Crush...Yiff...Destroy!

Rankin · Coadjutor Joined: 03 Jan 2004 Posts: 488

Let me relate to you all a bit of history from what is to shortly become my "old stomping ground".

I'm leaving California, and with it, much of my misspent youth. As one who's been through the whole "Furry" phase, I'd like to give you all a touch of history regarding Furries and the Silicon Valley. This, however, is not a "scritchies and love" story, but rather the growth and expansion of the fandom, how it empowered one company, ended up tarnishing it's reputation, only to be forcibly removed from the ranks within.

Let me preface my writ with this shocking bit of information: The initial round of furries on the internet were intelligent folks. Being on the internet in the early 1990s was no easy task. Everyone had their own funky system, be it some horrid custom version of Trumpet Winsock, SLiRP (how maintained by the illustrious Kelly Price), a shell via the dial-in pool to the University's VAX/etc, or what have you. It was not easy to contend with, and many programs just would not work together.

Being on the Internet in these years meant that you had to learn how to make things work; tweaking your system so your mouse and modem could work at the same time (if you were a PC folk), trying to obtain "modern" software for your Mac, or finding a CBM compatible TCP stack for your Amiga. Times were rough, and on the whole, spam free.

A young company, Taos Mountain (established '89) somehow managed to obtain a few of these folks. Being as all furries are, these talented individuals told their newly-found employer as to their social casts. This didn't bother Taos, as, what did they care? These folks were more than capable of doing their job. These smart people brought their friends into Taos, who were also intelligent, and it was good. Taos noted this, and decided "We need more people like this."

Time passed. Wuff begat Fox who begat Skunk who begat YiffyFoxtailsHermVixenTaur.

It's now the mid- to late 90s. Microsoft is now offering their own TCP stack with the release of Windows 95; MacTCP has been antiquated for Open Transport, and even the aging Amiga has over 4 different CBM compatible TCP stacks. Windows 3.1 users can get their very own TCP stack with Internet Explorer 3. Life was good. Or so, we thought.

With the expansion of software, the explosion of the internet brought new folk, and with them, 'point and click' internet accessability. No longer was one required to understand, well, much of anything. Aside from having a browser and a telnet client, no further intellect was required to become a part of the fandom.

Taos, for some reason, did not understand this. They continued to hire furries by leaps and bounds - only to find that their new hires were incapable of doing their jobs, and worse, these folks were more than merely quirky; they were adamant that they were their totem animal, and really made Taos look bad to their clients (of which Taos prior seemed to manage quite well upon it's own laurels). Regardless, they kept hiring - after all, some furries which they hired were intelligent. Perhaps these were just a bad batch, even if they outnumbered the initial crowd.

In the December 9th, 1999 issue of MetroActive, they even did a piece on furries in the Valley. This, however, was quite late in the game. (I must assume this 'puff piece' was sitting on the back burner and was only used when it was a 'Break the glass, there's no news!' day...)

"I'm a wolf, and that's who I am," Ben says with serene certainty. "There's a lot of integrity and balance that comes with living your life partially as an animal." In Silicon Valley, Ben is just one member of a growing pack of human animals who know that there's more to life than so-called civilization. They call themselves furries, and there are a lot more of them around than you probably realize. As Ben joked, "A lot of us secretly feel that if furries went on strike the whole valley would grind to a halt."

So many furries have migrated to the valley that there are even some spots which have become notorious dens of furriness. In Sunnyvale and Santa Clara, a few apartment complexes are known to insiders as The Furry Arms; and network administration consultancy Taos Mountain (www.taos.com) is considered by many to be a furry-friendly company.

This was not meant to be, however. The influx of new furries into Taos were becoming dumber, and even more blatant in their "I AM NOT A HUMAN" shtick. It's one thing to have quirks, but responding to your boss with yelps and howls does little to increase their faith.

Clients complained and folks were reassigned. Taos lost more and more footing, and several clients.

After a spell of internal debate, Taos realized that it was fairly unwise to hire people based on the precognitive assumption that "Furry = Smart", and selectively went through their portfolio with an axe; laying waste to nearly any and all besmirched with ears and a tail.

