Furries In The Media

http://www.medicalobserver.com.au/news/gp-artist-draws-inspiration-from-animals

“'The principle of the strip is that I always want to create a good picture of GPs’ preferred standard of excellence,' Dr Hilton says.

“'I don’t want to create Doc Rat as a greedy, money-grabbing, rude or incompetent GP. I want him to be a doctor we can all be proud of. I make cartoons because I have something to say, and it forces me to distil my message into a few words and images.'”

http://www.docrat.com.au/

Gawker:
Furry Convention of Unacceptable Adults’ Scars One Hotel Guest’s Cheerleading Children for Life




http://gawker.com/5986711/furry-convention-of-unacceptable-adults-scars-one-hotel-guests-cheerleading-children-for-life?utm_campaign=socialflow_gawker_twitter&utm_source=gawker_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

Found this on Twitter.
-J

Here is an article (dated March 2) in British Columbia's The Province newspaper. It concerns this weekend's VancouFur convention, and includes comments from furries Mic the Squirrel, Xeonae the Coyote, and Jacky the Rabbit.


Fur is flying in Burnaby this weekend.

More than 450 people turned out for VancouFur 2013, a “furry” convention aimed at educating and entertaining attendees in the furry fandom.

On Saturday, the lobby of the Executive Hotel and Conference Centre was a zoo of people in animal costumes, called “fursuits,” as well as those with simple tails and ears.

While a fiddler played a tune, the furries paraded throughout the hotel, dancing and howling. The parade included several dragons, wolves, dogs, rabbits, unicorns, an alligator and a bull.

Later, in the “headless lounge,” a room where furries can take off their animal heads without offending others who would rather stay in costume, several furries spoke to The Province about their “hobby.”

A middle-aged man who goes by the name “Mic the Squirrel” said he attended the convention “for fun.”

With a day job at a car dealership, Mic sometimes wears his suit to draw traffic onto the car lot. He also attends parties and events in costume. He bought his squirrel suit on eBay for $50, a good price as some suits can cost thousands of dollars.

Many furries make their own costumes as well, such as “Xeonae” the coyote, who said VancouFur is her first convention.

“I’d heard about furries and I wanted to try it out,” she said, fanning herself with a paw. The suits are very warm.

Beside her, “Jacky,” a local artist with a rabbit “fursona,” tried to define the furry subculture.

While he admits people identify with the group for various reasons, he believes it’s closely connected to the hippy subculture.

“I think this is the most welcoming group I’ve ever found,” he said of the furries. “Everyone is welcome, everyone is happy.”

The costumes are a way of expressing what’s inside, of emphasizing the traits that make each person unique.

“We all find different ways of expressing ourselves,” he said.

For Jacky, that means a rabbit fursuit.

“I have an affinity to rabbits in general,” he said.

His personality traits align with typical rabbit characteristics, and he was drawn to the creatures as a child.

A few years ago, a friend invited him to his first furries event.

She eventually made his first rabbit costume for him.

“It’s a lot of fun,” he said.

(There is a video at the original source, I'm just on an old computer right now and can't post it)

http://www.cbs8.com/story/21217948/furry-fandom-cosplay-groups-meet-up-at-local-parks

SAN DIEGO (CBS 8) - Have you ever heard of Fandom, Cosplay or Furries? More and more San Diegans have found new groups of people to socialize with and these meetups provide an added bonus for members - dressing up in costume.

"One day I just surfed the net, and I found out San Diego has a Furry meetup and I found my place to fit in," explained one member of the San Diego Furries.

To be a member of the Furries all you need are some paws and furry tail. However, some members have a complete furry costume, some of which cost close to $900.

The group meetups happen once a month at a local park. According to one member, the group has been going strong for a year and attracts people from all walks of life.

"I'm in the military, and I'm a helicopter electrician," said one member.

Now we head down to Seaport Village, where another meetup group is getting together – this one with less fur and more makeup.

Cosplay members dress up like their favorite anime and film characters.

"We're not a bunch of nerds hanging out in the park. We're a big group of friends that treat each other like family. And this gives us a place to belong," said one Cosplay member.

The group's leader says he wears a "remotely, detonateable collar" that tracks his position.

"I'm totally a nerd I'm into all the Japanese stuff. I'm also a computer nerd, a gamer," he continued.

