"furry influence does not extend beyond the Internet"
Well, that depends on which definition of the word we're working with. If you mean Furry, as in the fandom, we influence the economy, particularly in Pittsburg. That is where fandoms tend to have the most influence in the real world - where they throw their money.
If you mean Furry as in The Object Of The Fandom, we don't reach beyond the internet to influence it. It reaches in to influence us. But then we tend to take its influence and do our own things with it, which may in turn have more influence on us. But, in general, fandoms don't have influence outside of their sub-culture. If we were influencing anything out there we'd be a very unique fandom indeed.
For the most part fandoms are used and exploited. They aren't looked on as creative forces. Of course, our fandom is a little different. We work harder at being a creative force in spite of the norms that apply to fandoms. We create our own characters and stories, rather than depending on Walt Disney or Steve Galacci to do it for us. And some of us have the thought that since we own our own characters and stories, we have a right to be getting them into the mainstream outside the internet and enjoying some of the success those who get Furry characters professionally published enjoy.
Trouble is, if you do get successful in the mainstream, you become distanced from the fandom on the internet. It's like a kind of automatic exile, because you're no longer a struggling fan, you're a successful professional. So, if a fan becomes successful in the mainstream, or goes to work for a mainstream movie company or something, we wouldn't be able to see that as the fandom having influence outside the internet. We see it as fans becoming part of that which exists outside the internet that we want to influence, but can't, because those who remain on the internet have little to no professional credibility. We remain to the outside world that fandom full of amateur wanna-bees who exist to be fleeced but not heard.
"This sounds good, and I want to believe it, but I need examples, man."
Examples of accomplishments? Well, I've got about 2 long boxes of comics that have come out of this fandom. There are at least a few writers who've either been published or have self-published. There are even some Furry artists who have gotten professional illustration jobs.
But what constitutes an accomplishment in this day and age? Do I have to reach for the success of a Richard Adams or Richard Bach to consider myself accomplished? Or, if I find myself the owner of a popular net serial that lots of people read, is that accomplishment enough? Is the mere fact that I taught myself to write against all odds and expectations an accomplishment?
I don't know. As good as some of us are, we're still a fandom of amateurs. There aren't too many of us quitting our day jobs to do this stuff, but even so, we put every spare minute we can into it, we work constantly to improve our talents and provide you with pretty pictures and a good read, in spite of obstacles that professionals can afford to pay someone to face for them. Is not every day that we keep going in spite of the odds against us an accomplishment?
I certainly hope so, because I've given my whole life to this thing. Whatever I'm doing, it had better be worth something. Even if it only ever entertains the fandom on the internet, just on the off chance that it will never go any farther than that, I'd better be able to think of that as an accomplishment.
Of course, that doesn't mean I want to limit myself to that. If someday I can sell a lot of books in the real world, I'm certainly not going to decline. But you know, it's not the 70's anymore. The market is not out there the way it used to be. The market for what I do is pretty much in here. That's why we have a Furry Fandom, so the people who like the kind of stuff I do can find it. Why is it only an accomplishment if I can manage to work yet another miracle by selling my stuff in a market that doesn't want it?
Think of somebody who's a successful Soul artist. Their record gets into the Top 10 on the Soul chart, but never crosses over to the Pop charts. Is that failure? Or is that success in one's chosen market.
My goal for feeling accomplished is to get an Ursa Major - an award from my chosen market, my chosen audience. I don't ever expect to see what I do sitting in the best seller rack at the local drug store. I don't regard that as a reasonable expectation of success for someone who deliberately chose to work in one of the smallest of niche markets.
"I'm angry for what I perceive is the lack of trying to accomplish anything at all."
I know what you mean. I've often run into people of extreme talent with lots of potential in their repertoire of characters who do not write stories or draw comics. They just create character after character and do nothing with them.
Sometimes I feel like saying, "If you're not going to do anything with that character, can I have it?" Actually, that's become a new thing in the fandom. Artists are creating characters to sell. And then the people who buy them aren't doing anything with them either.
This is evidence of a great truth one must come to realize about Furry Fandom. People like me who put their whole being into Furry creation are pretty rare in this fandom. For most Furries, no matter how talented they are, it's a hobby. It's not their day job. It's something they do for fun and relaxation. They don't really expect it to take them anywhere. And this is normal for a fandom.