These days, it's rare to find a known furry employed by Taos, little alone other companies "once bitten, twice yiffed".

Josh Z. · Qualificator Joined: 13 Jun 2004 Posts: 29

Isn't it kind of rare to find a furry employed, period? :)

And hey, I kept running Trumpet Winsock even after I upgraded from 3.1 to 95. On my 486sx/25.. blaaaaaazing.

ZenZhu · Coadjutor Joined: 22 Mar 2004 Posts: 475

Interesting stuff. You never really think there's non-furries that are THAT aware of furries at all, let alone using furryness as a hiring tool. Not much I can add to your history, as I grew up where I figured I was the only fury-fan (cringing to refer to myself in any sense like that... but I was at the time so....<shrug>). The article you cited brings up a few things, though.

"I'm a wolf, and that's who I am," Ben says with serene certainty. "There's a lot of integrity and balance that comes with living your life partially as an animal."

This is one thing I see more and more with furries, especially since coming here and hearing tales from people more in-the-know about furrydom. There's a lot of this idea of "thinking of myself as an animal lets me do what other people are capable of doing normally without thinking that way." I'm not sure where the line gets drawn. As a nerdy, introverted youth who drew morphs, I decided one day that I was simply going to be more outgoing, look people in the eye, and actually engage them in conversation when they asked me how I was doing... instead of muttering some incoherent response into my chest. What does it take for a person to decide "this is how I want to be as a person... so I'll be it" as opposed to "this is how I want to be as a person, so I'll think of myself as an animal so I can behave that way."

You might joke that furries need a middle-man to their emotions. Say someone is afraid of the dark. They get tired of it, and confront their fear and eventually overcome it. A furry, on the other hand, would almost have to get tied of being afraid of the dark, convince themselves they're a bat spirit, and then overcome it. Instead of simply getting in touch with their emotions, they need some imaginary animal to be a mediator between them and their own emotions.

Maybe it's similar to what I've theorized about furry sex... how they're not comfortable with the reality of human sexuality, so they have to adopt this animal guise as a means of justifying their baser behaviors.

"anthropomorphics," people who enjoy comics about anthropomorphized animals (most famously, Omaha the Cat)

The "most famous" morph comic being Omaha the Cat? Is it any wonder furry was set onto a slippery slope? With classic comics such as Scrooge McDuck also being anthropomorphic, these folks always pick out Omaha. Maybe I ran in the wrong furry circles on the 'net way back when, but I always thought Albedo was the best-known comic and Xanadu was slightly lesser known, but much much better in terms of professional quality.

Tom "Howling" Geller found himself attracted to furdom at the age of 30 because he wanted to rethink the way he related to his body. "Among furries, I heard the term 'misincarnated,' which refers to a feeling that you aren't in the right kind of body. And I realized that I had actually forgotten I was incarnated in the first place." He smiled, "I think it's a geek thing to forget about your body."

Gee... what do you suppose his body is like????? Silly me... I bought an elliptical trainer and use a 9lb. Body Bar for sword/staff practice. Obviously, I have no clue what this particular fellow looks like, but that's one thing that always eluded me with furries... with them trying to be so much more like their favorite animal.. even to extremes like Catman.. you'd think that physical fittness would be part of that. You know.. "cheetah spirits" would take up jogging.. a misplaced Kodiak soul might look into power lifting... more fish, less Twinkies.. etc.

Ben believes that in the furry community, "there's a willingness to see people and things for what they are rather than what they appear to be. To be a furry, you have to react to the person inside rather than what they look like."

This always... always mystifies me.... the notion that what you see on the 'net is more real than what you would see in reality. There's this grand illusion that what you see of a person on the 'net is devoid of facades. In reality, what you see is, at best, a mere sliver of a total person. In the case of furries, the entire course of interaction through the 'net is nothing but a series of facades. Even if you are being totally yourself in conversation online... the fact that you are a 300lb man acting out your fantasy that you are, spiritually, a wolf with a 32" waist and bulging biceps is already putting up a facade. If I saw more overweight wolves, balding lions, and generally non-Adonis-like characters, I might not have come to the conclusion that the idea that you're seeing the "real" person, without pretenses, was total tripe. And for many furries, it seems what the person looks like is the least of the freak-factors, compared to "the person inside."

