I want to respond to some stuff in the first third of Patch's post; as a fandom historian I like there to be a certain amount of detail!
Patch mentions subcultures. Wikipedia describes fandom as "a subculture composed of fans characterized by a feeling of empathy and camaraderie with others who share a common interest". Subcultures, in turn, are groups that develop a different set of norms and values from mainstream culture - but selectively. They gladly keep some, but not others. Any fandom (or subculture), by definition, is a split-off group. Batman fandom, Lion King fandom, a group of friends all sharing cat memes with one another - all of those can qualify.
So, it's the 1980s. A group of early furry fans start networking with each other. Is it a case of "People think I'm weird for liking talking animal characters, but I like them, so I'm going to hang out with like-minded people", or is it "Mainstream society is stupid and narrow! I'm going to deliberately thwart its attempts to make me conform and be in a group to share and promote my ideology!"
The latter stance starts to swerve into counter-culture. Subcultures can become counter-cultures - the definition of when it happens isn't precise - but counter-cultures deliberately reject mainstream norms and values, and that's their base-line purpose, their primary reason for being; everything else is just style. Some interpretations of furry fandom are like that - that the animal imagery is just a vehicle for (insert your counter-cultural motivation here).
Patch's interpretation of furry fandom's history is "a fandom that consciously split apart as an alternative from mainstream culture", specifically as "an exception from other fandoms that organize around top-down commercial property. Like [furry] is a real community, with more going on than merely sharing a same taste in consuming. It's about the fan-to-fan creating."
This is a bit weird, as it interprets that any fandom that's organized around a commercial property is more mainstream than not, and isn't a real community. I agree that furry fandom doesn't have a top-down structure, or a single commercial property as its base, but I see fan-to-fan creating in all fandoms, and it's especially heavy if the commercial property has ended or has gone into hiatus.
Maker subculture is a strong community which isn't attached to a franchise. Not only is it about creating, but it's about creating the tools you can use to create whatever you like, and embracing that philosophy. Zombie fandom has multiple properties fans can latch onto, or they can just latch onto the concept and ignore the commercial aspect entirely. Some of its members love to get together, make themselves up, and go on group (shuffling) walks to celebrate their interest. These communities are real, and I don't think we have anything to gain by saying furry is more real.
I think, historically, it's more accurate to say that furry did, indeed, consciously split itself off. But not when it formed. The split happened later, around 1989. It wasn't meant as an alternative to mainstream culture, but as a split from science-fiction fandom. Not to get away from commercial properties, but because furry wanted to bring itself into focus and have more opportunities to grow.
That was how ConFurence started. It gave a feeling of unity for furry fans who had been gradually coalescing out of animation, anime, comics, fantasy, science-fiction and tabletop gaming fandoms. There'd been con room parties and get-togethers and BBS forums and zines, but when we tried to expand our presence in science-fiction fandom, we started experiencing push-back, so we split off.
Patch's next point - that in the 1990s, two streams in the fandom (similar to those in SF) rose into conflict... is vaguely accurate, but it's highly simplified. (Deep breath...)
Okay, let's start with SF fandom, which came up with FIAWOL vs. FIJAGH: "Fandom is a way of life", versus "Fandom is just a goddamn hobby". This is a false dichotomy to describe two extremes of how fans feel about their fandom. How much does fandom effect your life? How much does it mean to you? Is it something external or internal to you? To what extent is it about the shared interest, or is it about the people with whom you share that interest? There's no right or wrong answer here, but it's important to know that there's a whole spectrum of opinions, including people who embody many different attitudes at once.
First furry stream: "Artists who orbited pros on the way up, hoping to trade off fandom ties to gain professional connections, bigger names and work. They had heirarchy and weren't open to everyone." Granted, when I was getting into the fandom in southern Ontario, locally there weren't a lot of furry artists around. But I didn't see much social climbing in furry fandom. The fandom was tiny. If you had artistic talent, and could draw more than just animal characters, your job prospects were better outside the fandom. We had some talented artists, but few seemed to have professional connections that could be sponged from. Maybe the situation was different in California? I haven't gotten an elitest vibe from any of the greymuzzles I've spoken to... maybe there was jealousy over becoming a member of the Huzzah APA?
Hierarchy - In the early 1990s of the fandom I didn't see much hierarchy among artists, but there was a kind of informal hierarchy in the broader fandom. Artists were its lifeblood, and were on a kind of pedestal. At the bottom were fans who were just consumers who didn't create anything. The middle was a mish-mash of everyone else. Occasionally at a con I'd hear about a closed-room party for members of an APA, or a group of artists getting together to sketch with beers, a movie and their own company. It wasn't out of a sense of hierarchy. You hang with people you've got more in common with, and to minimize the number of people asking for art commissions. To this day in furry fandom, 30 years later, artists still tend to hang out with other artists. That's a natural social pattern.
