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Resurgence of Furry Sites post-Tumblr & say NO to Twitter
6 years ago
Hearken to me, my subjects!
((OOC))
Over the years, the "furry media" sites (FurAffinity, SoFurry, InkBunny, Weasyl, etc) have slowly but surely lost influence among furry circles to more "mainstream" sites and services. Some of the lost traffic was because of scandals, but some of it was just out of convenience (mobile app integration, for example). Chief among these was Tumblr. I saw a lot of furry art and artists uproot from furry-controlled sites and move to Tumblr, and felt that was unwise, not only for those persons, but for the fandom as a whole.
Like it or not, furry is always going to be pretty weird to "normies" because - let's face it - we're a little weird. So I don't see why we would ever want to place our work, our presence online, and our communities, in the hands of non-furries (or at-least those who don't have a stake in defending the fandom - obviously IMVU are not furries, but they have money invested in FA and want to see it succeed).
When Tumblr pulled all adult content, many furry artists and commissioners lost large chunks of their collections. Of course they probably had backups of the art itself, but these people cultivated a community, they had comments and suggestions and favorites in their collections - all wiped out.
I've seen a bit of an uptick in traffic since, especially on FurAffinity. I think that some furries realized their mistake and are coming back to the furry media sites, and I think that is a good thing. I think we should keep it in-house. Sites by furries, for furries.
But I've also seen a lot of Tumblr exiles going to Twitter. Why do this? You're just setting yourselves up to be the victims of the next purge. Tumblr wasn't the first, and probably won't be the last. People forget that furries (going by their furnames) once had profiles on Facebook until FB decided that their services do not extend to fictional characters.
So I guess that's my takeaway. I would like so see the fandom congregating around community sites once more, and its probably a good thing (big picture view) that Tumblr purged adult furry artwork. But I think it isn't so great that so many just hopped over to the next big faceless, normie website. So I think we should encourage them to _come home_ .
For those of you who do want to follow me on twitter, I'm @etherasfox , but I hardly ever use it. Here is still probably the best place. :)
Anyway - thanks for reading.
~ Lord Etheras
((OOC))
Over the years, the "furry media" sites (FurAffinity, SoFurry, InkBunny, Weasyl, etc) have slowly but surely lost influence among furry circles to more "mainstream" sites and services. Some of the lost traffic was because of scandals, but some of it was just out of convenience (mobile app integration, for example). Chief among these was Tumblr. I saw a lot of furry art and artists uproot from furry-controlled sites and move to Tumblr, and felt that was unwise, not only for those persons, but for the fandom as a whole.
Like it or not, furry is always going to be pretty weird to "normies" because - let's face it - we're a little weird. So I don't see why we would ever want to place our work, our presence online, and our communities, in the hands of non-furries (or at-least those who don't have a stake in defending the fandom - obviously IMVU are not furries, but they have money invested in FA and want to see it succeed).
When Tumblr pulled all adult content, many furry artists and commissioners lost large chunks of their collections. Of course they probably had backups of the art itself, but these people cultivated a community, they had comments and suggestions and favorites in their collections - all wiped out.
I've seen a bit of an uptick in traffic since, especially on FurAffinity. I think that some furries realized their mistake and are coming back to the furry media sites, and I think that is a good thing. I think we should keep it in-house. Sites by furries, for furries.
But I've also seen a lot of Tumblr exiles going to Twitter. Why do this? You're just setting yourselves up to be the victims of the next purge. Tumblr wasn't the first, and probably won't be the last. People forget that furries (going by their furnames) once had profiles on Facebook until FB decided that their services do not extend to fictional characters.
So I guess that's my takeaway. I would like so see the fandom congregating around community sites once more, and its probably a good thing (big picture view) that Tumblr purged adult furry artwork. But I think it isn't so great that so many just hopped over to the next big faceless, normie website. So I think we should encourage them to _come home_ .
For those of you who do want to follow me on twitter, I'm @etherasfox , but I hardly ever use it. Here is still probably the best place. :)
Anyway - thanks for reading.
~ Lord Etheras
I also want to point out that Reddit and 4chan should also be avoided: very bad people like to use those sites.
It could be acceptable to use it as a "news" site for artists, and not as your main art page.
But that's only my opinion because I love twitter.
Why on earth would you, an artist, put your latest, greatest, and newest artwork on a platform that ENCOURAGES and rewards theft?
Tho I agree twitter is not made for artists to have a portfolio, or for users to look for a specific thing.
Yeah it will suck when all furry content gets banned from twitter but I made friends there in a better way than I did in fa.
Maybe something FA and sister sites are missing, or weak on, or whatever is discoverability. We all know the big-name furries, but there's a great wide field of really talented people who haven't reached that runaway popularity yet. Aside from the front page, all FA really offers is surfing someone else's favorites. Search, maybe, but there's a lot of content I like that isn't necessarily determined by a species, or a keyword.
Honestly tumblr was a sess pool. It reaked of all sorts of bad tasting people and not just the trolls that swam through it. I am talking dangerous communities of people. One example community would be the "Clover Gender" assholes. And if you don't know what that is it is people saying that their inner child is "10" so that means they get the right to do naughty and explicit things with actual 10 year olds. Pretty much a community of pedo's. (Keep in mind this is entirely different from the Little community. The little's outcasted these people fast). That is just one example of the sicko's that are no longer able to commune there. Which is actually a big relief if you ask me. Lots of their stuff was pulled and many were henceforth banned for all kinds of stuff. This is the main reason I stayed off Tumblr. So for me their wasn't any real change.
I think the Tumblr thing can help the furry community grow in a better way. And Twitter...I guess to a point it can help but only really a fraction of a hair since artwork is taken all the time on Twitter and most NSFW pics aren't even protected.It really doesn't take much to see all kinds of shit on Twitter.
Well thats my ramble. LOL Enjoy