Furry fandom has had more than its fair share of criticism, both from within and without.
Unfortunately, to date most of the "criticism" from within has consisted of irrational, angry people who make themselves look worse than the things they're criticizing. From the tried-and-failed Take Back Our Fandom movement to Shawn Keller to the Burned Furs to Vivisector, we've seen it all before—extremists who just think all they need to be a "critic" is a loud voice and a bad attitude. If you've been around the fandom long enough, you'll notice a pattern that every few years a new group crops up and makes the same mistakes the prior ones did, and then wonders why nobody takes them seriously.
The "criticism" from outside could more accurately described as "generalizations", or perhaps just plain ignorance. Mostly it comes from people who believe what they see on fictional television shows or the tabloid media. Focusing on the worst elements one can find and then extrapolating that into blanket statements of what's wrong with the entire fandom instead of recognizing it as a tiny minority; the exception to the rule.
There is a need for criticism in Furry fandom, but the corollary to that is the critics need to be level-headed and rational if they want people to listen to them.
Funny animals – of which I argue the furry genre is merely a particularly garish subset – are often thought of as nothing more than a handy shortcut.
Sorry, but you've got that backwards. Furry is a meta-genre. Furries are simply anthropomorphic animals, and funny animals are a specific subset of them.
Unfortunately, to date most of the "criticism" from within has consisted of irrational, angry people who make themselves look worse than the things they're criticizing. From the tried-and-failed Take Back Our Fandom movement to Shawn Keller to the Burned Furs to Vivisector, we've seen it all before—extremists who just think all they need to be a "critic" is a loud voice and a bad attitude. If you've been around the fandom long enough, you'll notice a pattern that every few years a new group crops up and makes the same mistakes the prior ones did, and then wonders why nobody takes them seriously.
The "criticism" from outside could more accurately described as "generalizations", or perhaps just plain ignorance. Mostly it comes from people who believe what they see on fictional television shows or the tabloid media. Focusing on the worst elements one can find and then extrapolating that into blanket statements of what's wrong with the entire fandom instead of recognizing it as a tiny minority; the exception to the rule.
There is a need for criticism in Furry fandom, but the corollary to that is the critics need to be level-headed and rational if they want people to listen to them.
Sorry, but you've got that backwards. Furry is a meta-genre. Furries are simply anthropomorphic animals, and funny animals are a specific subset of them.
Xydexx Unicorn
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