He also likes the social aspect of the group, saying:

"I've gone on dates, but nothing serious at the moment."

However, some members have made love connections. One member of the San Diego Furries met her boyfriend through the group, saying she couldn't have met him any other way

Only furry that she used her Hello Kitty Doll But still interesting

By now only a few on this earth has not heard of how a 7th grader, Lauren Rojas, has sent Hello Kitty Plush 93,000 feet up in the stratosphere as part of a science project.



Having looked at the video, she did an excellent job of presetting her experiment during the flight, the pictures are spectacular and hello kitty in her rocket is just so cute. The rocket parachuted back to earth 47 miles from the launch point, in a tree; a likely place for a kitty. Hello Kitty is safe and sound back on Earth. The video went viral and new report has been seen all over the world and on National TV.

Not to detract from Ms. Rojas feat, some in the media is reporting this is Hello Kitty’s first trip into (or near space). That honor really should go to Melissa whose Hello Kitty has flown with The Expedition 9 Crew in 2004. I quote from part of that post.

“This is to certify that Hello Kitty accompanied the Expedition 9 Crew in their long duration space mission aboard the International Space Station. This item was flown for the wonderful Melissa (last name omitted for obvious reasons).

The Expedition 9 Crew was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan on April 19, 2004, at 9:19 a.m., aboard the Russian Soyuz Spacecraft TMA-4, and return to Kazakhstan on October 24, 2004, at 6:35 a.m. aboard the Soyuz Spacecraft TMA-4.”



I also thought Hello Kitty as Soyuz crew mascot aka Micro Gravity Indicator some time ago.

Still way to go Lauren for Hello Kitty first altitude Balloon mission.
Now I am thinking with many tech and science geeks  in the fandom: A furry Near Spce Inititve to send a plushie uip.
Full Report : Hello Kitty says hello to space, thanks to Antioch teen's science project

While the linked article really has no furry content, the author decided to put up a link to EZwolf's Furry Gangnam Style. Per the author "No, not the video in question, it's just entertaining."

From "Wingnut PAC Used Female Interns For Simulated Sex Video With Hillary, Panda Bear"

Source
http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/stories/kooky-con-6-highly-unusual-conventions

"Where can folks preoccupied with anthropomorphic animal characters — “furries” — gather to socialize, hone their role-playing and gaming skills, partake in acting workshops and roam a cavernous convention hall wearing a homemade fursuit without frightening small children? Why, Pittsburgh of course."

Full story at link

The ordinary home lives of dragons, gryphons, and mystical deer

http://io9.com/5981272/the-ordinary-home-lives-of-dragons-gryphons-and-mystical-deer

Over the last few years, photographe Tom Broadbent ad been getting to know and photographing people who participate in furry fandom, fursuits and all. His ongoing serie At Home with the Furries hows fursuited folks in ordinary settings doing ordinary things. On the one hand, his photos show the mundane side of folks who participate in the fandom, but on the other, they create fantastic scenes in which mythical creatures have to do their laundry and make their breakfast just like everyone else.

You can see many more photos from this series on Broadbent's website.

Tom Broadbent Documents All Those Furries That You See on Forums

http://www.thephoblographer.com/2013/02/04/tom-broadbent-documents-all-those-furries-that-you-see-on-forums/

If you’re used to creeping around 4Chan or Reddit, you’ll know the story about furries. For the rest of us, they’re a meme of a sort that started at a Sci-Fi con as a drawing and then went viral. At the heart, they’re personified animals–and they digg sexy time the way humans do. We’ll stop right there.

Tom Broadbent ecently did a project documenting people who cosplay as these characters, but wanted to show them doing daily everyday tasks. This is similar to the project documentin superheros during daily life hat was done previous.

Head over t Tom’s site or the best web viewing experience.

It's a surreal life, 'At Home with the Furries'

Tom Broadbent has spent the past few years photographing "Furries" — people who spend parts of their lives dressed as anthropomorphic animals — away from the confines o conventions and events. He's published his work a At Home with the Furries a series depicting furries in everyday scenes. The result is a whimsical, fantastic set of images, that plays the furries' spectacular costumes against the stark contrast of some truly mundane settings.

Here is an article (dated January 28) about furries, in the Out & About Newspaper, a monthly, tabloid-sized newspaper focusing on the Nashville and Knoxville (Tennessee) GLBT communities.



