Thanks for responding, Mike. I know I kind of over-reacted to your post and I'm sorry for that. It's just that things become a lot more personal when the subject is your core identity; the flippancy of others can be more upsetting than it would normally be. I'm also facing the fact that this is my first personal experience feeling marginalised by people. But I'll get over it. And you're right, I'm sure I'll soon find my own friends in the furry fandom.
Going back to the issue of defining furry, I think the problem with your idea of focusing on the art is that it emphasises the interests of the hobbyist furries and excludes the nature of furry as a core identity. Furry is actually very unusual as an umbrella definition because it covers two groups of people who approach furry from completely different places. And I think the only way you can do both justice to both groups is to acknowledge this fact.
So here's my slapped-together thirty second definition of Furry:
"Furry is a community made up of two general groups; people with an interest in media that features cartoon or anthropomorphic animals, and people who embrace animal attributes as a core part of their physical or spiritual identities."
Granted, this is not a "simple" definition but that seems to me to be pretty concise and accurate. Thoughts?
Thanks for responding, Mike. I know I kind of over-reacted to your post and I'm sorry for that. It's just that things become a lot more personal when the subject is your core identity; the flippancy of others can be more upsetting than it would normally be. I'm also facing the fact that this is my first personal experience feeling marginalised by people. But I'll get over it. And you're right, I'm sure I'll soon find my own friends in the furry fandom.
Going back to the issue of defining furry, I think the problem with your idea of focusing on the art is that it emphasises the interests of the hobbyist furries and excludes the nature of furry as a core identity. Furry is actually very unusual as an umbrella definition because it covers two groups of people who approach furry from completely different places. And I think the only way you can do both justice to both groups is to acknowledge this fact.
So here's my slapped-together thirty second definition of Furry:
"Furry is a community made up of two general groups; people with an interest in media that features cartoon or anthropomorphic animals, and people who embrace animal attributes as a core part of their physical or spiritual identities."
Granted, this is not a "simple" definition but that seems to me to be pretty concise and accurate. Thoughts?