With the release of Dust: An Elysian Tail, and Destructoid's firm reassurances that just because by an unfortunate accident it happens to be a "furry game" it is still good, I have to wonder if it'll still be this unbearably stupid and bad in ten years. Any time a new game or a movie comes out that has any hints of being "furry", everyone who doesn't avoid it completely for just that reason claims it's good or bad as normal--but make it absolutely clear that if it's good, it's independent of any potentially offensive furry material, and if it's bad, it's probably because of that same material. As the "public awareness" of the subculture goes up, it only ever goes up in stupid and trite ways--fat guys in bear suits wearing lingerie in Jack-In-The-Box commercials, mostly. Even the supposedly "loving and tolerant" Brony subculture thinks about furries, it's in a negative way. Given, most bronies are just trolls, but even the nice ones are less tolerant than they think. Then you've got the stupid "Fandom" thing that's still going on. How, in any sense of the word, is this a Fandom? Blotch, Strype, Kishniev, iPoke, Adam Wan, Adjot, Trancy Mick, Immelmann--all have different, unique universes with different, unique personalities. Different politics, different races, different levels of technological advancement and visual styles. Those are just the people I can list off the top of my head. There is only ONE thing in common with their stories and artwork: The people in those stories have fur. That's one similarity. The reasons for that are different. Genetic engineering, lab experiments, alien encounters, magic, "Just Because". This isn't a couple of Freewebs sites filled with Sonic the Hedgehog fanfiction and Robin Hood porn. Those things are found in an unfortunately ample supply inside the culture's realm of influence, but compared to the level of unique and original content we create, they hardly rate a fifth of the total artistic output. There are American, Canadian, Mexican, Brazilian, Argentinian, German, Filipino, Armenian, Russian, Austrian, Korean, Japanese, Chinese (RoC and PRC), Ukranian and twenty other nationalities' worth of artists in this culture. We are apolitical, we are anarchists, we are Republicans and Democrats, we are Liberals and Conservatives, we are religious and sacrilegious. We are more than just a Fandom for one thing, one stupid Disney movie. We are a self-contained culture. There are assholes in here who piss others off. There are arbiters who help make amends. There are celebrations, there are times of mourning, there are enraged periods of drama and there are serene periods of creativity and productivity. This is not a Fandom. It is not a Fandom. It is an entire subculture. Entire relationships have been started and ended here. Entire musical industries and game development projects started. We will not fall apart in two weeks if the Internet disappears, because the bonds of professionalism and friendship forged here are too strong for such a trivial obstacle. This is a completely functioning, self-sustaining new world.

I realize that I was horribly redundant just now, and that I went on and on, but this is the truth. It's all going to stay. This will all stay for as long as sentient life exists. It has come too far and has grown too large to die on its own.

DECADE ANNIVERSARY UPDATE: Lol. lmao. I actually still agree with the thing about it being a subculture and not a fandom, but I think I was being too hard on mainstream culture and its ability to accept and normalize fringe things. We've got muuuuuch bigger problems now than whether or not someone likes furries, anyway, like the rapid resurgence of open ethno-fascism and the looming collapse of our planet's complex systems for the sake of capitalist greed. Egg on the bronies' face, though, because they turned out to be a bunch of Actual Nazis and furries have largely divested themselves of all the loudest right-wing personalities. Good job, furries.