The article interviews locals Joseph Jackson, Gaysian of Clarksville, and James Tipton (whose definition of a furry - "someone who identifies with having an animal soul in a human body" - is more like therianism).


Article text:

What is a furry? Being a furry is embracing an animal side, living with one or more alternate animal personas but despite embracing animal nature, it’s also about being human.

Even within furry communities there are variations to what being a furry means exactly. ”Being a furry means to have a love of anthropomorphic creatures no matter what degree of animal characteristics,” said Knoxville resident Joseph Jackson.

Gaysian of Clarksville, who has asked to use his fetish community name as opposed to his real name, identifies a furry as "embracing animal-like characteristics with behavior or physical appearance."

Nashville resident James Tipton echoed both of these explanations. “A furry is someone who identifies with having an animal soul in a human body. [They] may have a certain affinity for an animal or may be someone who wished they could be an anthropomorphic version of an animal.”

Still confused? Think of the Patronus Charm from the Harry Potter series- an animal is created from a person's individual personality to protect them.

A furry's animal identity is referred to as a fursona. While the three furries varied slightly on their definitions of a fursona, they agree it is essentially the part of themselves they relate to an animal.

Tipton uses his black wolf fursona to envision himself as a natural leader. He faces his challenges head-on. "I defend those people that are close to me -like a pack)- and help others when I can," he said.

Gaysian identifies spiritually with three animals: a black panther, a white stallion and a black dragon. He calls on each of his fursonas for different situations.

His black panther defines his every day personality. “Panthers are independent, strong-willed and at times affectionate, but should still be feared and respected,” Gaysian shared. He finds himself purring, pawing at objects like a cat, rubbing against objects to leave his scent and other cat-like behaviors.

His white stallion represents his Korean heritage. It’s a symbol of mobility, wealth and power. He said he calls on this when he needs to hold his head high; this fursona empowers him with nobility. In order to be unbiased during the interview, he said he was trying to suppress his fursonas but felt his white stallion fursona present.

In regards to his black dragon, Gaysian is still working on figuring exactly what that fursona means to him. "You have to find our own path, find your own meaning. You have to find out what comes with the spirits," he said. “Finding out a fursona can be done through many means, such as meditation, tarot, spiritual reading and physic means.”

Jackson talked more about the emotional impact of his fursona, a cat-person with milky, pearl white ears. "It's not me, by definition my fursona, my alter-ego, is everything I wish I could be."

In actuality, Jackson sees his fursona as the characteristics he has muted in order to fit in. "Other people may laugh at the fact that you talk to yourself. Others give them a name and hold onto them because sometimes they may be everything you've ever wanted to be and wanted screaming at you from the back of your head."

Gaysian said most people imagine furries to be in the big suits going to conventions to get together to have sexual relationships. Jackson attributed this perception of furries to media portrayals. None of the three furries interviewed have ever had sex in a fur suit.

"Not all furries have sex in fur suits," Tipton said. "Not all racecar fans drive Lamborghinis."

Gaysian said the conventions are for people to let themselves be as they see themselves to be, and to be around people who feel the same way. "[There is] no perverted purpose behind it. It is a chance for people to be free," he said. Tipton mentioned many furries form deep friendships with each other.

Another common misconception with being a furry is it's a way for people to legally practice bestiality. "It is more about the emotional connection as opposed to the sexual and physical one," Gaysian said.

Jackson said it’s a completely ludicrous thought that furries want to have sex with animals. He explained “Just because people want to have sex with the Playboy Bunnies doesn't mean that people want to have sex with actual rabbits,” Jackson joked. "People relate with the animal, not have sex with the actual animal." Jackson thinks it will take a long time to undo the black stain the media has painted on the furry community.

Like the others, Tipton says he enjoys women wearing furry ears and tails but he has no interest in real animals.

Ultimately for Gaysian, being a furry is just a part of who he is. "I present myself as I am and people either like it or don't like it." Now that’s one animal instinct we can all relate to.

I first heard about MLP-FiM from a feature on the "Know Your Meme" website. And after I saw the first two episodes I thought: "This show could be BIG in the Furry Fandom." Three seasons later not only has the show become popular with many Furries but surprisingly the show spawned its own fandom: "Bronies".

There's been a lot of talk about Bronies in the Furry fandom, unfortunately mostly negative. Older adult Furs think of them as annoying hyperactive teenage and college fanboys. Other Furs just don't like the show so they blast them or any Furry who loves the show. And with the reputation we Furs have gotten from the mainstream media since the early 2000's most Bronies don't think of Furries highly either. They believe the same Furry "sex freaks" stereotypes that Anime, Sci-Fi fans and internet trolls believe, and also blame our fandom for giving their fandom a bad reputation.

Yet despite all the dislike and misunderstanding there's plenty of crossover between fandoms. Furries such as Dustykatt and MandoPony (formerly known as MandoAndy) became popular Bronies via their videos and songs on YouTube. And there's many artists and others who were once Furries who became tired of the drama or reputation of our fandom and "Joined the Herd".

What impressed me most about the Brony fandom is how fast it grew from its beginnings on 4chan. In a just a few months image and news sites like Equestria Daily appeared along with the announcements of the first Brony conventions. The Furry Fandom took decades to grow to the size of the Brony fandom because Furs didn't have the technological advances of broadband internet, cellphones with Twitter, Skype and instant streaming YouTube video to promote it in its early years.

My observation is the Brony Fandom has become a interesting crossbreed of Anime "otaku" fan culture with the personalization (customized ponies similar to our "Fursonas") and the "Love and Tolerate" close-knit community of the Furry Fandom. It may be the first time that Anime fans and Furries have worked together to create a new fandom.

So why did I spend $12.99 to download a (DRM-Free) Mp4 copy? Well besides being interested in their Fandom for a few years now and trying to gain a better understanding of it, I was also curious how well Bronies could create their own documentary.

"Bronies: The Extremely Unexpected Adult Fans of My Little Pony" originally begin as a kickstarter project budgeted at $60,000. But thanks to very generous donators wound up with a $322,022 total (whoa!).

The creators used the extra cash well to travel around the world (Israel, UK, Germany and the USA) to interview Bronies and to film at several Brony conventions. They also managed to rope in MLP:FiM creator Lauren Faust, voice actress Tara Strong (voice of Twilight Sparkle) and John de Lancie (voice of the villain Discord and "Q" on Star Trek:The Next Generation) as executive producers. It also features very entertaining and funny original animation created by JanAnimation, with John de Lancie serving as narrator. It's not perfect. The pacing tends to drag a little in spots, spending too much time on an individual and the cinematography ranges from professional to sloppy (shaky and out of focus shots) during the convention scenes.

The documentary features interviews with Faust, Strong and de Lance, along with short interviews with several well known Bronies. But the main focus of this documentary is on several teenaged Bronies as they are first interviewed along with friends and (bewildered) parents, and later as they travel to conventions. One Brony is very young who brings his father to BronyCon in New York. Another is dealing with Asperger syndrome. Others are artists and performers who have never attended a Brony convention before and wondering what's going to happen and how they'll be accepted.

There isn't many "squick" moments besides a quick and funny mention of "clopping" (aka "pawing" in our fandom) and a interview with the founder of BronyCon, "Purple Tinker" a transgender person/woman. From what I dug up on Google she has caused some serious drama in the Brony Fandom with her outspokenness and threats to competing Brony conventions. And she may have been a furry at one time (no surprise!).

To corral this up "Bronies: The Extremely Unexpected Adult Fans of My Little Pony" does an fine and entertaining job of portraying a very positive and exciting image of the Brony Fandom. I wish the Furry Fandom had the time, people, resources and especially the cash to create a documentary this well made and entertaining.

(Comments are welcome - but please no bashing!)

http://www.sanjose.com/news/2013/01/19/furcon_2013_mcenery_convention_center



San Jose is once again ground zero for the wild and weird as Further Confusion, or FurCon, takes place this weekend at the convention center. Corey Strom, vice chairman of this year’s event, was nice enough to take a moment out of his busy schedule and break down exactly what FurCon is and isn’t.

Josh Koehn: In a nutshell, what is FurCon?
Corey Strom: Further Confusion is a celebration of the anthropomorphic arts. Anthropomorphism being the blending of human and pretty much anything else. In our case it’s animals and fantasy creatures. While the costumes bring the most visual impact to the convention, traditional artists, sculptors, performers, singers, musicians, gamers, dancers, and general fans make up a much greater chunk of the attendee population.

