I ‘found’ the community so long ago I don’t quite remember if it was a strangely good fan comic about cartoons I watched, a general interest in “hey what do these animal people do on the internet”, or porn. It was definitely online, though. Either way, I simply decided I was going to be part of it at one point after learning about it, and that was that. I always appreciated the art of animation in all its forms, and it just so happens that a lot of animated things are anthropomorphic animals, so that could also be why I was initially interested in exploring it. As with all things in life, it just happened, I didn’t wake up one day with a total understanding of wanting to be a furry, it was gradual and took months or close to a year to fully embrace it and learn self-expression.

I consider ‘being a furry’ to be a general positive interest in anthropomorphised animals, but with some special sauce that’s very hard to explain. In my head, there’s a subtle difference between working for Disney being the character designer for Nick Wilde, and being a furry. It can be a hobby, it can be a kink, a profession, an outlet, a mask, a way to socialise, can be all of that at once and more, or just one of those things. There is no solid definition. A lot would agree that “interest” covers it as an umbrella definition - and that interest goes in various directions and to various degrees.

I personally like a lot of things to do with the characters/fursonas - character design, character art, how expressive they are, and how much soul and raw human creativity OCs have in relation to their creators. I appreciate art, expression and self-expression, and with furries those things are ubiquitous and highly visible once you’re in and go beyond the sex pest surface that ‘normies’ see or the top-100 score on e926.

I’m not the social kind, at all, and that gnawed at me for a while. I found refuge in being part of the community, even if I am practically silent.

The community has a ridiculously high number of really cool people in it that I seriously enjoy talking to, keeping up with and sharing a lot of interests with. Don’t confuse this with me saying it’s perfect - as with all social gatherings, there are truly evil and weird people, but everyone has been good to me.

I like how welcoming it is and how open and friendly everyone is to newcomers. I also like how shamelessly weird you can be as part of it - no one really judges absolutely degenerate “I’m the only person with this” kinks or very niche and weird interests. And while now this applies to more corners of society, and internet in particular, than it did 10 or 20 years ago, and there are wholesome communities out there, it’s still rare. The furry community has always held itself to a higher standard of acceptance, being the constant victim of abuse and trolling and the eternal lulcow, it kind of had no choice. I related to that part too and wished to be that resilient. And even today as more and more places get invaded with astroturfing, politics, self-pity, bots, trolls, AI slop, and generally evil people, it remains a good refuge for me.

There’s something inherently special I feel that I can’t quite quantify in various such niche-but-numerous communities, I feel the same about certain TV fandoms or more obscure memes or tiny invisible-to-the-public trends. Big communities and even society at large have never been particularly kind or accepting to me, being a furry helped me understand that it doesn’t have to be that way.