I spotted this right away when I first came into the community. And I said I know just how to fix this. We need to create some kind of site that will help put directionless artists together with directionless writers so they can inspire and motivate each other to create something of significance. But, nobody was interested, and the idea was promptly forgotten.
On the other hand, there are other people like myself in this fandom striving for big ideas. But they don't have a lot of training, their skills are limited. They just need help, and they can't get it, because everybody in this fandom is busy with something of their own and just doesn't feel they have the time to offer the extensive support some need.
The community is exactly the opposite from what I expected when I came in. I thought The Furry Community was this huge art commune, and I was going to come in here, lay out my project, and people would just be falling over themselves to join the team that was going to work on it. I thought I'd get so much interest and collaboration that the thing would be finished by now.
But that's not what we've got going here. What we've got here is a community dominated by people who are so not interested in accomplishing anything serious that they're content drawing cheesecake pictures for watch points. They just don't look to the fandom for higher aspirations. They see the fandom as something that helps them get through life - not something that's necessarily taking them somewhere.
But, that's the masses of the fandom. Under that are the minority of artists and writers who have the big ideas, and are doing the best they can with however little they've got. Those relative few are the ones you need to look for if you're going to take pride in the fandom for imaginative reasons.
It's just like in regular society. Those special people with all the potential, who should be at the top being supported and patronized, will be found at the bottom being obscured by an oblivious mediocrity.
"A good example is the Bitter Lake fursuit movie."
I can't say I understand the reasoning behind that. I've only seen the trailer, which has no dialogue and makes it impossible to judge if the film is good enough to pitch to a general audience. Maybe they wanted to see if Furries would buy it before they went for the hard sell.
If you think it's good enough, keep putting the screws to them to try screening it outside the fandom. If it means enough to you to go to the trouble, find a festival for them. Your encouragement and enthusiasm might make all the difference to their confidence in taking such a chance.
"And then you talk about an art movement ... wouldn't that call for much stricter definitions?"
Furry as an art movement kind of started with Beatrix Potter. It was just a matter of one person made a fortune with what we today call Furry art, and right away hundreds of people wanted to do that too. Nobody sat down and discussed how it should be done. Nobody wrote any list of rules.
Same deal with Felix Salten. He kind of established the Furry novel, but again there were no rules or definitions discussed that implied George Orwell's very different approach to the Furry novel was not legitimate. And then down through history with Richard Bach, then Richard Adams, then Tad Williams. They all did it differently. No one ever felt they needed rules or definitions.
Same deal with Furry comics. Funny Animals were able to freely evolve from Bugs Bunny to Albedo because there were no rules or definitions set in stone. There was only limited perspectives of what was possible that fell away the moment somebody went beyond them.
And the fandom today is just the same. It is a progressive art movement, constantly building on the past, and perpetually waiting to see what new innovation or combination somebody is going to come up with. My Little Pony/Powerpuff Girls. Radical, unheard of, beyond anticipation. But that's the kind of wacky innovation that revitalizes this fandom.
What I do in my own attempt to progress The Furry Art Movement is dependent on having the freedom to mix and match elements without having to clear it with some authority if this is kosher for Furry. Throw together any unlikely combination of elements you can think of, and watch me chuck them in a blender, cover the concoction with fur, and make it work.
Bambi/Doctor Who/My Little Pony/Star Wars/The Secret Of NIMH/Pink Floyd/The Get Along Gang/The Plague Dogs/The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway? I can do that, because the Furry idiom is so fantastically free - adaptability without measure, and the ability to treat the most implausible situations with a seriousness you wouldn't dare attempt in any other field of the arts.
What we need is more imagination to take advantage of that fantastic freedom - not rules to take that power away.
"I think the world is ready for furry. Not because it's "normal," but because it isn't. It's, you know, different."
The world is ready for Furry because it's normal, as in something the mainstream has enjoyed and spent tons of money on for hundreds of years. It's like an old friend they’re always happy to see come home. But by the same token, Furry's long lasting appeal has a lot to do with the fact that it is always different.
Every time it goes away, it comes back different. It comes back at the cutting edge of where the fantasy world is at the moment. That's what we have to offer.
I can't speak for anyone else in the community, but I know that's what I'm looking forward to - that moment when the world is so desperate for something different that they turn back to Furry and say "Show us what you've got." And shame on us if we're not ready with something that will blow their hats off.
