this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2023
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Furry memes
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Seriously I need a sociologist to explain to me how the hell the whole furry thing became so popular
Not a sociologist but it's quite clear that the internet contributes to the rise in popularity in recent years. I feel like childhood exposure to media also contributes to the interest. Anthropomorphic animal characters are everywhere from movies to series to video games.
In addition to all that, the fandom has a very inclusive and accepting culture, so it's easy to get a sense of community within, which will make people more likely to stay.
From what I read in the thesis linked above, it's mostly about creating queer identities through communities. The acceptance of the sub-culture is clearly a factor as well. This is very foreign to me, but also super fascinating from a cultural perspective
Not a sociologist or a furry but...
If I had to guess it's probably a combination of various factors: kinks/fetishes being generally more common than we collectively know or talk about, the mass appeal of anthropomorphized characters to the generations of people who grew up with them, the entertainment and general appeal of putting your everyday self aside and portraying a character that you've created (see also, vtubers), the furry fandom/community's general vibe of acceptance and tolerance of just about anyone who decides to identify with it, and so on.
When it comes to the viability of furry art, I think that's actually much simpler: furries have a ton of pride and identity behind the characters that they create, and so they really value the idea of bespoke artwork that shows off their fursona in the best/coolest/cutest possible light.
Yes, I just learned about fursonas are a big part of the movement. As an outsider, all furriest looked the same to me. I had never noticed each is basically an avatar of someone
Yeah I worked with my artist over several days, my primary sona image (I'm not a suiter and never will be) is based on photos of me, has my eye color, wears clothes and accessories I actually owned at the time, uses the same medical device I do, incorporated my hobbies into the image.
I got the final picture and was like "holy shit it's me". Very very cool.
Animals are cute, and people like cute things.
Similar to anime, I guess.
I dunno, maybe ask the entire Egyptian pantheon. Or big chunks of the Hindu pantheon.
Or the 35000+ year old sona known as "the lion man". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion-man
Or the Leopard Man society from the Congo.
Or the Velites from Rome.
This ain't new; adopting animal traits and appearance to symbolize aspects of personality is OOOOLD behavior.
That's a good point
I typed in google scholar, used the key words: ethnography, furries, fetish, online communities
found this:
http://oastats.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/127662
Thanks for taking the time. That thesis is actually very informative. Specially chapter 1. I also learned about the otherkin. Wow... It's crazy how complex niches can be.