It's a collective dedication to open-mindedness that inspires furries to draw together in packs. Just as animals do not make moral judgments about sexual expression, body shape and physical touching, so also many furries cast aside judgment to welcome any fur into the group who wishes to join it.

The furry love of companionship, physical affection and sexual openness has sometimes led outsiders to mistake furriness for a sexual fetish. But to claim that furriness is only about sex is a misunderstanding.

There's a bit of history there. A few years ago, furries were so much better at wagging the dog, that they could actually convince journalists that the idea being able to instigate an orgy of bloated flesh with the simple invocation of "Yiff?" (going back to a Furry2Furry reference)... or dog dildos on hotel doors wasn't about sex.

As Tom said, "I'm a furry because I want to be fearless about having feelings. I look to animals for ways of expressing myself about how I feel."

And here we go back to the whole theme of people that are not so much more comfortable as animals but that are simply very uncomfortable as humans... not because they are misplaced animal spirits, but because, for some reason, they cannot give themselves license to live, laugh, and love as normal people do... they have to justify expressing their emotions by claiming it is more "animal-like," rather than simply the human thing to do.

In light of this, perhaps it's small wonder why there are so many "prison gay, misplaced animal spirits" out there. You have young men that, even if straight, are more emotional than what society tells a man he should be. Those of us who grew up as geeks know the conflict that arises between what we ARE like... often more sensitive, artistic, intellectual and expressive... and what we are expected to be like... distant, unemotional neanderthals who prefer to watch the Rams battle the Packers than HGTV.

A lot of us geeks eventually decided worrying about what we were expected to be was bullshit. If we wanted to watch Battlestar Galactica instead of the Lakers game, then the portion of society that thought that was unacceptable could go fuck itself. The portion of society that suggests I'm a little fey for not caring about Cardinal's baseball and watching Designer's Challenge and Emeril Live can go jump off a bridge for all I care.

But, maybe some folks just can't take that pressure. They don't fit the mold that society expects them to fill, and they need a way to make that difference okay... they can't justify it to themselves, so they need to seek some form of external justification. They need a crutch so they can feel okay for being different.... and the whole "misincarnated animal" thing gives them the support they need.

The irony is that they seek to be more in touch with their "inner animal" in order to give themselves the license to be human.

Rankin · Coadjutor Joined: 03 Jan 2004 Posts: 488

Tom "Howling" Geller found himself attracted to furdom at the age of 30 because he wanted to rethink the way he related to his body. "Among furries, I heard the term 'misincarnated,' which refers to a feeling that you aren't in the right kind of body. And I realized that I had actually forgotten I was incarnated in the first place." He smiled, "I think it's a geek thing to forget about your body."

Gee... what do you suppose his body is like?????

I know it's merely more pointless dreck; however, Tom remains a cornerstone, and a figurehead for both furry, and the Anti-Spam movement. He's quite thin, at least, the last I saw him, but that's an attribute to his drug abuse. This fact that he's a hard-core druggy just tends to be whitewashed over, as he somehow manages to play it off rather than going Trainspotting.

A somewhat silly story made short: A friend went to a furry party to "mingle", and being blessed that not only that he had a job, but a car, and knew how to drive, was coerced into picking up Tom. Aparrently, Tom started fiddling with his stash in the car; which for obvious reasons made this person quite unhappy and squeamish.

Regarding your ideas on Furry Sex, I think it's quite a bit more simplistic than that. Many folks merely adhere to the "furry" section as it's easier for them to pass off their underlying kinks, be it scat, pedophilia, size play, et al. For the rest, or the "vanilla", they're probably just too busy wallowing in their low self esteem to have sex in any other manner.

Wayd Wolf · Coadjutor Joined: 06 Oct 2003 Posts: 456

Re: furries and sex... Low self-esteem is where it begins but a full-scale embrace of pious victimhood comes next and then on to the usual poser ennui and self-created estrangement and voila, you end up with people who can't grasp that if stroking yourself feels good, then someone else stroking you would feel better and you just have to get past that awkwardness of being exposed in front of someone else.