"furry influence does not extend beyond the Internet"
Well, that depends on which definition of the word we're working with. If you mean Furry, as in the fandom, we influence the economy, particularly in Pittsburg. That is where fandoms tend to have the most influence in the real world - where they throw their money.
If you mean Furry as in The Object Of The Fandom, we don't reach beyond the internet to influence it. It reaches in to influence us. But then we tend to take its influence and do our own things with it, which may in turn have more influence on us. But, in general, fandoms don't have influence outside of their sub-culture. If we were influencing anything out there we'd be a very unique fandom indeed.
For the most part fandoms are used and exploited. They aren't looked on as creative forces. Of course, our fandom is a little different. We work harder at being a creative force in spite of the norms that apply to fandoms. We create our own characters and stories, rather than depending on Walt Disney or Steve Galacci to do it for us. And some of us have the thought that since we own our own characters and stories, we have a right to be getting them into the mainstream outside the internet and enjoying some of the success those who get Furry characters professionally published enjoy.
Trouble is, if you do get successful in the mainstream, you become distanced from the fandom on the internet. It's like a kind of automatic exile, because you're no longer a struggling fan, you're a successful professional. So, if a fan becomes successful in the mainstream, or goes to work for a mainstream movie company or something, we wouldn't be able to see that as the fandom having influence outside the internet. We see it as fans becoming part of that which exists outside the internet that we want to influence, but can't, because those who remain on the internet have little to no professional credibility. We remain to the outside world that fandom full of amateur wanna-bees who exist to be fleeced but not heard.
"This sounds good, and I want to believe it, but I need examples, man."
Examples of accomplishments? Well, I've got about 2 long boxes of comics that have come out of this fandom. There are at least a few writers who've either been published or have self-published. There are even some Furry artists who have gotten professional illustration jobs.
But what constitutes an accomplishment in this day and age? Do I have to reach for the success of a Richard Adams or Richard Bach to consider myself accomplished? Or, if I find myself the owner of a popular net serial that lots of people read, is that accomplishment enough? Is the mere fact that I taught myself to write against all odds and expectations an accomplishment?
I don't know. As good as some of us are, we're still a fandom of amateurs. There aren't too many of us quitting our day jobs to do this stuff, but even so, we put every spare minute we can into it, we work constantly to improve our talents and provide you with pretty pictures and a good read, in spite of obstacles that professionals can afford to pay someone to face for them. Is not every day that we keep going in spite of the odds against us an accomplishment?
I certainly hope so, because I've given my whole life to this thing. Whatever I'm doing, it had better be worth something. Even if it only ever entertains the fandom on the internet, just on the off chance that it will never go any farther than that, I'd better be able to think of that as an accomplishment.
Of course, that doesn't mean I want to limit myself to that. If someday I can sell a lot of books in the real world, I'm certainly not going to decline. But you know, it's not the 70's anymore. The market is not out there the way it used to be. The market for what I do is pretty much in here. That's why we have a Furry Fandom, so the people who like the kind of stuff I do can find it. Why is it only an accomplishment if I can manage to work yet another miracle by selling my stuff in a market that doesn't want it?
Think of somebody who's a successful Soul artist. Their record gets into the Top 10 on the Soul chart, but never crosses over to the Pop charts. Is that failure? Or is that success in one's chosen market.
My goal for feeling accomplished is to get an Ursa Major - an award from my chosen market, my chosen audience. I don't ever expect to see what I do sitting in the best seller rack at the local drug store. I don't regard that as a reasonable expectation of success for someone who deliberately chose to work in one of the smallest of niche markets.
"I'm angry for what I perceive is the lack of trying to accomplish anything at all."
I know what you mean. I've often run into people of extreme talent with lots of potential in their repertoire of characters who do not write stories or draw comics. They just create character after character and do nothing with them.
Sometimes I feel like saying, "If you're not going to do anything with that character, can I have it?" Actually, that's become a new thing in the fandom. Artists are creating characters to sell. And then the people who buy them aren't doing anything with them either.
This is evidence of a great truth one must come to realize about Furry Fandom. People like me who put their whole being into Furry creation are pretty rare in this fandom. For most Furries, no matter how talented they are, it's a hobby. It's not their day job. It's something they do for fun and relaxation. They don't really expect it to take them anywhere. And this is normal for a fandom.
