One thing I've noticed is that, in a 5 year period or less, the fandom tends to have such a turnover in active participants that the community has a perpetually short memory, particularly where articles like this one are concerned. The result is, the majority of the furs reading you at any given time have no cognizance of roots, and they will not remember anything you’ve previously written.
Another thing is, we're not an organization. Organizations have structure and positions of authority. They work towards specific, unified goals.
Also, I don't see a fandom as a tree. I prefer the community analogy. We're just this neighborhood where a lot of different kinds of people live, mainly because there's a Furry factory near the town that we depend on for our livelihood.
The thing that would threaten this community is not corruption. We all have our various religions and philosophies to see to our state of conscientiousness. But if the factory were to close, there'd no longer be a reason for the town to hold together.
The factory represents The Furry Arts. As long as they exist, The Furry Community will go through its various ups and downs, but will always survive. If ever anything happened that The Furry Arts were no longer there to need a fandom . . . Instant ghost town on the internet.
The Furry Arts are not sustained by the strength of roots. They are sustained by a flow of creativity, a freedom of expression, a willingness to dig for treasures that are more difficult to handle than the artistic properties other fandom communities depend on. If anything ever cuts off the supply of these materials from the factory, our town will be in trouble.
Sounds reasonably secure, but there is always someone out there trying to dam up the flow of creativity, outlaw freedom of expression, and convince us we shouldn’t take our work seriously. So there are threats to the community we should be addressing but aren’t. We have a generally distorted view of what we are, mainly because of the high volume of hyperbole we produce, when we should be creating something Furry.
If you don’t want the factory to close, we have to remember that our factory is supposed to produce Furry entertainment. Its business has nothing to do with protecting children or animals, new health care laws, religion, GBLT issues or anything of that nature. Our factory must always produce Furry goods of such quality as to keep the running of the factory profitable, or we’ll all be looking for a new town to migrate to.
One thing I've noticed is that, in a 5 year period or less, the fandom tends to have such a turnover in active participants that the community has a perpetually short memory, particularly where articles like this one are concerned. The result is, the majority of the furs reading you at any given time have no cognizance of roots, and they will not remember anything you’ve previously written.
Another thing is, we're not an organization. Organizations have structure and positions of authority. They work towards specific, unified goals.
Also, I don't see a fandom as a tree. I prefer the community analogy. We're just this neighborhood where a lot of different kinds of people live, mainly because there's a Furry factory near the town that we depend on for our livelihood.
The thing that would threaten this community is not corruption. We all have our various religions and philosophies to see to our state of conscientiousness. But if the factory were to close, there'd no longer be a reason for the town to hold together.
The factory represents The Furry Arts. As long as they exist, The Furry Community will go through its various ups and downs, but will always survive. If ever anything happened that The Furry Arts were no longer there to need a fandom . . . Instant ghost town on the internet.
The Furry Arts are not sustained by the strength of roots. They are sustained by a flow of creativity, a freedom of expression, a willingness to dig for treasures that are more difficult to handle than the artistic properties other fandom communities depend on. If anything ever cuts off the supply of these materials from the factory, our town will be in trouble.
Sounds reasonably secure, but there is always someone out there trying to dam up the flow of creativity, outlaw freedom of expression, and convince us we shouldn’t take our work seriously. So there are threats to the community we should be addressing but aren’t. We have a generally distorted view of what we are, mainly because of the high volume of hyperbole we produce, when we should be creating something Furry.
If you don’t want the factory to close, we have to remember that our factory is supposed to produce Furry entertainment. Its business has nothing to do with protecting children or animals, new health care laws, religion, GBLT issues or anything of that nature. Our factory must always produce Furry goods of such quality as to keep the running of the factory profitable, or we’ll all be looking for a new town to migrate to.