What was the most creative “fursuit” you saw at last year’s event? So far this year?
The quad suits were quite awesome. I particularly liked the Woolly Mammoth running about. I have seen her this year as well.

Last year, I joked that FurCon is “the city’s annual hot mess” and a celebration of fetishism. You disagreed with my description. How come?
Further Confusion pictures itself in quite a different way. First and foremost, FurCon is a 501c3 charitable organization. Our charter revolves around charity, art, and education. We have given over $150,000 to local charities to day and bring in around $4 million dollars in residual income from out attendees extended visits. We are an all ages event where families can come and enjoy any one of the 170 panels about the art, community, and the social life around it. Most of our guests are here for those reasons. Some of our guests use this opportunity to express themselves—it is a creative art related convention after all. A few of our guests enjoy the freedom of expression beyond that of most and will likely draw more attention, which may confuse people new to the concept of a furry con.

Related Articles

Fur Real
Fanime Convention Returns to San Jose
Convention Center Expansion Bond to Be Funded by Hotel Tax
How has FurCon changed over the years?
The most amazing thing about FurCon is how its managed to thrive for 15 years. Keeping on top of trends, culture and changes in tech and business have been key in keeping the doors open. We have grown from a 691-person convention in 1999 to well over 3,000 right now. Our move to downtown San Jose has been the biggest change for us in recent years, having been at the DoubleTree up the road for so many before. We continue to grow, and as long as we deliver a fun, exciting, educational atmosphere I am sure we will be around for many years to come. We absolutely love working with the great people and businesses of San Jose.

How does San Jose rank when it comes to furry conventions?
As of last year we were the second largest furry convention in the world. Our registration has not finished yet for this year to tell.

Your “fandom” name is Chairo, and your “fursuit” was an auburn-colored Raccoon last time we met. Is that still the case?
It is. I was nick named by a friend when I showed them my first fursuit of a raccoon before I had named it. It became both my nickname and a name for a costume. Chairo is Japanese for “tea colored.”

Is there a process to changing one’s fursona? Does this happen often?
People do change their fursonas. Some never do. There is no real process if someone wants to change, they will generally just refer to themselves with their new name. They will change avatars and references to their online presences as well. People deeply rooted into the concept may have custom license plates and other things, which makes such a change a bit more complex; in some cases, more costly.

How much time and money have you invested into your fursuits?
I make my own, so it’s difficult to quantify. I can spend a few hundred dollars on materials, which could produce a costume which can net $2,000-3,000 if it were sold. I have had a number of commissions, but I am far from making costumes as a self-supporting business.

What’s the most extravagant fursuit you’ve seen?
Depends on the definition. Some incorporate mad sewing skills with patterns to dazzle and behold. Some focus on electronics, lights, moving ears and muzzles that snarl. Even others focus on hyper-realism. I am partial to both realism and light effects. With lights though, I prefer to see them used in conjunction with a more tony styled costume. Anyone who comes can expect to see well over a thousand costumes over the course of the weekend. Where I am sure any fancier of such will be truly amazed by the selection and quality.

What is the best part about FurCon that no one seems to talk about?
The amount of community and friendship that is fostered here carrying on long after the event is over.

What exactly goes on at the notorious Klingon party?
Joyful consumption of grog and ales with song and traditions from homeland Klingon. Be sure to bring stories of battle and wounds to show your worth! In 1998 we began advertising our convention in the form of room parties at other Science Fiction conventions, one of which was BayCon, where we shared party space with the Klingons. Once they got a fursuiter on a roasting spit—after a lively chase, of course. They couldn’t couldn’t get enough and have been with us ever since.

http://hoodedutilitarian.com/2013/01/yiff-in-hell-hipster-the-author-gets-over-furrself/

From the comments:

"Ten years ago, snippy people on the internet told furries to stop taking it so seriously, that it was just a dumb fetish and not a subculture.

Today, snippy people o the internet are telling furries to stop taking it so seriously, it’s just a dumb subculture.

Gentlemen, I give you: progress!"

Article i found on a site.

http://kotaku.com/5978236/my-weekend-at-a-furry-convention

The Unbelievable Wretchedness of Mainstream TV’s “Nerd Episodes”io9 reports on the poor image nerds get from Hollywood, including the CSI "Fur and Loathing" episode.

