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Eighteenth journal
3 years ago
General
The world cup has begun once again. Today the representative soccer team of my country played against Morocco’s soccer team. With much disappointment and relief, the match ended in a draw. Despite my lack of interest in sports, I find this event to be important to us, Croats. Mostly in a global way. The better we play, the better we get represented to the world allowing for future benefits to the country because of popularity. I’m not predicting that we might get as far as we did 4 years ago, however.
I don’t specifically want to talk about sports or the world cup. In fact, the topic might drift away as far as South America drifted away from Africa. The current events reminded me of how this whole sport ritual was manifested in 2018. One particular thing that came to mind was the mascot of 2018’s world cup in Russia – Zabivaka. If you’re not familiar with that mascot, it is a gray wolf dressed in a soccer player’s uniform. Due to it being an anthropomorphic animal and quite popular, I think you can connect the dots of what happened to it. Or, more specifically, what furries have done to it. If you’re still not sure, just type “Zabivaka” in the search bar of e621.net and you’ll find out.
The point is, the process of sexualization of various anthropomorphic characters that originally weren’t made for sexual content is quite popular and often in the furry fandom. Another example of this process was Tony the Tiger or Chester Cheetah. Hell, even cartoon characters fall victim to it. I’m not trying to say, however, that this should stop or that certain measures should be taken against it. If what you create with any character does not bother the original creators or harm anyone, do whatever you want (also, if it is legal). Though, In the case of Tony the Tiger, furries continued creating porn of the mascot despite the creator’s plea for them to stop. Sure, crossing the line for shitposting or memes can sometimes be entertaining and funny, but when crossed too much, it just becomes sad.
This does open a whole new subject of how sexual the furry fandom is and have we “crossed the line” when it comes to that. It is true that being a furry isn’t sexual. Nor are the fandom’s motives and main interests either. However, there is a(n) (un)healthy amount of sexual content in the fandom in any way or form. From various sexual art, literature, and stories (maybe even events). Though, despite all of that, only 4% of furries claim that the fandom is truly sexual.
I know that the topic went all over the place and that I haven’t really concluded or said anything with it. I mostly just wrote what came to mind.
I don’t specifically want to talk about sports or the world cup. In fact, the topic might drift away as far as South America drifted away from Africa. The current events reminded me of how this whole sport ritual was manifested in 2018. One particular thing that came to mind was the mascot of 2018’s world cup in Russia – Zabivaka. If you’re not familiar with that mascot, it is a gray wolf dressed in a soccer player’s uniform. Due to it being an anthropomorphic animal and quite popular, I think you can connect the dots of what happened to it. Or, more specifically, what furries have done to it. If you’re still not sure, just type “Zabivaka” in the search bar of e621.net and you’ll find out.
The point is, the process of sexualization of various anthropomorphic characters that originally weren’t made for sexual content is quite popular and often in the furry fandom. Another example of this process was Tony the Tiger or Chester Cheetah. Hell, even cartoon characters fall victim to it. I’m not trying to say, however, that this should stop or that certain measures should be taken against it. If what you create with any character does not bother the original creators or harm anyone, do whatever you want (also, if it is legal). Though, In the case of Tony the Tiger, furries continued creating porn of the mascot despite the creator’s plea for them to stop. Sure, crossing the line for shitposting or memes can sometimes be entertaining and funny, but when crossed too much, it just becomes sad.
This does open a whole new subject of how sexual the furry fandom is and have we “crossed the line” when it comes to that. It is true that being a furry isn’t sexual. Nor are the fandom’s motives and main interests either. However, there is a(n) (un)healthy amount of sexual content in the fandom in any way or form. From various sexual art, literature, and stories (maybe even events). Though, despite all of that, only 4% of furries claim that the fandom is truly sexual.
I know that the topic went all over the place and that I haven’t really concluded or said anything with it. I mostly just wrote what came to mind.
Don't look at it as people oversexualizing the fandom. Look at it as the fandom protesting against its culture being appropriated by manipulative business interests.
I'm familiar with the fandom trying to liberate itself from mass-industrial companies. That has been mentioned in "Furries among Us" (I can't remember which chapter and what page), where one of the authors mentioned that many cultures fall victim to those companies which lower the values of many symbols within those cultures. I think the cultures in question were the cultures of Native Americans. So seeing that the fandom can be viewed as a sub-culture that has its own values, it only makes sense that it wants to free itself from such companies. Again, the way it does that is kind of questionable and does give a false image of what it is to the "outsiders". This can be largely debatable, since there is, in my opinion, no right way to act against those "threats". People will always find ways to manipulate others, so any kind of resistance is welcomed.