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Current state of the furry community?
5 years ago
What and where is the heart of the furry community in your opinion? Where would you recommend someone should get active to have the best experience?
• I feel even after all these years that if your looking for a heartbeat in the fandom is Fur Affinity. There are enough loyal users to the platform to keep it active enough not to be considered dying or dead, even if it's not profitable for the owners. I only really use FA to post updates on our content and check my notes, I pretty much avoid the submission inbox as I don't like the format. It's too much content to consume at once and becomes distracting. Many competitors have popped up to challenge FA but end up pandering to the same people and adopting similar agendas.
• Twitter as an alternative, is more modern in terms of paring a content post with an opinion, making content feel a bit more personal and easier to consume in chunks. However, the -community- aspect doesn't really exist, as what is considered suitable for your attention is determined by algorithms that wants to maximize engagement and advertisement. It feels as if everyone exists in their own bubble and rarely overlap organically. This has fallen into the same routine as FA for me, only posting updates and checking DMS, I do not check my timeline.
• Discord has so far been a good solution for making small communities as it has good tools for streaming/sharing content and rewarding progression for those that actively participate. However, this falls apart with server sizes consisting of 5k or more as only 1 or 2 channels will remain engaging to the user. Their DM system is rather lackluster with upload limits, lack of a competent tagging system or grouping. You can lose long-term conversations easily in the mix. It's basically skype/ventrillo with a few more bells and whistles, not something permanent for creating content.
• I know a lot of younger furries use Telegram for it's stickers/emoji sharing but I've never taken an interest. Making groups can be done on Discord and it's far too easy to impersonate someone. I would rather talk to someone and leave the stickers out. I don't think it's a good space for posting content unless your looking for instant gratification.
• Most of the furries I've seen on Youtube post videos about drama or aim the content towards kids. Considering most of the content you see on FA is suitable for adults, you won't see much of it there. Trying to watch this type of content often makes me cringe as the furry avatar or personality often doesn't compensate for the lack of entertainment. It's played like a gimmick to accompany something else.
• Conventions I feel are a concentrated form of furry culture, centered around sex and pride for better or worse. Fursuits become far more valued here as it's the go-to way to stand out from the crowd and express your furry interests. Artists do get a space to sell and share their work and enough panels exist to encourage people to socialize. However, the price to commit to a fursuit, travel, accommodation and other expenses limits attendance to only a select few, causing a lot of gate-keeping and snobbery. Only a small portion of the overall community attend conventions, with the rise of the pandemic they have all been cancelled for the foreseeable future.
Am I missing a few? There are small furry communities in video games like TF2, Second Life, VRchat and the like but they mostly boil down to customizing your avatar. Is the status quo of the furry community still going to be stuck on FA years from now? Is that a bad thing? I'm curious as to what you personally think.
• I feel even after all these years that if your looking for a heartbeat in the fandom is Fur Affinity. There are enough loyal users to the platform to keep it active enough not to be considered dying or dead, even if it's not profitable for the owners. I only really use FA to post updates on our content and check my notes, I pretty much avoid the submission inbox as I don't like the format. It's too much content to consume at once and becomes distracting. Many competitors have popped up to challenge FA but end up pandering to the same people and adopting similar agendas.
• Twitter as an alternative, is more modern in terms of paring a content post with an opinion, making content feel a bit more personal and easier to consume in chunks. However, the -community- aspect doesn't really exist, as what is considered suitable for your attention is determined by algorithms that wants to maximize engagement and advertisement. It feels as if everyone exists in their own bubble and rarely overlap organically. This has fallen into the same routine as FA for me, only posting updates and checking DMS, I do not check my timeline.
• Discord has so far been a good solution for making small communities as it has good tools for streaming/sharing content and rewarding progression for those that actively participate. However, this falls apart with server sizes consisting of 5k or more as only 1 or 2 channels will remain engaging to the user. Their DM system is rather lackluster with upload limits, lack of a competent tagging system or grouping. You can lose long-term conversations easily in the mix. It's basically skype/ventrillo with a few more bells and whistles, not something permanent for creating content.
• I know a lot of younger furries use Telegram for it's stickers/emoji sharing but I've never taken an interest. Making groups can be done on Discord and it's far too easy to impersonate someone. I would rather talk to someone and leave the stickers out. I don't think it's a good space for posting content unless your looking for instant gratification.
• Most of the furries I've seen on Youtube post videos about drama or aim the content towards kids. Considering most of the content you see on FA is suitable for adults, you won't see much of it there. Trying to watch this type of content often makes me cringe as the furry avatar or personality often doesn't compensate for the lack of entertainment. It's played like a gimmick to accompany something else.
• Conventions I feel are a concentrated form of furry culture, centered around sex and pride for better or worse. Fursuits become far more valued here as it's the go-to way to stand out from the crowd and express your furry interests. Artists do get a space to sell and share their work and enough panels exist to encourage people to socialize. However, the price to commit to a fursuit, travel, accommodation and other expenses limits attendance to only a select few, causing a lot of gate-keeping and snobbery. Only a small portion of the overall community attend conventions, with the rise of the pandemic they have all been cancelled for the foreseeable future.
Am I missing a few? There are small furry communities in video games like TF2, Second Life, VRchat and the like but they mostly boil down to customizing your avatar. Is the status quo of the furry community still going to be stuck on FA years from now? Is that a bad thing? I'm curious as to what you personally think.
Buying art / supporting artists / making friends with others whom like the same things.
Most of the time the drama has just blown ower my head as often it just seem like just to make a scene.
As with any community or fandom, it's going to get mobbed by people starving for attention and drudge up drama to fill that need.
Screw em.
Ignore the drama and the people bringing stupid crap to the table.
We need to make the Furry scene fun again like it was in the 90.
I've met some amazingly talented artists Jasonafex being one of them. I've had commissions, characters made, this community caused me to start writing a book series
I know this fandom has been given a 'bad' name in the past, but from my personal experience this fandom has been nothing but welcoming and understand maybe I haven't gone deep enough to see the quote 'dark side', but I think that more likely a vocal minority.
I cant say im in many discord servers but that for sure feels the best way to get involved with communities without it being solely art / avatar focused. Stuff like Second Life and F-list are /good/ but youre a second class citizen unless you pay for an avatar/artwork.
Telegram i find personally is better for 1:1 conversation and keeping in contact with people, groups can be a bit hit and miss but if you find a good one they stick.
It's like those websites that hoard flash games.
Ok, rant over *climbs off the soapbox*
I dont bother with other sites as whats the point?, i have a few artists i follow on patreon but im thinking about withdrawing from there. I dont do twitter or face book (i mean i have face book but its just there kinda thing.)
I am content with myself on the fandom and just go with the flow :)
The one thing that does annoy me however are all the ych posts and nothing to show for it! Og and adverts for patreon only pieces with no actually content on their page!
I don't truck with that. I've always considered myself to merely be a guest rather than a member, so I roam between small community pockets on a whim. I actively avoid the heart and pulse of furry culture, because it's not healthy.
One of many threads that track accusations: Here.
Check the sources, go over evidence, and reach your own conclusions. Personally, I've dealt with BD's shit first-hand, and I'm definitely not a fan.
your experience is based on who you choose to surround yourself with imo
Twitter were interesting for experiments like platform, but it's always take a concentration from you (in my case), I like it that people need some meaning in pictures or maybe some hype. You always need to be connected with subscribers, what I don't like in some case, you can spend whole of your time on this.
You also forget about Facebook. It's still works pretty well. I use it as my third platform right now. But it's not for nsfw stuff ofcource.
Cant comment on conventions, never been and not really interested. I'm just here for the artists with the neat artstyles and occasional commissions mostly making me unable to recommend anything other than FA since said artists tend to be here.
thats a tight question even for me
but there are No Straight Roads when we first walk
but that is always how we walked in paths we choose
That being said, where does the 'heart' lie in the community so to speak? A good question indeed, I'm fairly mixed on FA - I feel on one hand it's a good place to explore art and chat but on the other hand I find it to be somewhat walking on egg-shells when it domes to certain topics to discuss I feel we can't be as expressive with ourselves meanwhile in places I feel it's more 'open' shall we say.
But as far as centralizing everything I feel it can have the potential to be better than say the likes of Discord which through my experience tends to have a clique following in their servers. I usually have the "Boy, I sure feel like the black-sheep kind of guy around here!" feeling in most of those places.
So I guess despite some things I feel a little more comfortable on here? Like I said, I'm mixed. There's been some journals I've posted on some topics that I've taken down throughout the years as I thought it was a 'good idea'. But looking back on that now I regret it as it was like censoring myself and hiding how I am as a person.
Second Life however, has had more of my positive experiences. So I could go either/or with the two. So I guess I can say there isn't a true hub, but rather a network itself.
However, the ratio of YCH advertisement to actual art on FA is staggeringly bad and only getting worse. I watch just under 1000 artists and might see 300 - 400 submissions in a day. However, 290 - 390 of those are folks spamming their YCH, five are completed YCH, and the remaining five are personal art.
It used to be people drew art to draw art and share art. Now it's all mercenary with very little personal expression to be found.
The state of the community as a whole is honestly impossible to put a pin on these days. It's to big. Which is a good thing cause that means it's healthy. But it's also full of the best and worst kind of people from all corners of the world. Tight social circles are more and more prevalent and it's growing hard to stay a "community" and not "this persons group vs this other persons group".
Whatever else others do really is not my problem!
I met a discord group that is fun!
Really not interested in cons because the hyper sexual activity, as well as the hyper political bullshit makes it a waste of time.
Just talking to mellowed furry is enough for me!
By that same measure, I know many furs who have just gone socially off-grid, tired of just generally awful people with really... to be honest socially/mentally abusive qualities. As we get older our values change and for a lot of the 30+ crowd, I have noticed that comes in the form of wanting genuine, honest people, but we all still wanna be furries in our own ways even if that means ditching the mainstream side of the fandom in favor of peace and calm to just have a very small group of friends you truly know.
A single good friend is worth more than 1000 connection-less followers IMO
It's more like a fandom both with how there are smaller communities built up around friend groups and interests that intersect with the fandom.
Also, I choose to use the word fandom over community purposefully because that's more or less how we act now.
Sites like FA/E621/etc are more like hubs now more than anything.
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Twitter is a perfect example of what happens when immature, wild young adults (or probably just kids) are allowed to run rampant. Witch hunting, accusations, bickering, fighting, "Either you are my friend, or my enemy" mentality, attention seeking, mental breakdowns, and can be just overall completely unpleasant.
The concepts that goes completely over peoples heads on Twitter, it's amazing that some furries have "acceptable porn". When I ask, " Does feral porn leads to beastality?" The reply was, yes. "Does violent video games leads to violence." The reply was, no. That Jackie Chan 'what' expression meme couldn't be more relevant.
I even discussed this with my friend who is a huge bronie fan, just laughed and said that EXACT thing happened with bronie fandom years ago, and mocked furries for being behind the times, doing the exact same thing that lead to nothing.
The other problems with platforms with Twitter is age, it's clearly a popular spot for minors to get a lot of access to porn. I laugh at anyone that claims to ban minors, as I'm fairly certain anyone that publicly posts their age on their Twitter profile is just lying through their teeth for porn. Are people seriously thinking, "Profile that you type yourself says 20 years old. Sure thing buddy, not a minor, not going to ban."
And of course, Twitter bubbles. You are around your interests and only your interests. Bubbling people into hobbies as well as social behaviors. I swear there many groups of furries on Twitter that are completely unaware they are that they are grouped together, unable to see other parts of the fandom until something news breaking explodes.
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Discord has one major issue, you cannot mute specific groups. For example, this game I am supporting through the alpha, all I care about is game updates, yet, if I were to unmute it, I would hear EVERYTHING. Imagine a popular gaming internet forum, but you subscribe to every, single, thread. That is discord.
