You have it mostly right. The problem is, a lot of people go by the Wikipedia definition of fandom, which is not the same as the dictionary definition. Wikipedia is written my internet geeks who assume fandom includes some social connotations. They do not take into account that many people still do not have access to the internet, or even if they do, don't make contact with others through it. But these people may still be active fans of something, whether they have friends to share it with or not. And the dictionary definition of fandom states, "1. All the fans of a sport, an activity, or a famous person. 2. the state or attitude of being a fan."
Thus, properly, Furry Fandom is all the fans of the object of Furry Fandom, which is anthropomorphic animals.
The Furry Community is simply Furries gathered as a collective. The community is the only thing that has the potential to define itself, because it's an original idea. It's something people join by choice. So you could say, self identifying as a Furry indicates belonging to the community, and that belonging to the community implies going along with community set standards, whatever those might be.
It's kind of hard to set standards if the community has no leadership, but that won't stop web sites and conventions from setting standards.
The community is naturally inclined to disregard any consideration of Furry Fans who do not participate in the community. They aren't there. So the community doesn't have to worry about their needs. The controversy is that some think a good number of the Furry fans who aren't there are absent because the community goes out of its way to make itself unattractive to them.
The community is further controversial because it has no great emphasis on the betterment of Furry Fandom's object. Some fans see it as a detriment to the object.
These are just some of the factors the community has to take into account while defining itself. In my opinion The Furry Community fails to meet the needs of the overall fandom, as well as the appreciation of the artistic idea it supposedly exists to honor. In fact, I constantly encounter Furries who do not want the community to serve the interests of the object of the fandom or its fans.
JM, for instance, is of that school of thought which says the community ought to exist as some kind of social network, and nothing else. And people of that school can make quite a convincing argument to that effect. But it remains to be seen if the community could survive as anything at all if that reasoning were allowed to define it.
I'm of the school of thought which says the community should have some responsibility to the object and the fandom as a whole. But that's a very unpopular school. I don't expect to live to see a Furry Community that actively strives to make its object and its participants look good, or that makes an active effort to assist fan creators to find the resources they need to produce works they can display to the outside world with pride.
The most popular school of thought is that The Furry Community defines itself by how Furries are seen to act, what interests they profess, the quality of the products they produce, and so on. And because all this fluctuates over time as the membership of The Community varies, this changes from year to year.
Thus I would say that The Furry Community is best defined as just one more product of Furry entertainment, which is not only consumed by Furries, but is also found entertaining by outsiders. It is not a tangible thing, just a really big show which includes a heck of a lot of comedians and shock artists. And I suspect I'm one of the comedians, even though I have no feel for comedy at all. I try to be serious and logical, but like any other Funny Animal, my logic is total nonsense when viewed outside the context of my own cartoon.
That's what The Furry Community is. It's Toontown. And we're all the toons that the world loves because we either make them laugh or go WTF! with our toonish logic. But we're not the ultimate embodiment of Furry Fandom. We're just those relatively few Furry fans who think it worth our while to make a public spectacle of ourselves. Sensible Furry Fans stay home and watch real cartoons.
You have it mostly right. The problem is, a lot of people go by the Wikipedia definition of fandom, which is not the same as the dictionary definition. Wikipedia is written my internet geeks who assume fandom includes some social connotations. They do not take into account that many people still do not have access to the internet, or even if they do, don't make contact with others through it. But these people may still be active fans of something, whether they have friends to share it with or not. And the dictionary definition of fandom states, "1. All the fans of a sport, an activity, or a famous person. 2. the state or attitude of being a fan."
Thus, properly, Furry Fandom is all the fans of the object of Furry Fandom, which is anthropomorphic animals.
The Furry Community is simply Furries gathered as a collective. The community is the only thing that has the potential to define itself, because it's an original idea. It's something people join by choice. So you could say, self identifying as a Furry indicates belonging to the community, and that belonging to the community implies going along with community set standards, whatever those might be.
It's kind of hard to set standards if the community has no leadership, but that won't stop web sites and conventions from setting standards.
The community is naturally inclined to disregard any consideration of Furry Fans who do not participate in the community. They aren't there. So the community doesn't have to worry about their needs. The controversy is that some think a good number of the Furry fans who aren't there are absent because the community goes out of its way to make itself unattractive to them.
The community is further controversial because it has no great emphasis on the betterment of Furry Fandom's object. Some fans see it as a detriment to the object.
These are just some of the factors the community has to take into account while defining itself. In my opinion The Furry Community fails to meet the needs of the overall fandom, as well as the appreciation of the artistic idea it supposedly exists to honor. In fact, I constantly encounter Furries who do not want the community to serve the interests of the object of the fandom or its fans.
JM, for instance, is of that school of thought which says the community ought to exist as some kind of social network, and nothing else. And people of that school can make quite a convincing argument to that effect. But it remains to be seen if the community could survive as anything at all if that reasoning were allowed to define it.
I'm of the school of thought which says the community should have some responsibility to the object and the fandom as a whole. But that's a very unpopular school. I don't expect to live to see a Furry Community that actively strives to make its object and its participants look good, or that makes an active effort to assist fan creators to find the resources they need to produce works they can display to the outside world with pride.
The most popular school of thought is that The Furry Community defines itself by how Furries are seen to act, what interests they profess, the quality of the products they produce, and so on. And because all this fluctuates over time as the membership of The Community varies, this changes from year to year.
Thus I would say that The Furry Community is best defined as just one more product of Furry entertainment, which is not only consumed by Furries, but is also found entertaining by outsiders. It is not a tangible thing, just a really big show which includes a heck of a lot of comedians and shock artists. And I suspect I'm one of the comedians, even though I have no feel for comedy at all. I try to be serious and logical, but like any other Funny Animal, my logic is total nonsense when viewed outside the context of my own cartoon.
That's what The Furry Community is. It's Toontown. And we're all the toons that the world loves because we either make them laugh or go WTF! with our toonish logic. But we're not the ultimate embodiment of Furry Fandom. We're just those relatively few Furry fans who think it worth our while to make a public spectacle of ourselves. Sensible Furry Fans stay home and watch real cartoons.