to being gay. That’s where you get the “coming out as furry” discussions from and people that wear fursuits to work or in everyday life. They are the ones that can’t see a separate identity outside of the furry fandom.
Well, the very phrase “coming out” has sexual connotations in popular culture; I think much of the pushback against “lifestylers” came from the perception that they were treating furry not as some deep spiritual thing, but primarily as a sexual fetish.
(Really, sex has been at the heart of most of the ongoing debates I’ve seen in furry fandom…)
What would be really nice is if we had an inclusion of furry into Big Bang Theory. Big Bang’s helped to normalize a lot of fandom aspects, but as far as I know, there are no furs involved. Hopefully it or a similar show will do that and furry can become one more mainstream thing.
I do think that all the ear hats being sold all over the place help. They at least provide a perhaps unnecessary smokescreen.
Hi, Watts, long time no see.
Anyway, a lot of the early problems furries in general and ConFurence in particular had was EXACTLY the confusion of furries with gays by those who couldn’t stand gays. Partly because the founders of CF were and are a gay couple, partly because of general assumptions about who did and did not dress up funny. Do also recall that CF was the first of the cons, generally was held as a hotel’s first furry (or ANY sort of convention that didn’t involve business meetings or Shriners et al) giving the hotels no real preparation for the sort of gigantic party fen, furry and otherwise tend to throw. Net result – rather a lot of
“when faced with confusion, jump to conclusions…” And it’s a long swim back.
Time to exit before I start reminiscing. I have, after all, been at this awhile… You can find a certain (in)famous essay over on my website should you be interested in same.
Hi there Yealurowluro, thanks for stopping by and commenting. The likes of ConFurence pre-date my experiences within furry, but it always struck me that the demonization of the early versions of the con didn’t ring true. When people would comment that the con attracted gay non-furries (who were just looking for sex) I guessed that perhaps this was simply ‘lifestylers’, essentially today’s furry group. Which, as we know, is about 2/3 gay or bisexual.
By the way, given that I wasn’t around at the time, I hope that my characterization of the changes within furry (as First and Second Waves) ring true. I suspect that I’m walking a fine line towards being unintentionally reductive towards the fandom types.
Actually, I find myself wondering where you get your data as to what proportion of furries are gay/bisexual or presumably otherwise genderqueer. Certainly it’s a much SAFER place to be openly gay than many another venue, and I do know a fair number of folks who are, but that’s anecdotal at best. So, where do you get your percentages?
Grin – I was around when Nicolai and Fred ran into each other in front of Steve Gallacci’s artwork, so I’ve been in on this pretty much from the start. And I would be careful of characterizing “fandom” in general – one of the things that attracted me to SF fandom in the first place was the fact that there was NOT a great divide between professional and fan – in fact you get plenty of combinations (ever meet J. Michael Straczynski?) and fan-run conventions are very hands on. What I discovered in my early 20s was a venue in which I could do All Sorts of Fun Things, and proceeded to do so. Singing, furrydom, fiction writing and reading, etc. etc. Hey, I’m a kittycat, so naturally enough everything is a cat toy! :)
My data is from the Furry Survey, as curated by [adjective][species] co-founder Klisoura. The sexuality statistics are here – http://vis.adjectivespecies.com/furrysurvey/orientation.shtml – pretty steady results from each year of the survey, and from a good sample size (just over 9000 responses in 2009).
The visualization (and the others hosted here) are done by Klisoura’s co-founder, Makyo. We’ve got access to the whole dataset, so feel free to ask away if you’ve any other burning questions.
Thanks for the link! Don’t think I’ve seen that one (unless it’s the one I once encountered which asked about so many specific sexual practices that I became suspicious of it and quit, which I kind of doubt – though it certainly sounded like SOMEONE was having a lot of fun. :)) I’m reminded of the old Kinsey report. I’ll have to take the next one and see what the questions look like. And of course it’s self-selected responders, but there’s no way AROUND that under the circumstances. Indicative at the very least.
I may be the only one here, but it’s not about the sex or being a fan for me, it’s about myself being something I’m not. I’ve been this way since as far back as I can remember, but didn’t know about furry until I was almost 18 years old. I literally identify and feel like I am inside the fursona that everyone else sees, and would happily go through any extreme, including full body modification, to appear as I feel. So, personally, I don’t believe that terms such as fursona, lifestyler, and fursuit mean the same thing to me as they do to Watts, or anyone else, most likely, because to me fursona is who I am, not my fan name, my fursuit is my personal portrayal of myself, not a costume of a character, and being a lifestyler means that I’d be happier as my fursona and would do anything within my power to realize it, even though it’s an impossible dream, not just being a trufan. I’m not very active around furry sites or media, and few people know this about me, whereas the definition of a trufan is “someone who is very active in, and devoted to, their fandom”. I may be strong in my beliefs, but I don’t feel driven or devoted to the furry fandom in general, and I feel that I’m not in a fandom stage at all in those terms. But, again, like I said, I may be the only one that sees things this way.
Hi Mattholomew, thanks for the interesting comment.
I think that you sit, in terms of my taxonomy, as a second wave furry. The issue is not sex, it’s identity. (Sex is, of course, an important part of identity for many people.) Your identification with your furry self is not miles away from myself, or many furries out there. The drive toward body modification is an interesting one too, and perhaps something we at [a][s] might explore in detail at some point.
This is like the fourth wave, though.
First wave: The few unix hackers that set up groups to discuss funny/cartoon/fictional animal media in the late 70s.
Second wave: Funny animals fandom merge, first yifftards, scalies and therian
Third wave: Sparkledogs, sarcastic humor sucked in from modern cartoons and furry drama that is also demonstrated in what’s described as “furry music” which consists mostly of cheap breakcore and chiptune/game-OST that has barely any real relation to furry, and then there’s the otherkin (like the therian they merged but a more in relation to fictional species than ones considered real (Earth) animals)
Fourth wave: More talent-showing furry art appears after younger (i.e. with the sparkledog prominence) dissolves into furry, making furry render itself almost as if it were its own genre of art with its own subset of styles, audience becomes very much younger, yifftards die off a little but are still full of drama in their niches.
Fifth wave: Let’s just see.