Crush...Yiff...Destroy!

Karasawa · Qualificator Joined: 13 Jan 2005 Posts: 14

Costumes, cons, money flowing here and there for crazy reasons...
I missing a part of the puzzle in my mind. Why would an ordinary person go through being a fur?

DA · Vociferator Joined: 06 Jun 2003 Posts: 595

Nobody ever said they were sane. The star trek and anime fandoms are just as bad for those things you mentioned.

It comes down to obsession all to often.

Karasawa · Qualificator Joined: 13 Jan 2005 Posts: 14

True. You got a point there.

Stoneth · Vociferator Joined: 01 Dec 2004 Posts: 545

Everyone has their own interests, and in some cases these turn into obsessions. I've known many people with obsessions over Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh (who are over 18), or Everquest. At this very moment there are anime fans spending all their money on DVDs and manga, kigurumi cosplayers spending hundreds of dollars on masks, or other folks looking for misprinted stamps, Barbie dolls, comic books, etc. It's all about how much any one person obesses about their hobbies and how much filthy money they have to burn.

Although not all furry fans are rich. Some are content to not buy expensive costumes and sit at home pawing off to furry smut they got off Kazaa.

m_estrugo · Vociferator Joined: 13 Nov 2003 Posts: 353

I clearly see a lot of reasons.

First: because it's extremely easy to deny one's weaknesses by arguing you aren't what you really are, and prefer to be what you'd like to be by convincing yourself you're a wolf/dragon/whatever trapped in a puny human body. This kind of people choose creatures usually believed to be powerful and majestic, like wolves (I once met somebody who believed he had an ALPHA wolf's soul, like if actually wolves were alpha since thier birth), dragons (even if they're just mythical creatures), and so on.

(I'm tempted to do a sort of prank by inventing a cow soul trapped in a puny human body and trying to join a furry group or something).

Second: we humans are social beings and NEED to belong to some group, and acquire status and recognition within that group. Myself, for instance, am somewhat active in a few groups: webcomics, flightsimming, and web design.

Similarly, other people join other groups according with their interests and skills. From this point of view, it seems perfectly logical to think people would join the fandom and try to escalate the status ladder in it like in any other group.

The main trouble with furry fandom is that the ways to find that recognition anyone craves for are creepy for anyone outside the... uhm, cliche, especially since the fandom got more and more sex-related as time went by. The lax "everything is accepted and who the hell are you to dare critizising bizarreness" philosophy on furry fandom is behind that. Therefore, artists mediocre and under try to mask their lack of skills by drawing everything they can imagine to ascend on the status ladder, or acting like complete idiots when other furries are around to demonstrate they are a part of the cliche.

This behavior isn't exclusive of furries; it's part of our human nature. However, furries really take it to the extreme.

The third one I find is more related with sex, and specially with bizarre fetishes. It's not hard to realize that furry zoophilia is just zoophilia, furry pedophilia is just pedophilia, and so on... therefore, a certain part of the fandom is just a bunch of perverts quite happy to find an open community where they can find shelter, support and even encouragement to their fetishes. Those people have grown in importance on the fandom as time went by, enough to modify what's perceived as good and bad within the fandom:

I suppose there are many other reasons, but am kind of tired to type at this time, so I better leave it to others to find other "reasons" as of why the furry fasndom is as it is now.