Talk:Furry

I have seen non-furries at AnthroCon asking what a furry is, and at least once had asked me as well. Trying to answer the question is a very tricky subject without some line of reference that most people can relate to commonly. For me when describing what furries are, I ask them in return "Have you ever watched Mickey Mouse or Bugs Bunny?" And wait for their answers on that. I go on to tell tham that some furries are like those characters, or think of similar characters of their own devising as their alter egos. Everyone at Anthrocon basically has their own answers for the question, and some do not use anthromporhic animals as their fursonas. It may also fall into the catagory of "furry fandom", but I find that answering the question of "What is a furry" using Bugs Bunny as a reference point so people can make the link themselves with less confusion. --Markus 10:18, 3 Aug 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure, either. Wikipedia links mostly to the furry fandom and furry lifestyle pages, but we might not want to follow them, although we can always use information from those pages to construct stuff here (with proper attribution - see the bottom of Tapestries MUCK). -- 14:07, 3 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Protected Status
I'm wondering why the entry for "furry" was closed for editing? After all, what better way to attempt to define the meaning of furry than to allow the multitudes to come to some sort of collaborative definition?


 * A short line: Trolls attacking it multiple times and vandalizing or defacing it. Same difference. --Markus 22:54, 15 Aug 2005 (UTC)


 * I think it's overkill to keep it protected. I'd unprotect it and watch it for vandalism; there are enough eyes on the article to revert anything bad in a short time.  Kelly Martin 22:59, 15 Aug 2005 (UTC)


 * Is there a way for it to be protected to only be edited by logged-in members or something more secure?--Crassus 23:13, 15 Aug 2005 (UTC)


 * Semiprotection (editing restricted to logged in users) has been proposed for MediaWiki but as far as I know it has not been implemented. Kelly Martin 23:15, 15 Aug 2005 (UTC)


 * In fact, yes. However, it is usually better to list the information you want to add in this page and if it is workable, it'll go up. In this case, I will bring it to another admin's view for a second opinion. --Markus
 * After a short exchange, it has been decided to unlock it for a short time to see what happens. If it proves unworkable, it will again be locked and it would then be best to propose your edits here on the talk page. --Markus
 * I just tried editing it and it says it's still locked. The edit button shows up now, though.


 * It shows as unprotected on my end. --Markus 18:42, 20 Aug 2005 (UTC)


 * In fact, this page is was protected, but can could still be edited by normal users by editing the template contained upon it. -- 04:27, 24 Aug 2005 (UTC)


 * It has not needed to be be protected recently. -- 22:33, 24 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Draft text
Within the furry fandom, the word "furry" has several of specialized meanings. The following definitions are relatively uncontentious. As an adjective, "furry" can also indicate a relationship to furry characters or furry fans, as in "furry art" or "furry convention".
 * A furry character is any character combining human and animal characteristics, commonly abbreviated as a "furry". This is the core meaning from which others derive.
 * A furry fan is a person who is a member of the furry fandom, a specific subculture dating from the 1980s and focused around furry characters. Both "furry fan" and "furry fandom" are each commonly abbreviated to "furry".

It may seem reasonable to define "furry fan" to include any person with an interest in furry characters. However, this can be hugely contentious for individuals who are interested in furry characters but are unwilling to be identified with the specific furry fandom. Approaches to defuse this conflict include variant definitions:
 * A furry fan is anyone who identifies as a member of the specific furry fandom. In other words, a furry is anyone who chooses the label, and only those who do.
 * A furry character is more narrowly defined to only encompass characters created by people within the fandom, or in artistic styles popular within the fandom. Terms such as "funny animal" or "anthro" are then used to indicate animal characters, avoiding the term "furry".


