Advice: Telling others about being furry

[✡]

I had an interesting experience today. My friend who knew I was furry asked me about it and said that he heard about the mostly sexual part of the fandom and he thought the fandom was nothing but sex. I really didn't know how to adequately explain it to him without feeling like an idiot

[Puncia]

Rule 34. If it exists - there's porn of it. The Avengers, Dr. Who, Dead Space, every anime known to man. Same applies to furry things.

[Draco Vertolgr]

Sry foxstorm Explained to many times check my journal I don't rly like talking about it

[Aakosir]

I have actually had very pleasant times explaining furries to my ex and boyfriend. They were the only ones I have talked to about it. My mom just gives me weird looks, but she has never really objected to it. I guess I kind of lucked out.

My boyfriend actually did some research himself and went to several different sites, getting a really good view on how diverse the community is, before he really asked me about it. That made me feel really good. I had mentioned it before and showed him some of my art, but never really got in to it. Now he is planning on going to Anthrocon with me this summer.

If the person cares about you they will take the time to learn about it. If they don't care, they will not learn. And there are a bunch of other people who are just very close minded and have a hard time thinking outside the box. I have learned to let them live in their own bubbles. It will only stress you out more if you try to pull them out of their fantasy world.

[KameAdam]

I was in that denial stage myself, believe it or not.
But after having some conversations about being more open with stuff with my mate, and reading up a bit more I came to the realization that I indeed fit the bill.

After explaining to her, and hoping she wouldn't cast me out for it, she too realized she fit the bill.

We're both very happy people because of it.

[LeafTheSwift]

So to start off, yes i have looked at the Telling others about being a furry thread,but i need more specific help. I have one friend that knows and he kinda understands what a furry is. But all my other friends have no clue what a furry is as far as i know. And there is the problem concidering that i want to tell all my friends so they don't freek out if i do somthing fur related. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

[Rocoro T. Pup]

I think that this explains it best. Pretty much, furry is an internet subculture consisting of people who are interested in anthropormorphic animals in art, media, and society. It's structured similar to that of anime. The same way in which anime followers are called "otakus", those who are into "furries" are called "furs".

You're friends sound just as confused as my friends when I told them that I'm a furry. They'll get over it, and they may even be interested in learning more about the culture! 

[LeafTheSwift]

Thanks. But im still confused as to how to bring it up. It is never gonna come up in a random conversation because they have no clue what it is. So im pondering how to bring it up.

[Rocoro T. Pup]

Just do it in the way you introduce things to anyone. It can be as simple as: "Hey guys, check this out!"

[Duke]

I make it sound like its a normal thing really. "Hey guys guess what? Im a furry." Most of my friends were like "Ok so what?" very few were like "Ew." but the ones who said ew still like to hang out with me and dont give me hell or really care anymore.

[Kio]

Except anime isn't really a fandom as such, Rocoro, more like a genre of art, like it's evil twin manga, fan bases tend to be product-specific, usually those who obsess over anime are indeed otaku but otaku is the Japanese term for obsession and since the Japanese are generally very otaku about anime/manga, it becomes more pop culture than fandom, it even has historical ties.

Furry stems back to internet culture where furry was short for anything other than the ordinary animal related categories on the usenet/bbs servers and it got hijacked by what's now regarded as furries, "furry" was preferred as the spacing on the qwerty keyboard was somewhat of a nerdish like because the keys "f, u, r and y" are closer together, making it more efficient for typing. Noted in some media as furries are Shawn Keller (disney animator, seems noted for good style emphasis in films such as Oliver & Co, as because of this he was set as the visual developer in some films), Steve Gallacci (creator of the Albedo Anthropomorphics RPG), Mike Kazaleh (creator of The Adventures of Captain Jack, and illustrator of the Ren & Stimpy comic), Tracy Butler (former yerf/artspots user, who gained more notability via the Lackadaisy comic). Whoever came up with the idea of "furry fandom" as a word or any of the descriptors like "fandom of anthropomorphic animals" is unknown as in the past is was not really closely examined, no doubt they arose from media intervention (especially in relation to FurryFans.com), the true essence of the fandom was cartoon animals and the related, it just happened that cartoon animals tend to be pretty much anthropomorphic, thanks to the funny animals developments prior (funny animals was actually a core subject of furry groups and its attitudes still exist in the furry community today). Furthermore, "furries" has often been somewhat of a slang word for furry (usually small) animals, it may well have been used in far earlier works that could be considered a part of the "furry fandom" but it did become pretty much a fandom until becoming more of a community due to the self-dependence that evolved within it.'

[anoni]

The word furry was used considerably earlier than the world wide web was released. According to a furry fandom historian, the word furry originated from a Sci-fi convention in the 1980's where a character drawn by Steve Gallacci brought on a conversation on Anthropomorphic animals, the actual word furry has been traceable to be coined as early as 1983 and magazines and so forth were published throughout the 1980's, this was before the world wide web became publicly available (which was commercialized in 1995)

Either way, Leaf I agree entirely with Duke and Rocorro, they will not think it's a big deal if you do not act like it's a big deal. If you are confident with it and show them it's just a hobby they will not mind!

[✡]

yeah these days i'm kind of furry on my main facebook and when people ask I'm like "yeah I'm a fur, whatever". If you act like its something to be ashamed of, then people will treat it that way. That's why I've never needed to "come out" as a fur or really hide it.

[Kio]

Eh, sadly artspots is no longer functional since december, but I'm pretty sure it stated reference to 1979 as the bulletin board systems noted were popular amongst the Unix hacker community, in fact it is ironically left in codings (such as the infamous furfuu) as a signature reference to those who frequented the furry groups (it is also said to be why so many unix/linux mascots feature reference to furryish slang and commands and the wide usage of animal mascots) so this is apparently evidential that it is older than as said by Patten and actually evolved as an internet subculture (which is why it still is and never really became mainstream) but in use at post-funny animals gatherings it seems it was first used by WesterCon in 1985 who had a furry party, and from Vootie to the Rowrbrazzle APA was when funny animal fandom tried to rename itself also to furry (furry and funny were pretty close, anyway) to drain itself into the newly expanding furrydom as the mainstream interest declined towards the middle to late 80s due to the onset of animal characters in cartoons being associated with children, even the likes of Disney tried to revert this, hence the more serious tones in the characters in animated films towards the 90s such as The Lion King, which lead supporting furries to create the TLKIAWOL movement, nonetheless Disney gave up and marketed on 3D animation instead (Disney's participation was no doubt due to the amount of furry animators within it), although this bred into the furry subcultures feral and sparkledog which are now subtly replacing the older fandom by encouraging a younger less e-ready audience via feeding on the Susan Van Camp style exploitation of the fandom by offering commissions for especially "sparkledogs" to have their overdetailed fursonas made for sometimes ridiculous prices (especially when it comes to the more weird-y adult-y end of things).

So there, whatever furry once meant doesn't even matter anymore, it's pretty much subjective.
That also means the understandings of outing yourself as a furry are also open go interpretation, but the worst results you can get I suppose are quite big leaps from each other, such as "but being into cartoon animals is for kids", or "ew gross, pervert", you know, stereotypes n stuff.

[anoni]

Yeah it doesn't really matter it's just that Wikipedia, Furry Dolphin and Wikifur do not agree with what you're saying