The opposing stream: "Fans-for-fans-sake, 'lifestylers', people who ran room parties open to all" - This seems to be saying... that artists, in comparison, were closed-minded and not interested in the their fellow fans?... Ok, what this is really referring to is the Burned Fur vs. Furry lifestyler conflict. This was not two streams from back in the 1980s, these were both developments in the late 1990s. And they weren't the only two streams in the fandom, both were smaller sub-sets, plus both those group names were umbrella concepts, covering a whole range of interests and opinions.
Explaining it all would... take a while. Suffice it to say that the Burned furs were (at first) a small group of artists who were worried that sexual content in the fandom was creating a reputation problem, were concerned about behavior, and they didn't want their future employment prospects to be tarnished. So they went into full asshole mode, hoping to make people leave. But there were more furry artists who were open-minded, responsible, enjoyed the hobby, and didn't really give a fuck about the Burned Furs.
Furry lifestylers (at the time) were people whose philosophy of furry was that it could mean whatever it meant to you - personally, spiritually, sexually, artistically, etc. - with an emphasis on the internal manifestations. It was created in direct opposition to a message board that was focused on art, comics, animation - the external manifestations.
But a lot of people didn't really want to align themselves to either of these streams, because they either weren't part of them to begin with, or they were interested in aspects of both, so the distinctions didn't really apply. Plus the Burned Furs had kicked off a three-year flame war and people simply got tired of arguing about what furry meant.
Patch then says "Guess who won that conflict -- and ever since, furries have been protective of what they built." Also a simplication. Protecting our own wasn't a lesson we learned to fend off the Burned Furs, they were annoying, but not a threat. We learned it to fend off the trolls and the media, who kept trying to make us look bad, and attacked us for over a decade. This trend had started before the Burned Furs came along, and continued long after they had left. (Some blamed the BFs for the extra attention, but the BF conflict was rarely mentioned by outsiders.) After 2000, Furry fandom became very defensive and started to stand up for itself more. The media policies of several furry cons originate from this period. The fact that furry fans were more willing to stand up for their hobby, I think had more to do with the LGBT community within the fandom, who were feeling the momentum of the gay pride movement from the 1990s and keeping that positive feeling going.
Anyway, I found the rest of Patch's commercial discussions really interesting, I just wanted to put the historical stuff in more context. :-) (Also, disclosure, I bought two Artworktee shirts in 2018.)
I want to respond to some stuff in the first third of Patch's post; as a fandom historian I like there to be a certain amount of detail!
Patch mentions subcultures. Wikipedia describes fandom as "a subculture composed of fans characterized by a feeling of empathy and camaraderie with others who share a common interest". Subcultures, in turn, are groups that develop a different set of norms and values from mainstream culture - but selectively. They gladly keep some, but not others. Any fandom (or subculture), by definition, is a split-off group. Batman fandom, Lion King fandom, a group of friends all sharing cat memes with one another - all of those can qualify.
So, it's the 1980s. A group of early furry fans start networking with each other. Is it a case of "People think I'm weird for liking talking animal characters, but I like them, so I'm going to hang out with like-minded people", or is it "Mainstream society is stupid and narrow! I'm going to deliberately thwart its attempts to make me conform and be in a group to share and promote my ideology!"
The latter stance starts to swerve into counter-culture. Subcultures can become counter-cultures - the definition of when it happens isn't precise - but counter-cultures deliberately reject mainstream norms and values, and that's their base-line purpose, their primary reason for being; everything else is just style. Some interpretations of furry fandom are like that - that the animal imagery is just a vehicle for (insert your counter-cultural motivation here).
Patch's interpretation of furry fandom's history is "a fandom that consciously split apart as an alternative from mainstream culture", specifically as "an exception from other fandoms that organize around top-down commercial property. Like [furry] is a real community, with more going on than merely sharing a same taste in consuming. It's about the fan-to-fan creating."
This is a bit weird, as it interprets that any fandom that's organized around a commercial property is more mainstream than not, and isn't a real community. I agree that furry fandom doesn't have a top-down structure, or a single commercial property as its base, but I see fan-to-fan creating in all fandoms, and it's especially heavy if the commercial property has ended or has gone into hiatus.
Maker subculture is a strong community which isn't attached to a franchise. Not only is it about creating, but it's about creating the tools you can use to create whatever you like, and embracing that philosophy. Zombie fandom has multiple properties fans can latch onto, or they can just latch onto the concept and ignore the commercial aspect entirely. Some of its members love to get together, make themselves up, and go on group (shuffling) walks to celebrate their interest. These communities are real, and I don't think we have anything to gain by saying furry is more real.
I think, historically, it's more accurate to say that furry did, indeed, consciously split itself off. But not when it formed. The split happened later, around 1989. It wasn't meant as an alternative to mainstream culture, but as a split from science-fiction fandom. Not to get away from commercial properties, but because furry wanted to bring itself into focus and have more opportunities to grow.
