If you spend a lot of time online you must have heard of furries, but if you haven’t, come with me and I’ll explain.
Let’s go! The furry community – or furry fandom – is a subculture whose interest is anthropomorphic – or anthrozoomorphic – creatures, that is, animals with human characteristics. Since they are known by the fandom simply as anthro, we’ll use ‘anthro’ in this text to make it easier.
To give a quick context, fandom dates back to the mid-1970s, having its roots in science fiction events, but I believe the ancient Egyptians might disagree.
The fandom is not tied to a specific media – series, game or book – ranging from other fandoms to completely original characters. Internally there is a strong sense of community, especially artistic; those who are part of the community consume what is produced within the community. Furry artists end up having a certain prominent place because they feed the community by producing art, music, literature, clothes and fursuits.
The community has a strong LGBT+ influence and is attended by various minorities. With a reputation for being welcoming and, above all, open about issues such as sexuality, the fandom ends up embracing the diversity of its members, giving them space to explore issues that are more difficult to bring up in society, such as gender and sexuality.
By having this sexual character, and I put it in quotes, linked to bestial characters, many people outside the community judge furries as something perverted, often associating them with zoophilia. Which is far from being the case!
The fandom has been gaining notoriety, especially online, and nowadays several furry events are taking place around the world. On one hand, this ease of access makes the community grow, and on the other hand, misinformation and prejudice also grow.
Furries in the Media
Now that you know what the furry community is, let’s explore the presence they have in games.
In the media, the furry “aesthetic” has been present from very early on as well, especially in cartoons, with animations starring furry characters since the early 1920s. In videogames our beloved furry characters haven’t been left out either, with great titles such as Star Fox, Sonic the Hedgehog, Crash Bandicoot among others.
In this context it is worth mentioning Furcadia, released in 96 for PC, which was a MMORPG produced by furries, highlighting the strength of “endo-production” within the fandom.
Nowadays we see more and more non-human characters diversifying our games – from indies to AAA games – it is hard to list them. The public welcomes games with playable animals like the indies: Night in the Woods, Hollow Knight, Rival of Aether. And AAA games like Multiversus, Final Fantasy XIV, Animal Crossing.
Many anthro characters fall into the popular taste, becoming company mascots, like Sonic became the face of SEGA, and even leading to the creation of original characters based on the show, inspired by some anthro creature. Many of these behaviors are very present in the community, especially creating your own “furry persona,” called a fursona, based or not on a fictional or series species.
But wait, am I furry?
Calm down. Just because you like a media or anthro character does not make you a furry. You don’t get into the fandom of a movie just by watching it, do you? And as I said in the beginning, furry fandom is a subculture. To be part of it you need to be emerged in that context.
However, it is not because you are not part of the community that it is not worth getting to know it a little better to break the impression you have of the people who are part of the fandom.
Media acceptance vs. community
We have already seen some examples of games with anthro characters that have had warm acceptance from the public, so what? How does this affect the community?
Well, not much, not directly. With anthro characters taking more and more space in the media, more people end up coming across content produced by the furry community. Numerous fanart and literature of furry characters are often produced by the community, this includes more erotic art, which generates disgust from people who are unfamiliar with the fandom.
This behavior of aversion to furries, which is mainly noticed online, has already left the Internet and has generated cases of more serious physical aggression, such as the gas bomb attack on a furry convention in 2014, which took more than 19 people to the hospital, to this day without explanation.
Much of this aggression towards the community comes from a lack of knowledge, generating ‘memes’ that lead to more aggressive behavior. Which contrasts with how anthro characters are widely accepted in various media.
The furry community is very receptive, and unlike how anthro characters are accepted, it doesn’t have the same reception from the general public. So then I come back to the first question, do you know what furries are or an idea based on a ‘meme’ and pre-judgment? It’s worth a little thought and thinking about the people behind the mask before you judge people.