 * I would agree with the above, but I think we should mention the fan/lifestyler distinction - perhaps another paragraph in the "variant" definitions section:


 * A furry lifestyler or merely a furry (person) is someone whose interest in animals (not necessarily anthropomorphic) goes beyond mere enjoyment of artwork and stories about them, but which has a spiritual or emotional aspect to it. Tevildo 10:25, 28 Sep 2005 (UTC)

FAH
http://www.foxes.de/FAH/ Furries against hunting -- maybe it should have an article. I don't feel like writing it, but if someone wants to, here it is. SleepAtWork 16:32, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

How to be a Furry - Anti-furry site in disguise?
How to be a Furry is a website someone linked on a Facebook Furry group thread in reference to their apprehension about "asking" to be let into the furry fandom because they didn't quite fit what rules the website had set out for them, particularly in regards to his fursona and what it meant in regards to his sexuality. I think some attention should be brought to this website somehow, as it was apparently briefly listed on Wikipedia's Furry page as a legitimate tutorial. Input from others? Spaz Kitty 16:35, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm going to call nonsense on it. Looks like someone's snarky idea of a joke. Not particularly funny (or original. how ironic.).
 * Do you have a link to this person's question on Facebook? Sounds like a naieve soul needs set straight. :-/ Simba B 17:48, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia's furry article? Oh that article has always been a mess. Oh yeah that how to be a furry is a joke and I thought I saw it featured from a crush yiff destroy article. Tretonin 01:35, 19 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I would classify the "How to be a Furry" article as satire. It should not be treated as actual reference material.  --Douglas Muth 01:43, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Awfully acidic satire. The unwarranted overly cynical tone destroys any satirical humor that may have been there. If people aren't getting the (ahem) "joke" then perhaps we should do something (don't really know what, though) but it'd probably be best to leave that guy in his little corner fuming about...cartoon characters. *shakes head* Simba B 01:53, 19 November 2006 (UTC)


 * The person clarified that it wasn't Wikipedia, but /WikiFur/, where he found the link to the website. I checked, and it's still listed as a "humorous" link on Fursona. I changed the wording to "parodying" to make it more clear that this isn't meant to be taken seriously. But in my opinion, it needs to be removed as a reference link to the article entirely, to prevent further misinterpretations. 24.241.49.173 00:01, 20 November 2006 (UTC) (SpazKitty not logged in)


 * This was the work of a DeviantArt user, u63r - the original is located here. CYD administration approached u63r and offered to host the document.  Please use the URL http://www.crushyiffdestroy.com/furryTut/ to save poor Dos' bandwidth.  For those of you who don't clock on every cycle, this is indeed a work of satire.  --DS|go 23:10, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Page to introduce someone to the Furry Fandom
I think that this page should be the best that it could, because it is likely to be the one that non-furs and some parents read.

I was reading a Furtopia post about a reaction to a Wikifur article. http://cgi.furtopia.org/cgi-bin/ib311/ikonboard.cgi?s=aff1dbf8803a7349984b93abada26e10;act=ST;f=48;t=25588

Red Reynart writes, "Finally! and every thing goes horrible wrong. Yes you heard me horrible wrong! I went to Wikifur printed off an article on the furry fandom. Gave it to my parents to read because there always too busy to have time to explain anything to. Wow What happen is that they thought that ist was nothing more than a cult and all about porn. I have no clue how on earth they interpreted it like that for I read it and there was nothing wrong with it nor what it said. But I went back to the website and just about every article on that site was deleted! It took me a long time to explain every thing in detail on my own words to not continue a big debate. ...."
 * I guess you're talking about a page for ME, indeed. I'm not a fur. I wanted to know what it means. There's something enourmous missing from this article: it's clearly not just about anthropomorphizing animals, if that were all tere was to it then fursuits wouldn'[t all look like cartoon characters. I'm just taking a wild guess, here, but I have the distinct feeling that if someone showed up at FurCon in a painstakingly realistic fursuit, they wouldn't exactly be the life of the party but instead perceived and treated as a gauche, ostracized faux-pas dork or partypooper. Well, what's the real story here? Are we talking about animals or cartoons characters? I can't figure it out and it's a gigantic missing element. Thanks for any info 68.123.29.19 00:00, 7 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Cartoon anthropomorphic animal characters are anthropomorphic animals. You seem to be treating them as two separate genres, when it's mostly a matter of style in how they are depicted.
 * That said, there are plenty of reasons why people go for the cartoony side when having a costume made:
 * Some people like the cartoony style of things, others prefer more realistic. Indeed, it's such a common preference that it's a factor on the furcode. I would guess the fact that most people grew up with cartoon depictions of such characters has influenced their preference. They may also prefer to play a light-hearted cartoon character as opposed to a more "serious" realistic character.
 * It's cheaper to make a cartoony costume than a realistic one. Realistic characters demand a level of detail which many fursuit creation companies are simply not able to deliver - certainly not for the price most people are willing to pay. You can get very realistic but it also gets increasingly expensive. As many customers already prefer cartoony styles, fursuit makers tend to specialize in that area, further driving the price of such costumes down and the availability up.
 * If you went to a furry convention in a painstakingly realistic fursuit, you (or rather, the character) would be treated with respect. I've seen it myself, with realistic characters like Dar'Rushk. People love seeing such things. However, people around you would probably be very careful about interacting physically with your character - not out of an intent to ostracize you, but for fear of damaging it. Think about it: would you bap someone with a noodle if you thought their ear would break and it would cost $100 to replace? Details are often very delicate. Most people who buy fursuits don't want that - they want the hugs from onlookers and the contact that comes in spontaneous mini-roleplaying scenarios, so their costume is made out of soft, pliable cartoony materials without lots of delicate, realistic detail. --GreenReaper(talk) 11:30, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