That was how ConFurence started. It gave a feeling of unity for furry fans who had been gradually coalescing out of animation, anime, comics, fantasy, science-fiction and tabletop gaming fandoms. There'd been con room parties and get-togethers and BBS forums and zines, but when we tried to expand our presence in science-fiction fandom, we started experiencing push-back, so we split off.
Patch's next point - that in the 1990s, two streams in the fandom (similar to those in SF) rose into conflict... is vaguely accurate, but it's highly simplified. (Deep breath...)
Okay, let's start with SF fandom, which came up with FIAWOL vs. FIJAGH: "Fandom is a way of life", versus "Fandom is just a goddamn hobby". This is a false dichotomy to describe two extremes of how fans feel about their fandom. How much does fandom effect your life? How much does it mean to you? Is it something external or internal to you? To what extent is it about the shared interest, or is it about the people with whom you share that interest? There's no right or wrong answer here, but it's important to know that there's a whole spectrum of opinions, including people who embody many different attitudes at once.
First furry stream: "Artists who orbited pros on the way up, hoping to trade off fandom ties to gain professional connections, bigger names and work. They had heirarchy and weren't open to everyone." Granted, when I was getting into the fandom in southern Ontario, locally there weren't a lot of furry artists around. But I didn't see much social climbing in furry fandom. The fandom was tiny. If you had artistic talent, and could draw more than just animal characters, your job prospects were better outside the fandom. We had some talented artists, but few seemed to have professional connections that could be sponged from. Maybe the situation was different in California? I haven't gotten an elitest vibe from any of the greymuzzles I've spoken to... maybe there was jealousy over becoming a member of the Huzzah APA?
Hierarchy - In the early 1990s of the fandom I didn't see much hierarchy among artists, but there was a kind of informal hierarchy in the broader fandom. Artists were its lifeblood, and were on a kind of pedestal. At the bottom were fans who were just consumers who didn't create anything. The middle was a mish-mash of everyone else. Occasionally at a con I'd hear about a closed-room party for members of an APA, or a group of artists getting together to sketch with beers, a movie and their own company. It wasn't out of a sense of hierarchy. You hang with people you've got more in common with, and to minimize the number of people asking for art commissions. To this day in furry fandom, 30 years later, artists still tend to hang out with other artists. That's a natural social pattern.
The opposing stream: "Fans-for-fans-sake, 'lifestylers', people who ran room parties open to all" - This seems to be saying... that artists, in comparison, were closed-minded and not interested in the their fellow fans?... Ok, what this is really referring to is the Burned Fur vs. Furry lifestyler conflict. This was not two streams from back in the 1980s, these were both developments in the late 1990s. And they weren't the only two streams in the fandom, both were smaller sub-sets, plus both those group names were umbrella concepts, covering a whole range of interests and opinions.
Explaining it all would... take a while. Suffice it to say that the Burned furs were (at first) a small group of artists who were worried that sexual content in the fandom was creating a reputation problem, were concerned about behavior, and they didn't want their future employment prospects to be tarnished. So they went into full asshole mode, hoping to make people leave. But there were more furry artists who were open-minded, responsible, enjoyed the hobby, and didn't really give a fuck about the Burned Furs.
Furry lifestylers (at the time) were people whose philosophy of furry was that it could mean whatever it meant to you - personally, spiritually, sexually, artistically, etc. - with an emphasis on the internal manifestations. It was created in direct opposition to a message board that was focused on art, comics, animation - the external manifestations.
But a lot of people didn't really want to align themselves to either of these streams, because they either weren't part of them to begin with, or they were interested in aspects of both, so the distinctions didn't really apply. Plus the Burned Furs had kicked off a three-year flame war and people simply got tired of arguing about what furry meant.
Patch then says "Guess who won that conflict -- and ever since, furries have been protective of what they built." Also a simplication. Protecting our own wasn't a lesson we learned to fend off the Burned Furs, they were annoying, but not a threat. We learned it to fend off the trolls and the media, who kept trying to make us look bad, and attacked us for over a decade. This trend had started before the Burned Furs came along, and continued long after they had left. (Some blamed the BFs for the extra attention, but the BF conflict was rarely mentioned by outsiders.) After 2000, Furry fandom became very defensive and started to stand up for itself more. The media policies of several furry cons originate from this period. The fact that furry fans were more willing to stand up for their hobby, I think had more to do with the LGBT community within the fandom, who were feeling the momentum of the gay pride movement from the 1990s and keeping that positive feeling going.
Anyway, I found the rest of Patch's commercial discussions really interesting, I just wanted to put the historical stuff in more context. :-) (Also, disclosure, I bought two Artworktee shirts in 2018.)