An article dated January 2, 2013, in the White Bear Press (a newspaper covering the region of White Bear Lake in Minnesota):
http://www.presspubs.com/white_bear/news/article_1c212fb4-5393-11e2-b9a0-0019bb2963f4.html

The article discusses Snap E. Tiger and his fursuit-building business.

Here is an article in the online Mail & Guardian, a weekly newspaper published in Johannesburg, South Africa: http://mg.co.za/article/2012-12-21-00-omg-sobs-your-furry-is-giving-me-feels Written by Shaun De Waal, dated December 21, 2012.

Welcome to the world of furry: a bizarre, sometimes pornographic, rambunctious new form of participatory pop culture.

The scene is a gay sex club of some kind. A bull and a rhino are sitting at the bar.

The bull is drawing the rhino's attention to a nearby horse and his generous genital endowment (literally "horse-hung"), but the horse is lost in his own personal bliss.

Elsewhere, in some strange beach scenario, two muscled male creatures pose for a photo, almost bursting from their tight little swimming trunks. They look a bit equine, as far as their heads go (their bodies are largely human), but also rather crocodilian. Onlookers, chiefly feline, seem frozen in amazement.

A second image of the same beach scenario shows that the bursting-forth has now happened. Semen fountains in various directions. The blue-cat onlooker is still frozen in the same amazement in the background.

These are home-made pornographic cartoon images, and they are widely spread across the internet – a bizarre, rambunctious new form of participatory pop culture. FurAffinity.net is a website wholly dedicated to such images, but they also festoon any site such as Tumblr, Pixiv or DeviantArt that collects images, "tumbles" them around and lets you curate them on your own page. Blog upon blog is devoted to "furry", the bulk of it pornographic, but not all: many are simply portraits in cartoon form of various furred creatures.

These images are obviously created with dedication and love; many also display the application of significant skill. The same goes for the myriad fan images drawing on games such as World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy (elves, trolls), or for that matter any pop media (movies, TV), but "furry" is a special category. Furries are part-human and part-animal, making them anthropomorphs ("anthros") or, perhaps more properly, therianthropes. Usually furry means they have fur (and canines do seem dominant, overall), but the appearance of the equines in the gay bar shows that the boundaries of furry aren't exactly firmly fixed.

Indeed, "scalies" form a sub-genre as far as the art goes, but it seems relatively small, at least when it comes to shark-men and the like. Dragons, which may count as scalies, are very popular. There is even a home-industry store called Bad Dragon, which advertises on furry sites; it makes dragon dildos. They may not all be suitable for their presumed purpose, but a great deal of imagination and attention to detail have gone into the making of these extraordinary objects.

What is going on here? "Furry," says Skidoo, a pop-culture info site, "means plenty of different things – but, above all else, it indicates an affinity for cartoon creatures and other anthropomorphic animals. That includes lots of things, from being a fan of specific shows like My Little Pony ... to drawing your own characters in a webcomic."

Special interest panels
It also means, or can mean, going to furry conventions – often dressed in a fursuit. A furry community has developed, like those that exist around ComicCon, the enormous gathering of comics fans in San Diego. Devoted site WikiFur notes more than 50 such conventions around the world, among them FurCon in California (3 000 registered attendees in 2012 and $100 000 raised for charity), Eurofurence, which has been held in various European countries over the last decade, and Camp Feral! – held in the wilderness of Ontario, Canada. AnthroCon in Pennsylvania is the oldest and biggest; it includes all forms of anthro and is said to have grown out of a Halloween costume party.

Such conventions, WikiFur informs us, are ways for furries to meet: they have artists' "dens" where original art can be bought, as well as arts and crafts workshops. There are "special events, such as a fursuit parade, dances/disco[s], masquerades, special interest panels, live animal demonstrations or a charity auction".

Fursuits can cost a fortune and require considerable ingenuity; some sell for more fortunes at furcons. Nowadays, there are commercial alternatives: you can buy something from a costume shop and adapt it (Yogi Bear seems a good starting point), and there are bespoke fursuit-makers who charge in the region of $1 000 for a specially designed suit. But the practice still has something charmingly home-made about it. As WikiFur says solemnly, it "dates to the pre-convention era (1984-1989), when the first furry parties were being organized at both sci-fi conventions and home furmeets".