work in progress
I would like to suggest that this page be an introduction for the public-at-large. I don't mean for us to lie and say that the fandom is perfect, but an erotic image doesn't need to included in the section Sexuality to make a point. With or without sex some of the public-at-large will still find us weird if we don't describe how people get and stay interested in furries. My family and some of my friend would refer to anime as cartoons and say that anime is for children.

My ideas for this page come from a furtopia post about someone giving the Wikifur - furry article to a parent.

Also, the front page of Wikifur has a permanent link to this article. It should be the best article here.

What it means to be furry
I think the entire "What it means to be Furry" section needs to be re-worded. It sounds like someone wrote it shortly after being teased or watching "Fur and Loathing". It has a very bitter and childish tone. Omnibahumut
 * In in infinite boredom at work, I made a change myself Omnibahumut 15:02, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

"In my eyes, what it means to be a furry is that all furries respect one simple idea: Be who you are. Nobody is judged. It's like how when you're on the Internet, you're almost a completely different person than in real life. Only, that person on the Internet? That IS you; it's what you are at your core. So as a furry, that's exactly what you are able to do; you can display what you are at your core, and it can be anonymous if you want it to be, but it doesn't have to be. Because people won't judge you; no matter your intelligence, your nationality, or even your sexual preferences. They don't care how weird you are, because you're a furry, and all furries are different." -CyanTheFurry

what's with all the revertion and stuff?
I'm confused, why I keep getting notifications the article got modified and when I go to see the changes it doesn't show any changes beside some reversion, either I don't understand how this work as well as I thought I did, or this is broken somehow....
 * ok, I went to check the history and apparently it shows more than the link in the emails show, now I just need to figure out why the email link doesn't show the modifications too...--Tigro Spottystripes 17:21, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Furry's Anthem?
An Anonymous IP user, added this like to the references section here: Counting Crows Song that mentions Dressing in His Bunny Suit - Furry's Anthem. I know the part in Dressing in a Bunny Suit is true but, is this the Furry's Anthem? Also I didn't see ant connection with the name of the song with "Furry" in Google so I removed it from the page for now. If you think it should be included, please place it in the appropriate section of the page. Sawblade5 11:01, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I've never heard of that connection--Tigro Spottystripes 18:11, 13 February 2008 (EST)

Uncommon?
The fursuiting section contains the following statement:
 * A relatively uncommon practice among furries is to dress up in a costume that is typically designed after a fursona.