Normal people take it as an a priori assumption that the other person will be just as exposed and so it doesn't matter, you're equally horny, hopefully, and going to get off together.

Furries scream bloody murder about mass society's media images of what beauty is but can't back up their blather about their own fat carcasses being just as beautiful by actually being comfortable with them. Instead, they desperately wish they were some other species so they can suddenly jump to the superiority they imagine it would give them. Overnight, they'd be the most handsome and sexy which in their minds they were unfairly robbed of being as they all believe if things went on merit then they with their open mindedness and emo-at-all-times natures would make them the natural born world leaders.

For a fandom so horny, so few can actually bring themselves to do more than give someone a handjob and often won't let the other person touch them. They'd be so much happier if they did.

(Maybe we should be worried more that the ones who CAN manage to fuck so often engage in the most deranged versions of it, leaving scatalogical messes for hotel staff to clean up, never mind semen on public walls.)

On top of it, they're often more obsessed with image than society at large ever is and are among the first to privately carp about some furs' looks when they themselves are no visual breakfast at Denny's. But they do tend to look like they never eat anywhere else.

When word gets out that you have had sex with furry female "X" then you're first regarded as almost legendary, for all of five nanoseconds, then hated because it was you and not them. Same goes among the bi and gay population for publicly thought of as hot fur "Y". "You got to yiff "X" and I didn't? You scumbag!"

If you can't get laid with people who will practically rape you if you give them half a chance and have no real standards and just like to screw, you're doing something incredibly wrong.

More incredibly, this is everyday for furries.

Re: Taos... What a fucked up company to think that furry=smart. For crying out loud, furries may tend to be TECHNICALLY INCLINED, but that DOES NOT then extend to SMART. Smart implies experience, realistic attachment to reality, proper working attitude, serious intent behind actions as if they mattered, and just plain ability to interact with everyone around them. Furries by and large can't possibly match that. Never mind that the more technically adept furries are, the more they arrogantly look down on everyone else. Baloo's egocentric views on the "lusers" who pay his freaking salary over at a.f.f have been a staple there for years and an openly known thing.

It reminds me of companies that started up on college kids who all played AD&D or Avalon Hill games together and tended to hire only same-minded people and looked down their noses at the outside world who "just didn't get it". Sooner or later, their customers got the idea that THEY didn't get it and soon, they didn't. The customers' business that is.

mouse · Coadjutor Joined: 13 Jul 2003 Posts: 662

Hiring based on assumptions is just a bad hiring practice all around. Im surprised they did that to begin with. At least in a technically oriented or dealing with customers sort of company or position.

Anyway, outside of Taos, again I don't think it matters. This topic has come up before on here. If you walk into a job interview talking about furry fandom, youre a retard. Its completely illogical to do something like that. If furries don't get hired for job 'because they are furries', its not because of that fact alone, see? It doesnt even matter if we are talking about furry fandom as a fetish or furry fandom as a hobby. Would you tell the guy interviewing you for a job you are into bondage? Then why tell them you are into star trek/horror movies/cartoons/baseball cards/whatever ?

The interviewer wants to know if you can do the job, and are not going to end up hurting the company. Outside of that, I don't see where anything else comes into it. Working in a large office, I've gone out to company parties at bars after work and there is all kinds of fucked up shit going on. Usually none of it is serious enough to end up popping up at work the next day and getting people fired .

ZenZhu · Coadjutor Joined: 22 Mar 2004 Posts: 475

I know it's merely more pointless dreck; however, Tom remains a cornerstone, and a figurehead for both furry, and the Anti-Spam movement. He's quite thin, at least, the last I saw him, but that's an attribute to his drug abuse. This fact that he's a hard-core druggy just tends to be whitewashed over, as he somehow manages to play it off rather than going Trainspotting.

Hence why I also stated I couldn't say what his body was like, specifically. But, the statement he made served to bridge to my point that I would think trying to be more like a wolf, cheetah, or whatever would include trying to become fit like most animals.. but doesn't. If he's a user, though, that whole "forget your body" thing goes off in a whole different direction.