The furry iconography echoes and draws on the role-playing games that now saturate the youth market in every country where they can afford it. The games themselves are an extension of anime, manga comics, movies and perhaps, further back, Japanese folklore. (Not that the West hasn't had its fauns and centaurs, or Zeus changing into a bull so he can ravish Europa.) Many of these use "anthros"; there are books more than a decade old on how to draw them.

It's not surprising that if you've grown up playing computer and video games in which you are required to identify with the central character (as in the movies, but it a more hands-on way) you will develop an interest in taking your character to new places. A popular extension of such computer games is live role-playing, where the player gets to dress up as the character and enact various scenarios with others.

The new digital media produces an endless stream of new images – "new" in that they are a fresh bricolage of elements already in the culture, visual and other bits that can be endlessly recombined. They can also be reused in a huge variety of combinations. They can be spread around the world electronically in seconds.

Furry porn is a specialised example of such iconographic reproduction. The new media has also facilitated the wide, er, dissemination of porn, making it something like a visual lingua franca. It seems inevitable that the character or visual icon assumed by a player, if artistically manipulated in different ways, will be likely to end up in a sexual scenario.

Common appropriations
Furries, though, are self-invented creatures. They go further than simply borrowing Iron Man and Captain America from The Avengers and giving them a detailed sex life, or subjecting Chris Redfield, hero of the Resident Evil game, to tentacle rape – both pretty common appropriations and refigurings in their respective fandoms. Being a furry, or part of any fandom for that matter, is what Goethe called an "elective affinity".

A survey on personal site Klisoura.com gives some insight into this affinity. One Alex Osaki signs the results, and 2012's is the sixth such online survey. Obviously the respondents are self-selecting, as the sociologists say, but the results are still an interesting look into how the community describes itself.

Out of nearly 4 000 respondents, about 2 500 consider themselves fully human and 5.2% choose not to consider themselves human at all; 85% are between 15 and 30 years old.

At least three quarters are male. A third identify as hetero, nearly 11% as gay. Half describe themselves as artists and 38% as writers. Just under 55% are fans of role-playing games; most are fans of science fiction (movies and TV, presumably) and anime. For more than 90% this furry fandom is an online thing, but a quarter attend furry conventions more than once a year.

To the question "How furry do you consider yourself?" only about 20% say yes, very furry.

This probably doesn't tell us anything surprising: mostly male, creative, they like sci-fi stuff and gaming. Still, it's odd that only just over half, though it's a majority, consider themselves fully human. (Then again, that's how many it takes to elect a new ANC president; the numbers correspond pretty exactly.) If only a fifth of Osaki's respondents consider themselves very furry, does that mean only they identify with furriness in some deeply authentic, possibly sexual, way? And the rest? Are they just role-playing?

The "furry fandom" celebrates oddity and diversity, though that also means some definitional slippage. "Furry" can be an adjective or a noun; you can be part of the furry fandom or you can be a furry yourself or both. "Yiff" broadly means sex, as a verb ("to yiff") or noun ("I'm dying for a yiff"), or can refer to furry porn. Some may define furry as widely as Skidoo does; others will insist that to be a real furry you must have a "fursona". Tumblr blogger Gayfurrypride avers: "It is very rare to find a furry without a fursona. For example, I'm a silverback wolf with light-blue markings. He is called Cosmic."

A fursona, as the punning name implies, is you – the furry person – or some representation of yourself in theriomorphic form. Johannesburg sexologist JacoPhillip Crous opines that "fursonas can be understood as totem representations ... an animal that's believed by the person to have spiritual or some other, possibly sexual, subjective significance, so the person adopts it as a personal emblem to which [he or she] feels drawn psychologically."

Interpreting this in a way akin to Jungian archetypes, Crous says the fursona is a form of "empowerment" and "self-transcendence" for the individual – and, for the sexually invested, the fursona is the "idealised totemic form that drives the erotic charge for the yiff enthusiast".

Great compliment
People draw their own fursonas or commission others to do it (a full-body full-colour image, with background, will cost you $25 to $35), and the images circulate. Many artists simply make up creatures that appeal to them and put them through a Kama Sutra of sexual poses. To judge by the responses, plenty of people on the internet get off on these images – or they just find them emotionally compelling. To say an image is giving you "feels" (as in feelings) is a great compliment.