Given my experience at furry conventions, this statement seems to come across very inaccurately. While it's true that only about 15% of furry fans are fursuiters, they are such a ubiquitous presence at many types of furry gatherings, especially conventions, as well as coming up on a regular basis on social networking sites. Is there a better way this statement can be rephrased? --mwalimu 06:45, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Swedish translation
I have translated this article to Swedish and added it to WikiLurv. Now that I wanted to add the link on here, I can't. Can someone who have access to the page add Furry to the list? Thobiah 20:38, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

The True Nature of Furries
I hope I don't sound like an ass or a moron when I say any of this, but here goes: I am a young man currently confused about what it really means to be a furry. Since I don't have many real-life furry friends to hang out with, and I don't have the money (or time, since it's still during school) to go to the nearest furry convention, I can't find out how furries really are for myself. What I want to know is this: In reality, in general, is the vast majority of furries made up of people who are like how the general public sees us? Or am I right and we're mostly completely harmless people? I've been told by more than a few people that I shouldn't really call myself a furry. Sure, I'm one of the weirder ones, but I'm not a total horndog furvert. I'm not a fursuiter. I'm not an otherkin. But from what I know, I identify myself with being a furry, and don't want to separate myself like a stuck-up loser. I could just say, "I'm me, that's it," but...I want to identify myself with this community somehow. To get an answer to my question, and to not seem like a stupid whiner, I think maybe we should add a section about how furries really are. Something about this article seems...unsatisfactory. It's telling me what we are, and all that stuff, but not really how, as a whole, furries generally act. I know it varies greatly from person to person, but I think it's possible to get a generalization of how most furries behave. To nutshell a series of questions I had, are we mostly concerned with the adult side of furry, or are we mostly concerned with the non-adult side, or what? (I -do- see an awful lot of yiff in people's galleries on FA...and a friend of mine...to me...is doing more adult than tame art.) Do we mostly deserve to have the stigma we have?

Sorry if I'm just wasting your time and it's a stupid question. FT 02:29, 19 January 2010 (UTC)


 * First off, I should probably mention that Talk pages, including this one, are primarily for discussing the article itself, not for general discussion forum for the article's subject. That said, we don't have a specific article here offhand whose primary purpose is to debunk or correct the incorrect perceptions some members of the general public may have about furry fandom, other than perhaps Furry stereotype.  We simply try to write articles that are reasonably accurately on the various parts and aspects and elements of the fandom.  To answer a couple of specific points, furry is many different things to different people, and your idea is most likely a little different from anyone else's, but for the most part we all get along.  And yes, we are mostly harmless people, some pretty weird, but in general not nearly as sex-obsessed as the media sometimes makes us out to be.


 * If you'd like some articles that point to better resources, one would be Timeline of media coverage, which has links to dozens of articles about furry fandom which run the gamut from being accurate to perpetuating the inaccuracies. Two personal favorites on the accurate side of things are My Furry Weekend and Hell Hath No Furries, both of which are by reporters who are not furries who went undercover to attend a furry convention.  Another place to look, if you're on LiveJournal, is List of furry LiveJournal communities.  If you were to join some of those communities (after signing up for LiveJournal if you aren't already) and repost the above to one of them, you'd probably get much better answers to your questions than you're likely to get here (and if you're not sure which one(s) to join,  would be a good starting point).  Good luck!  --mwalimu 17:20, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Other languages version
Article locked, so add, who can link to a Ukrainian article. Фурі

Fabumouse: I am a new furry that recently joined this lovely fandom. Before everyone reads this article down below, I just want to clarify a few things. Maybe a furry and a fursona are the same, But there are a few differences. Your fursona is personal to you, and no one else. BUT, everyone in this fandom identifies as a furry. EX: I am a furry, and my fursona is Aggretsuko. But maybe some of you are thinking, how could a new furry tell the difference? or Maybe you think I am not allowed to share my thoughts. I personally believe that following your heart is right. Fabumouse out --

Why People Think furries Are Werid
Mostly people think this from how we act. like 'UwU' Or 'OwO' This might be seen as babyish even though you might be like 20 or maybe even older. Some people think its weird how we dress up in costumes and go to conventions but never thought that some people do the same thing for anime. See most Furies like anime but some people just like anime. I'm not into anime myself but its pretty cool. (Skip until you see -Stop here- If you don't like the subject of what is called furry art) So Most Furry art is based off humans. mostly shown with no clothes or bras and underwear. this is another way were considered weird. maybe if we got rid of this we would be okay. -stop here- I might find more about this community in which people might think its weird