When is a Furry a Furry?

Warning: Self-induced furry drama. Sensitive furries need not read further.

Let us begin by starting with a seemingly unrelated subject:
The sun. Life-giving, life sustaining. It warms us and shines upon us with its benevolent light. What ever would we do without it? All life on this world depends on our local star. Yes, without the sun, no life could exist here.

Um... er... Actually, no. That's not entirely true.

Not so long ago, scientists sent a submersible with some complex technical equipment and such to see just what was at the bottom of the ocean. They likely expected to find nothing. A vast empty wasteland devoid of life. What did they find? Life! Not just any kind of life. They found life forms that owe nothing to the sun. Nothing. What happens in the lit realms far above holds no concern for them. They survive by taking advantage of what lies below: Volcanic forces welling up from the darkness that supply warmth, nutrients and provide lodging for these refugees from the light. Yes, they get along just fine without the sun. The conclusion: The sun is not the end-all, be-all necessity for life as we were taught to believe.

Likewise, the internet has become the life-giving light for the furry world. As bright as the sun, it has nurtured and sustained a profusion of life now broadly known as the furry community. And what would that community do without it? While you think about the answer, I would like to interject by fingering the culprit responsible for inspiring this journal: None other than  CashewLou

The other day I was stalking FurAffinity's prolific sun-kissed community looking for something, anything worth reading. Finding nothing, I settled for one of Cashew Lou's stale journals. Let's read it together.

"20 Years a Furry"

"This might seem silly to some folks, but this is an important date to me. 20 years ago today, on December 12, 1997, I logged on to FurryMUCK for the very first time as Cashew Lou. So, today's my furry "birthday," and as of today, I've been at it for two decades. Hard to believe.

Furry has become such a fundamental part of my life that I can't imagine not being part of the fandom. It's an essential part of who I am, and even the non-furry people in my life know about it--and, luckily, they're cool with it, even if they don't quite get what it's all about.

I've made amazing friends in the furry fandom, and even though there have been some rough patches, I wouldn't trade the experience for the world. I want to thank, and honor, all those who have walked alongside me on the path I've taken.

I'd also like to take a moment in tribute to the friends who are no longer with us. May they be at peace, and may they never be forgotten.

So, yeah: 20 years of Cashew Lou. Hopefully the world isn't too horribly traumatized by that fact--and hopefully I'll be allowed to stick around for a few more. "-Cashew Lou.

I admit I was so gobsmacked by the first paragraph that I have yet to read the rest of his journal. It seems Cashew Lou's furry birth began when he first logged on to FurryMUCK on December 12, 1997. Which means that in December 2017 he celebrated his twentieth "furry" birthday.

He's all growed up!

I've been watching him for a while, before he came to F.A. He is what's known as a "gateway furry"- something of a furry internet pioneer. As I wrote in a previous journal, "Cashew Lou's Yukon Connection" was one of the first "furry" sites I stumbled upon when I started navigating the web. Many others had the same experience as I did. He introduced many to the furry world. Even now, I imagine, people still leave comments on his F.A. page telling him how grateful they are to him and that they became furries after they found his "Yukon Connection" webpage.

I also admit I was thisclose to being one of those blithering furries, wishing to fawn all over him like the rest, but I was too embarrassed, so I kept my mouth shut. Cashew Lou was the first furry I watched when I first logged in to F.A. When he left an obligatory "Thank you for watching me" shout, I thought I was going to faint.

Those were different, more innocent days. I began to realize that I was watching him, not because I thought he was interesting, but because he was... there. So I no longer watch him. His "Yukon Connection" site, which was far more watchable than his F.A. page- was unceremoniously disconnected. A blow to the furry community. Cashew Lou is now reduced to bottom feeding here just like me. An ignominious end for someone who once inspired so many.

Where was I? Oh, right.

So why am I shocked by his "furry" birthday? No, I'm not shocked because he is a fossil like me. No, I don't share the same birthday. In fact, I don't have a furry birthday. Maybe that's just it: What constitutes a furry birth?

Cashew Lou directly connects his furry birth to his first official existence on the furry web. Likely, many of you also tie your furry birth to the first time you viewed or opened an account on some furry web site. Sure, there are other ways to become part of the furry community, like going to your first furcon. That's something people did before the internet, but I bet most of you furries are not old enough to remember "before the internet", so for most of you, the internet defines your furriness, and will define it from cradle to grave.

It is your business to say when you became a furry. Whether born or baptized, it is your own experience. Just as it is Cashew Lou's business to say when he was "born again". However, I take issue with Cashew Lou because he, like me, is a walking dinosaur. A fossil. So I don't believe him when he says that's when his furry birth occurred- and I don't think he believes it, either.

It's like when... um... oh, God... Consider Caitlynn Jenner. She's like, hundreds of years old. But she celebrated her 1st birthday on the anniversary of having her fake boobs put in. The inference is that this is when Caitlynn became a woman. I say she became a woman the first time she put on mommy's high heels and paraded around the house some sixty years earlier. You see, it's not the fake boobs that make you a real woman and it's not the fake furry internet community that makes you a real furry.

If you deflate Caitlynn's breasts, is she still a woman?
If you take Cashew Lou's FurryMUCK account away, is he still a furry?
If you blot out the sun, would anything on the earth survive?
If the internet disappeared tomorrow, how many of you would still be furries?
Would you survive without the light from your furry "sun" to sustain you?
Would your furriness curl up and die without life-giving injections of furry internet porn?
I wonder.

I can't answer for you but I can answer for me.

I owe nothing to the internet, furry or otherwise. I was a fully formed furry when the internet was nothing more than a gleam in Al Gore's eye. ( I suspect that is also true for Cashew Lou. If not, then much like the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, he has let me down one too many times. It's my fault. That's what I get for idolizing furry role models.) My furriness- my choices, my hopes, dreams, desires, feelings and predilections existed before the internet, and stand apart from it and the so-called furry community it contains.

The furry internet may have opened my eyes to the furry community, but if it disappeared tomorrow, it would make no difference to my furriness at its core. But I would be lying if I said the internet had no effect on my current existence as a furry. I am not immune to its corruptive influence. Just as too much sun light can have deleterious effects on one's health, so too, the light of the furry web proves cancerous and corrosive to all who imbibe. It is the shared cost of basking in the light of this community.

Its flotsam and jetsam of pride flags, swastikas, intolerance masquerading as acceptance and sensory overloads of creepy porn is best left to drift about on the surface of this turbulent ocean while I remain deep below the waves, a bottom feeder in the murky depths. I find that very little of what filters down from the surface is useful or nourishing to my soul.

On a positive note, what little does filter down to me serves as a reminder that I am not alone in this world. It reminds me that something more lies beyond the darkness, just out of reach. In turn, those of you on the surface, soaking in all that furry internet sun can scarcely imagine the world hidden below.

Unlike Cashew Lou, I don't have a furry birthday. I can't point to a day and say that's when I became a furry. And if I did, it would be nothing to celebrate. Yet it did happen. Was it a book I read? A cartoon I watched? Something I said, did or thought? I don't know when I became a furry, however I do know that my furry birth did not begin when I first logged on to FurAffinity. Yes, there is a furry world that owes nothing to the internet or the fake furries that populate it.

Love, -D.