Yeah, that was actually my first thought when I saw the first image; I literally thought it was a racist MAGA post rather than a pro-Kamala one at first. Irony 1: the Kamala/hyena thing did start as anti-Kamala, trying to turn her laugh into a con, but the first person to really give that traction was himself black. Irony 2: The Better Days hyenas were so racist, but, ironically, I don't think the decision to make them represent black people was part of Jay Naylor's racism. I think he just picked an African animal he actually seems to like to draw, not really thinking of the "optics" that picking an animal with such a negative reputation (outside the fandom) would bring (which is, once again, not saying the depictions of "black" hyenas in Better Days wasn't racist, but that was because of the incredibly racist stereotyping involved in basically every hyena character). But, I think Better Days is kind of part of that "Old Internet" thing you were talking about, and I don't think a lot of the people sharing or creating art of the Kamala/hyena fursona meme were aware of it (and I wasn't in a hurry to bring it up, because, yeah, maybe Better Days is part of that "Old Internet" that can just stay dead and buried, you know?).
If I had done an article (not happening now, seems a bit, uh, late), I would have definitely put in a section specifically for non-furries who may have wandered across the meme and been puzzled how we could both like Kamala and depict her as a hyena, an animal with almost universally negative connotations. In the furry fandom, the hyena is actually a very popular species, and in its own way well regarded (I like them a lot, myself!). It's very hard, in fact, to find a species in furry that you can safely cast in a negative light (some of the Kamala/hyena art featured Trump as a naked mole rat, but really my reaction to that was what did naked mole rats do to deserve that?). There was a very unpopular opinion piece on Flayrah a few years back, which, among it's other flaws, featured an extended metaphor about rats eating an entire supply of grain, with the takeaway being we need to get rid of the "rats" in the furry fandom ourselves before they destroy our "grain", which, besides being kind of a shitty thing to say in general, is also a terrible way to talk to furries, because, I'm sorry, I was totally on team rat, here! Like, yay, rats! Eat that grain! We like animals!
Of course, I do agree with your point that we really need to be aware of the optics of what animals we assign to non-furries, as what animals represent to us isn't always the same thing an animal represents to non-furries. However, in this case, it's also complicated by the "reclaiming a negative" ("you have an annoying laugh", "we like her laugh!") scenario (maybe J.D. Vance should have adopted a couch-sona?), and as my retweet of some Kamala/hyena art I had nothing to do with literally tripled my follower count there, well, people like it. Which to me implies, kind of to my surprise (as I thought she was more of a middle of the road politician that didn't really stir strong feelings), people like her (she got screwed by being the "incumbent" during high inflation). Maybe the hyena will return again some day; used to be you lost once, you were out, but, uh, that was not the case this year, so who knows anything anymore?
Yeah, that was actually my first thought when I saw the first image; I literally thought it was a racist MAGA post rather than a pro-Kamala one at first. Irony 1: the Kamala/hyena thing did start as anti-Kamala, trying to turn her laugh into a con, but the first person to really give that traction was himself black. Irony 2: The Better Days hyenas were so racist, but, ironically, I don't think the decision to make them represent black people was part of Jay Naylor's racism. I think he just picked an African animal he actually seems to like to draw, not really thinking of the "optics" that picking an animal with such a negative reputation (outside the fandom) would bring (which is, once again, not saying the depictions of "black" hyenas in Better Days wasn't racist, but that was because of the incredibly racist stereotyping involved in basically every hyena character). But, I think Better Days is kind of part of that "Old Internet" thing you were talking about, and I don't think a lot of the people sharing or creating art of the Kamala/hyena fursona meme were aware of it (and I wasn't in a hurry to bring it up, because, yeah, maybe Better Days is part of that "Old Internet" that can just stay dead and buried, you know?).
If I had done an article (not happening now, seems a bit, uh, late), I would have definitely put in a section specifically for non-furries who may have wandered across the meme and been puzzled how we could both like Kamala and depict her as a hyena, an animal with almost universally negative connotations. In the furry fandom, the hyena is actually a very popular species, and in its own way well regarded (I like them a lot, myself!). It's very hard, in fact, to find a species in furry that you can safely cast in a negative light (some of the Kamala/hyena art featured Trump as a naked mole rat, but really my reaction to that was what did naked mole rats do to deserve that?). There was a very unpopular opinion piece on Flayrah a few years back, which, among it's other flaws, featured an extended metaphor about rats eating an entire supply of grain, with the takeaway being we need to get rid of the "rats" in the furry fandom ourselves before they destroy our "grain", which, besides being kind of a shitty thing to say in general, is also a terrible way to talk to furries, because, I'm sorry, I was totally on team rat, here! Like, yay, rats! Eat that grain! We like animals!
Of course, I do agree with your point that we really need to be aware of the optics of what animals we assign to non-furries, as what animals represent to us isn't always the same thing an animal represents to non-furries. However, in this case, it's also complicated by the "reclaiming a negative" ("you have an annoying laugh", "we like her laugh!") scenario (maybe J.D. Vance should have adopted a couch-sona?), and as my retweet of some Kamala/hyena art I had nothing to do with literally tripled my follower count there, well, people like it. Which to me implies, kind of to my surprise (as I thought she was more of a middle of the road politician that didn't really stir strong feelings), people like her (she got screwed by being the "incumbent" during high inflation). Maybe the hyena will return again some day; used to be you lost once, you were out, but, uh, that was not the case this year, so who knows anything anymore?