No.

Next question

An interesting question.

I'll say, though, that I disagree with your statement: "The furry fandom started as a haven for weirdos and outcasts." While there may be some truth to it, I think the fandom started simply from a common interest of stories with animal characters that possess some human trait. Bugs Bunny being anthropomorphic in a literal sense; or the rabbits in Watership Down having a culture, mythology and language all their own.

I think it was implying that in the past the fandom was more open to weirdos and outsiders than it is now. now it's very exclusive you gotta fit xyz to not be outcast

Perhaps. But you'll always have folks who like x but not y or z. So within the overarching group, you have subgroups. So long as the members of the subgroups know they're also members of the group, just as members of the other subgroups are. The problem comes when group x, not wanting to deal with group y, tries to redefine the overgroup.

Wow. I should not try to get philosophical.

I do want to inject some historical fact on this particular one:

The two gentlemen who founded Confurence 0 were a queer couple, and who explicitly formed the event in response to pushback over "those weird skunkfuckers".

Furry, as a social movement, was 100% a Queer Space from birth. Queers started it, queers grew it, and that's why furry has, from the earliest history, been seen as both a haven for outcasts, weirdos, perverts, and every other slur they wanted to stick on weird gay/queer folks.

So, given that in the years where furry was being founded, queers were absolutely considered "weirdos and outcasts"... yeah. The furry fandom started as a haven for weirdos and outcasts.

Change is the only constant ... embrace <3

This has to be one of the most shallow, narrow-minded non-questions you could ask about furries and even plan a kind of stream for.

How are you going to classify furries and "furries" differently? People who only get into it for pornography, or dark pornography? Because that's something that's been true since the beginning, that is just people. How are you going to say who is right and who is wrong to do what they innately want to do?

Furthermore, why do you need to separate people like that in the first place only as furries? If you're trying to make a moral argument, why is it focused on furries and not fandoms as a whole, considering the much more significant and clear cut difference of good and bad MLP fans? Like seriously, there's one guy who gets off to literally putting pregnant ponies into an actual meat grinder or skinning them.

And on top of that, why do you even need to imply that furries are in itself being ruined by some outside force when it's, in fact, furries themselves who do whatever dark twisted shit like that of their own accords? Why is it hard to accept people who are part of this are people who want to have that shit as furries, not humans?

With how diverse this "group" is (which it's not a group or community or anything close knit, it's more of brand that unanimously has non-humans involved, with their fingers in everything), wouldn't it make more sense to try and address humanity as a whole in that regard, with some people basically "ruining" humanity? How people in general are more willing to accept others for their terrible behaviors based on their own complicity, or to try and be accepting of things like people's pasts, the way they were raised, or even religions?

And to top that all off, "furries as a whole" will stand against nothing unanimously, because it's not a community. It's not a set of moral values to abide by. It's an extremely specific change to "furry" based solely in the content they like to see.

Your proposed idea of "furries" seeking an outside group for some kind of help, or taking a stand towards limiting the people you don't seem to approve of, to see as "ruining" a "group" would quite literally be a group that isn't directly furries but a group trying to represent them instead, represent something vast and nebulous, like some form of politicians to accomplish... what, exactly? To stem the tide of the people you disapprove of by cutting them out of where? FA? All furries everywhere?

Because they're still furries. They'll simply go to other sites where they're accepted. They're going to keep doing exactly what they want to do so long as they find places that enable them. Shit, on top of that, what makes you think they'd even really be able to cut people out at all? Do you know how much Pyroscale has done with people within vore circles being fully aware of him? And he's not banned. The staff on FA, for instance, takes a firm stance on 'if it happens off site, it's not our problem'. Do you know how much that applies to things including cheating commissions and stealing money? If furries can't even cut out someone like that, with people who are already "in charge" so inept, at what point would any kind of "collaboration" or "stand" would have a singular affect on anything but only the smallest of actual groups of people?

And the cherry on top, how would any of that keep the people you disapprove out for good? They'll just make shadowy groups within an attempted safe space, which in turn creates an atmosphere of pressure, judgement, stress. At which point, you're heavily hurting the reasons why people wanted to become furries at all, to have a freedom of expression without judgement. You start regulating people like that and try and force something that isn't a community into one that must abide by rules that others set. Who can't produce the content they want to. Be it for impactful writings or comics that sometimes get dark, or for not so subtle sexual gratification. And sidenote, the people who want the latter can still get by with the former.



In other words, "furries" are not a group. There are groups within this nebulous attachment. These groups sometimes already regulate who and what they allow, and already bring in people from the outside based on what that group likes, such as video games, fetish groups, movie watchers, whatever. And then there will always be those groups that are much more... well, pony mind breaking shit.

I have good news and bad news for you.

The good news is that you have valid concerns that I share.

The bad news is that you had many feelings and then projected said feelings onto this title and onto me, as if you didn't know what my talks were like or what my personal priorities are. It was a really tone-deaf wall of assumptions.

Sounds like you've been deeply hurt and disappointed many times before, and that's where you're writing from. I can respect and even rest with that pain. But please be careful about where you direct that energy. The effort you put into this proves it's a worthwhile discussion to have, so I hope at the very least you reconsider your first sentence.

^

But, if someone shows up in fandom, how much of an outsider can they really be? I mean like we've all heard about - and some of us have been - Something Awful goons or Channers who started out making fun of furries and then showed up in furry places and then boom, 2-3 years later there's this much happier furry fan or whatever. That sort of thing.

I feel you. Definitely spent years making fun of furries before going to my first convention and realizing it was a precious experience on this earth!

Just... I think literally nobody's actually a stranger here. Someone who really doesn't like furries won't show up at all, someone who's just there for the great party will have the great party and leave, and everyone else is already into it and about to become more so.

It always seems to be the case that outsider / minority groups paradoxically want acceptance and fall in love with their liminal status. It's extremely difficult to have both; i think only an individual can manage it (A shaman, or a David Bowie like figure) ... for a group... impossible.

Relevant:

https://twitter.com/caro/status/562991569041895424

https://www.toptal.com/finance/busi.....tress-industry (the green advertisement)

That is a beautifully summarized idea, my good Carthage. Thank you for those words and the ads. I'll be thinking about both throughout the day, I'm sure!

It isnt hard to see that furries tend to fall for the idea of many things, rather than the actual thing in question.
But nice post friend.

Without "outsiders" any fandom dies. When it becomes closed-off and cultish, it begins the decline into irrelevance.

Sounds like you haven't watched the talk yet. (: