This essay began as a project for class. The assignment was to interview an interesting person and write about it. I decided to interview a furry (who wishes to be anonymous) in order to show how interesting this person was and to show how furries are given a bad name.

to read the original post go to the tumblr post in the link below

http://4-evatimmy.tumblr.com/post/9...../anthro-normal
http://4-evatimmy.tumblr.com/post/9...../anthro-normal
http://4-evatimmy.tumblr.com/post/9...../anthro-normal

If not you can download the pdf or read it here:


On April 3rd, a man wakes up from his slumber at the hotel that he and several other of his friends have rented in the city of Boston. He rubs his eyes before pulling the covers off of himself and gazes out the window watching as the sun slowly casts its rays onto Fenway Park. Getting out of bed, he walks over to the bathroom tiptoeing around the piles of luggage and merchandise his roommates have picked up down at the convention center. After cleaning up his appearance, Adrien picks up his fake wolf head, puts on his tail and walks out of his hotel room. With a bounce in his step he walks down to the convention center waving to all the fellow convention goers on his way, none of them even questioning why there is a six foot tall wolf walking down the halls of their hotel. As he walks closer to the floors of the convention his personality begins to shift. He is getting into character for the day and is ready to put on a show for all of his fellow onlookers. He has seemingly transformed into another being known as Krosis. He is known as a furry or in other words a person who pretends they are an anthropomorphic animal. To those who do not truly understand what exactly being a furry means, they may view his behavior as deviant or utterly bizarre . Adrien or Krosis views this as an everyday occurrence, a normal part of his being. Simply put, it is his way of life.

Before delving into what being a furry means to Adrien, you have to understand who Adrien the human is. Adrien was raised for most of his life in Florida. As a child, he spent a majority of his time drawing. It was a major pass time of his. When he wasn’t creating artwork, he was being an active member in his schools drama club. There he acted in shows such as Avenue Q and Little Shop of Horrors. Adrien found an immense amount of joy from acting. He was also a star athlete and captain of his high school football team. This was guided by his love for the game and the fact that he was born with the body to play football. Adrien is currently taking online classes at a Massachusetts state university and lives with his girlfriend in an apartment that they have rented together.

Based on examining the basics of who Adrien is, he seems like your every day run of the mill person; this is because he is just that. What makes him different is that he is a furry. Adrien discovered that he was into anthropomorphism as a middle schooler. According to Adrien most children are exposed to anthropomorphism at a young age through mediums such as television and film. If you were to turn on the television to any children’s programing, chances are there will be a show on with a talking animal teaching life lessons to their audience. These kinds of programs are not only for children, there are many respected media outlets that produce programs with talking animals for all ages. Adrien just so happened to fall in love with this fantasy form of art. He did not know that there was a fandom for people interested in this art form until the age of fourteen when he entered his freshman year of high school. That was when he took the leap which would ultimately change his life for the better and became a furry.

The first step that one generally takes when they begin to identify as a furry is the creation of their character. This is what furries call a fursona which acts as an avatar of sort. Adrien’s fursona is a timber wolf named Krosis. On a physical level, Adrien chose this as his fursona because the fur on the timber wolf matches his hair color in real life. That, however, is not the only reason he chose that species as his fursona. Being an art form, he spent much of his time merging his personality into his fursona. In real life Adrien shared some behavioral similarities with wolves. These mannerisms included the way he itched his nose, the way he yawns, or to how he would howl after scoring the game winning touchdown while playing football in high school. On the next level, a lot of emotions went into the development of his fursona. Moving around the country as a kid impacted his life as a child. He always felt like he was on his own while making these transitions, but always felt the need to connect with people. In his words Adrien said “Wolves are loners, which for most of my life I was constantly moving around and was a “lone wolf”, but they can also be in a pack, like a group of family and friends.” This really portrayed the loneliness that he felt and the longing for companionship that he needed and ultimately received later in life. As of right now, Adrien has hundreds of drawings of his fursona and even has a costume of it which is called a fur suit in the furry community.

Jump ahead to modern times and Adrien is living happily as a furry. Through being a furry he has made many friends and even has met his current girlfriend, who is also a furry. Whenever he gets the chance he breaks out his furrsuit and wears it. This can be done in many different ways. All over the country there are conventions where other furs such as himself gather. There they set up booths and programs to share their love of the fandom with each other. This is where a lot of furs display the art that they have made depicting an anthropomorphic subject matter. He will also wear his fur suit out in everyday life. Whether it’s a quick walk around the block or a fun trip to the mall with his friends he will wear it just for fun. What is most astounding is that Adrien uses his fur suit to help those in need. These costumes generally attract a lot of attention and can be used to help out local charities and foundations. Organizers of these programs will get in contact with him and ask him to volunteer his time to wear his suit at their event to let people take photos of him and to interact with him. By doing this he and other furries like him have helped raise money for charitable causes. He does this all for free out of the goodness of his heart. He sincerely enjoys helping people and he uses his love of furries to do so.

One of the best parts about being a furry is the community within the fandom. Adrien feels that for the most part other furs are very open and welcoming. They are some of the most loyal and trustworthy friends that he has ever made. Their presence in his life has helped him out on many occasions. When meeting new furries, he can pretty much connect with them immediately because they seem to share a slew of common interests. This helps break down personal walls quicker so that a friendship can be forged faster than if they were just two random people meeting. While this is the case, he does encounter the occasional jerk, but that can be true when meeting people anywhere.

Unfortunately for Adrien, the negative stigma of being a furry does affect him. In recent years there has been an increasing amount of misunderstanding and prejudgments made towards furs and the furry community as a whole. This is heavily seen in how the media represents the furry community. Just last year the television show Dr. Phil ran an episode about furries. Instead of selecting a good person to properly represent the fandom, the executives when out of their way to find the craziest, creepy, most outrageous person to “represent” the fandom. By sacrificing their integrity to tell the truth, they chose to slam the hammer down on the furry minority just to boost their ratings. CSI also came out with an episode that also slammed the furry community and gave them a bad name. It is unknown where he got these figures but According to Adrien “in the fandom, only about 8% of furs have a full body fur suit and of that only 15% engage in sexual activity while wearing it. If you crunch the numbers, that’s only a handful of people in the fandom who display deviant behavior.” This is somewhat comparable to what has happened to other minority groups such as African Americans and homosexuals. Furries are being discriminated against based on the actions of a few select members of their community.

Even with all this hate, Adrien still stands by his decision to become a furry. “At the end of the day the only opinion that matters about yourself is your own”. That is why Adrien chooses to live freely and do what he loves. Regardless of whether he is a furry or not he is still a contributing member of society. During high school he was the captain of his football team and president of the student body who maintained a 3.8 GPA. He was and still is a normal person. He isn’t hurting anybody for liking the things that he loves to do. It is just harmless fun. Adrien understands the fact that not everyone is going to accept him for his choices and that sits well with him. They are not forced to like anyone and if they don’t like him for the person that his is then they are not worth Adrien’s time.

So what should you take out of learning about Adrien or Krosis the furry? No matter where you go or who you meet, the people you encounter will always be different. That is not a bad thing in any way, shape, or form. This is what makes the world a great and fascinating place to live in. It is our responsibility on this earth to accept people of their differences whether they are black, white, gay, straight, or just like dressing up as an animal in their free time. Let’s as a community try to remember this more often and become more tolerant and accepting of these differences. Let’s not jump to conclusions on people who we know nothing about. The world will be a better place for everyone if we just strived for the acceptance of everyone.