For some, the fursuit is a sexual supplement: it offers a sense of "enwombment", says Crous, a "tactile humidity" that provides the "near-perfect juxtaposition of vulnerability and safety" needed to play out a sexual fantasy. Yet some who identify strongly as furries object to the notion that it's all about sex: Gayfurrypride, for one, says yes, he likes a good yiff as much as the next furry, but basically he's just "a cute creature who like[s] to make people smile".

Either way, individuals evince a strong commitment to the community. Another Tumblrite, 2spookygllts, declares: "i'm a furry because i enjoy it, i like being considered 'a furry', i've 'been one' 'officially' for almost nine years. it's not part of my main identity but i consider it part of my secondary identity, it's a label i put on myself. i happen to like that label."

There is a powerful sense from within the fandom that they are "misunderstood" and "misrepresented" by outsiders. Sometimes "the media" is excoriated for perpetuating myths about furries. But no comprehensive account of the fandom is to be found in the mainstream media, and when individuals do "come out" as furries in forums other than the internet or conventions, it is on TV shows such as My Strange Addiction. There, of course, it is voyeuristically pathologised in a Jerry Springer sort of way, alongside other compulsions such as ritual hand-washing or obsessively eating toilet paper.

Apart from the fact that teenagers, who surely constitute most fandoms like the furry one, have always claimed to be "misunderstood", it seems to me that this sense of external persecution is a classic form of group ideology that helps hold the group together – like the early Christians or a revolutionary communist cell. Not that there may not be genuine harassment or disdain expressed towards those who identify with the group, but ideologically speaking even a small amount of persecution goes a long way.

This reaction is related, too, to the discourse around sexuality that has, since the 1960s, sought to turn a source of shame into one of pride. Your sexuality is now very much part of your identity, and you can legitimately object to being oppressed or denigrated on that basis. Furries and similar online fandoms caution users not to "kinkshame". We must embrace our kinks, build on them – or, as Slavoj Žižek would say, "Enjoy your symptom."

Alarmist predictions
But what is being a furry or a furry-lover a symptom of?

It is emphatically not a symptom of being sexually attracted to animals. One internet user denounces furry porn as no more than "bestiality", but he or she is deluged with replies saying it's nothing of the sort – it's fantasy, it's art, it's imagination, it's a game, it's harmless fun. The question remains, though: How is this fantasy art being used by furries? What does it do for them? Does it go beyond the quick thrill of seeing yet another picture of a tiger being enthusiastically rogered by a wolf?

In her book ID: The Quest for Meaning in the 21st Century, the neuroscientist Susan Greenfield, alongside some alarmist predictions, talks about how internet use and the new media are changing our sense(s) of identity, offering at the same time both anonymity and a kind of personal stardom in the self-fashioning of, say, Facebook. We are pulled between being Anybody and being Somebody, and Greenfield worries that constant immersion in these new media forms will erode our self/other and self/world boundaries and we may all end up being Nobody.

Yet it's clear to see, as one cruises the internet, how different people are able to use the various media to project different selves, to switch between being Anybody and Somebody. It's also possible to make a new Somebody of yourself, as in the role-playing games mentioned, without letting go of the old self; this is what gender theorist Judith Butler calls "performativity", and she relates it to all our social roles, including gender.

So, even if we're "performing" our various identities at the interface with others (whether virtual or physical), they are representations of deeply held ideas about ourselves and our innermost desires. We project those performances of self into the world, and they are further fashioned as social identities by the groups we choose to be part of.

Furries are using the creation of alternative selves in a dialectic of belonging and individuality. The furry fandom is an instance of group-formation – and then the process of individuation within that group. We want community, but we also want to be unique in some way and to be acknowledged by our elective community for that specialness.

Humanity has probably always been that way, but nowadays one can do all this via the internet, by means of artistic production, and/or by dressing up. As a furry might say: Woof.

I was usual furry Video search on YouTube when a came across this video. The music is not my cup of tea. most costumes were the store bought variety but I think I seen one or two actual fursuits.

An Austrian Report about fursuiters in Austria. Idk if subtitles work on embedded youtube videos but there are subtitles to it :)