I spotted this right away when I first came into the community. And I said I know just how to fix this. We need to create some kind of site that will help put directionless artists together with directionless writers so they can inspire and motivate each other to create something of significance. But, nobody was interested, and the idea was promptly forgotten.
On the other hand, there are other people like myself in this fandom striving for big ideas. But they don't have a lot of training, their skills are limited. They just need help, and they can't get it, because everybody in this fandom is busy with something of their own and just doesn't feel they have the time to offer the extensive support some need.
The community is exactly the opposite from what I expected when I came in. I thought The Furry Community was this huge art commune, and I was going to come in here, lay out my project, and people would just be falling over themselves to join the team that was going to work on it. I thought I'd get so much interest and collaboration that the thing would be finished by now.
But that's not what we've got going here. What we've got here is a community dominated by people who are so not interested in accomplishing anything serious that they're content drawing cheesecake pictures for watch points. They just don't look to the fandom for higher aspirations. They see the fandom as something that helps them get through life - not something that's necessarily taking them somewhere.
But, that's the masses of the fandom. Under that are the minority of artists and writers who have the big ideas, and are doing the best they can with however little they've got. Those relative few are the ones you need to look for if you're going to take pride in the fandom for imaginative reasons.
It's just like in regular society. Those special people with all the potential, who should be at the top being supported and patronized, will be found at the bottom being obscured by an oblivious mediocrity.
"A good example is the Bitter Lake fursuit movie."
I can't say I understand the reasoning behind that. I've only seen the trailer, which has no dialogue and makes it impossible to judge if the film is good enough to pitch to a general audience. Maybe they wanted to see if Furries would buy it before they went for the hard sell.
If you think it's good enough, keep putting the screws to them to try screening it outside the fandom. If it means enough to you to go to the trouble, find a festival for them. Your encouragement and enthusiasm might make all the difference to their confidence in taking such a chance.
"And then you talk about an art movement ... wouldn't that call for much stricter definitions?"
Furry as an art movement kind of started with Beatrix Potter. It was just a matter of one person made a fortune with what we today call Furry art, and right away hundreds of people wanted to do that too. Nobody sat down and discussed how it should be done. Nobody wrote any list of rules.
Same deal with Felix Salten. He kind of established the Furry novel, but again there were no rules or definitions discussed that implied George Orwell's very different approach to the Furry novel was not legitimate. And then down through history with Richard Bach, then Richard Adams, then Tad Williams. They all did it differently. No one ever felt they needed rules or definitions.
Same deal with Furry comics. Funny Animals were able to freely evolve from Bugs Bunny to Albedo because there were no rules or definitions set in stone. There was only limited perspectives of what was possible that fell away the moment somebody went beyond them.
And the fandom today is just the same. It is a progressive art movement, constantly building on the past, and perpetually waiting to see what new innovation or combination somebody is going to come up with. My Little Pony/Powerpuff Girls. Radical, unheard of, beyond anticipation. But that's the kind of wacky innovation that revitalizes this fandom.
What I do in my own attempt to progress The Furry Art Movement is dependent on having the freedom to mix and match elements without having to clear it with some authority if this is kosher for Furry. Throw together any unlikely combination of elements you can think of, and watch me chuck them in a blender, cover the concoction with fur, and make it work.
Bambi/Doctor Who/My Little Pony/Star Wars/The Secret Of NIMH/Pink Floyd/The Get Along Gang/The Plague Dogs/The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway? I can do that, because the Furry idiom is so fantastically free - adaptability without measure, and the ability to treat the most implausible situations with a seriousness you wouldn't dare attempt in any other field of the arts.
What we need is more imagination to take advantage of that fantastic freedom - not rules to take that power away.
"I think the world is ready for furry. Not because it's "normal," but because it isn't. It's, you know, different."
The world is ready for Furry because it's normal, as in something the mainstream has enjoyed and spent tons of money on for hundreds of years. It's like an old friend they’re always happy to see come home. But by the same token, Furry's long lasting appeal has a lot to do with the fact that it is always different.
Every time it goes away, it comes back different. It comes back at the cutting edge of where the fantasy world is at the moment. That's what we have to offer.
I can't speak for anyone else in the community, but I know that's what I'm looking forward to - that moment when the world is so desperate for something different that they turn back to Furry and say "Show us what you've got." And shame on us if we're not ready with something that will blow their hats off.