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I mostly use Telegram to communicate, it's easy on data, fast and quick to share content. Telegram groups however... Well, I made an archive folder just for that! Only checking in when I have interest, the archive folder is 31k unread messages wrong and unless I have a week vacation I do not care.
I much prefer Telegram regardless, I've grown to it, like I probably have 100+ people on there that I haven't spoken too in over a month. Which I've grown to like, they are at the bottom of the telegram list because I don't talk to them, but they are never deleted either, always organized by recent. Plus the search works pretty well, so if a friend made art I really enjoy, I can easily find them and comment directly to them.
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Youtube Furries don't really exist, none of them are entertainers, just rant channels. Woo.
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I think cons are a great place for furries to go and have fun. The only issue is I'm sure my experiences are vastly differently from others. I know a lot of people, so finding people to hang out with is really easy. As for fursuits, like... who cares? They look super uncomfortable anyways, the only reason I would want one, is to make murrsuit videos.
Otherwise, who cares for fursuits?
Also, customizing characters in Second life and VRchat is kind of the point and half of the fun. In TF2, it's just really fun when you get questions about the head prize or make jokes. I usually play as Furry Scunt with the mad milk or combine it with Sniper's Sydney Sleeper, Jarate, and Bushwacka. I call it, "Furry with a piss fetish."
Also look for support for white nationalism. Look for Confederate apologists. Look for Holocaust deniers.
To me drawing porn is just fun to do, furry porn falls into that category of fun activities to do in my spare time. Doing paid commision work is turning a fun activity to something that can help pa the billss. There are also a bunch of clients who are kind enough to commission me and i'm really grateful for them to want to do business with me. Other than that i just like well drawn images and interesting subjects, not even because it's porn in and of itself
So True!! It costs soooo much to make a fur suit! I have hogpogged a "fur-suit" together for myself. I found a $25 Wolf mask at walmart during halloween last year that i really liked. then I went online and bought some paw gloves for $15, a tail for $10. Found some "monster" house shoes at walmart for $10. and then baught an Easter Bunny suit from Walmart on sale for $10, and just cut off the head and tail. Wala! Budget Fur suit! :D
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/39489006/
From my point of view;
1. Artists have swelled up heads and charge outrageous prices for table art. I'm not buying a Picasso or Rembrandt.
2. Over priced fursuits.
3. Furry conventions are now over charged and in very high end hotels where the small guy can't get in.
4. The snobbery of most furs towards other furs. Supposed to be a family in the community? I haven't seen it, since I came in to this fandom.
5. Younger furs being very nasty towards the older furs, no respect, no consideration, and how bad they like to treat them.
I have had knives pulled in me BY other furs while I was in fursuit. Been abused by other furs walking by. Been physically hit by other furs while in fursuit. Been verbally abused by other furs in person and online.
There is more I would and could say. But in short, this fandom has become a snobbish high end popufur mess of nasties people. I have seen it first hand at local events and cons. I have seen how they treat others and myself. You could almost compare it to a bully club.
Just been the experiences I have had in the past 10-11 years since I started.
Just my two cents, not an actual rant.
I've been treated like shit on this site. People would snap at me for the stupidest crap, block me, insult me on my own page/submissions for my views and art.
I've been blocked by artists I've never even interacted with.
People are unforgiving as fuck about things that are forgivable. When I first got here I made some social mistakes due to ignorance and got blasted for it.
People didn't bother to see that I was a new guy based on my account creation date. They didn't bother to really judge if I was being dysfunctional on purpose or just a bit misguided. They didn't even bother to try and calmly talk things out.
All they interpreted was "This guy said something rude and dumb! Time to blast him!" so they did.
I'm glad someone is finally aggressing how hostile and toxic the fandom can be.
Sorry that shit happened to you I mean seriously knives? If the police could get involved that might help I don't know.
Well sorry about the shit, just to let you know I'm going through it too.
I digress. I hope the fandom sticks around. I hope FA stays forever, and that furres will flock to it time and time again.