Month: June 2015

as originally posted on adjective species.com

At what age do furries start to be furries?

We can be confident that furry must have its genesis in environment, not genetics, because furry is a modern phenomenon. It’s probably fair to guess that exposure to some aspect of culture during childhood is important, likely cartoon animals. Furry might well come about during adolescence, in transition from childhood to adulthood, as an artefact of certain childhood experiences.

This places furry as something which is first experienced, from a personal point of view, as a young teenager. This is the time we start high school, and learn about the social horrors that can lurk within if you don’t “fit in”. Furry would count, in most high school social hierarchies, as a Bad Thing, and therefore probably as something that requires management or concealment.

This makes furry a “concealable stigma”, a phrase sometimes applied to the condition of being LGBT. Someone with a concealable stigma has a different social experience: they learn to be careful about disclosure unless they are confident in the reaction they will receive. Someone with a concealable stigma may tend to be socially withdrawn, and simultaneously closely attuned to the reactions of others. These coping mechanisms can have a significant impact on decisions in adult life, including career choices.

There are positive and negative aspects to such learned behaviours. Being socially withdrawn helps people gain personal independence, but also means that social confidence can lag behind. Being attuned to the reactions of others may make people appear socially anxious, but also means that some interpersonal skills may be unusually advanced.

We can broadly see these personality traits in the furry population. We are a pretty geeky group, which may indicate a certain combination of personal independence and social anxiety. There are also a lot of artistic furs, who might be seen to have unusually intuitive connections to others, tempered by a predisposition to self-doubt. It’s possible that these personality traits are not innate: they could have developed during adolescence, as furries learned coping strategies for their concealable stigma.

Of course, when we look at furry and see the preponderance of geeks and artists, it’s easy to conclude that geeks and artists are simply more likely to identify as furs. It’s counterintuitive to suggest that people might become geeky or artistic as an outcome of furry. Yet there is evidence this may be the case, as outlined by a paper published earlier this year (Ref 1) looking at favoured occupations of groups with a concealable stigma, specifically gay and lesbian groups.

Just as furs are over-represented in IT and in the artistic professional worlds, there are some jobs in which gay men and lesbian women stereotypically congregate. Gay and lesbian professional occupations are often judged, like furries, to be a natural outcome of the “the sort of person” that gay/lesbian people are. So gay men are thought to be feminine and therefore likely to perform “women’s” jobs (like flight attendants or hairdressers), and lesbian women are thought to perform “men’s” jobs (like probation officers or mechanics). And while it is true in all the examples that I’ve given, gay men and lesbian women also congregate in other jobs that can’t be similarly, lazily dropped into a gender basket. For example, gay men are much more likely to be news reporters than straight men, and lesbian women are much more likely to be sociologists. Overall, the majority of gay men and lesbian women work in occupations where the majority of workers are the same sex, i.e. male-dominated and female-dominated jobs respectively (Ref 2).

The paper provides evidence that the professions of gay men and lesbian women has nothing to do with gender roles. In its way, it add to the growing body of evidence that gender roles (in general) are at worst imaginary and at best lazy stereotypes. It certainly demonstrates that to categorize all gay men as “feminine” and all lesbian women as “masculine” is wrong.

It’s equally lazy to stereotype furries as geeks (or artists). Furry certainly has plenty of geeks (and artists), but furry itself is neither a geek phenomenon nor an artistic one. We have our origins in geek fandom groups, and there is still plenty of crossover with modern-day fandoms. (And we are remarkably prolific from an artistic point of view, the act of creation being a key feature of furry culture.) But neither geekdom nor artistic output is required to identify as a furry or to participate in furry’s animal-person roleplay.

Being a furry in high school can be socially stigmatic. The stigma is concealable, in that it’s possible to hide furriness from others (just like it’s possible to hide non-heterosexuality). However this comes at a personal cost, because it means that you cannot fully express yourself. The challenge for someone with a concealable stigma, then, is to manage the sharing of information to allow personal expression without unduly risking social status.

This challenge goes beyond high school, and includes other social situations where being furry might be stigmatized (perhaps a family environment or the workplace). It’s common for furs to present edited versions of themselves, not being false but not being completely open either. It’s the same trade-off, between a desire for honest self-expression and the need to be seen as socially appropriate.

This challenge may well inform furry professional choices. There are two drivers, supply-side and demand-side:-

The supply-side driver is the wants of the prospective employee, in this case a furry. Because expressions of furriness are potentially stigmatic, furries may be driven to work in occupations where there is less interaction with peers. These are job with high “task independence”; a role where little interaction with others is required to perform a task (Ref 3). A simple example of a job with task independence is a bus driver: while the driver doesn’t have any control over his route, she can perform her job with very little peer interaction.

As it turns out, programming scores highly for task independence. While some peer interaction is required, and varies depending on the actual job, the bulk of the professional work is performed alone. It makes sense that furries would be attracted to programming roles, because there is less identity management required than many other jobs.

Conversely, the demand-side driver is the wants of the prospective employer. Someone with a concealable stigma may develop social coping skills during those formative high school years that place an emphasis on understanding and predicting the social reactions of others (Ref 6, Ref 7). This is a rare skill, and rare skills attract higher demand: more pay, or more attractive working conditions. It makes sense that a group with a concealable stigma, like furries, would excel in roles that require sensitivity towards the reactions of others: “social perceptiveness” (Ref 4).

As you may have guessed, most artistic occupations score highly for social perceptiveness. This requirement probably relates to the social challenges associated with translating the desires of others into art. People who have excellent skills in this area, perhaps furries who learned them as a coping strategy, are more likely to have the necessary aptitude to be successful artists.

There are jobs that have a combination of high task independence and require high social perceptiveness. These include front line IT support, flight attendants, and medicine. These jobs may be natural careers for furries, and indeed for other groups with a similarly concealable stigma.

There is another force at work that is known to have a significant effect on professional choices: dark networks (Ref 5). A dark network is an informal network of people who connect in a way invisible to the normal structures of the workplace. Furry is an unusually strong dark network, because we are a spread-out group that crosses many common social hurdles (age, affluence, race, gender, etc), and we have a particularly close connection with one another. This means that furs will tend to be attracted to jobs that are known to already have a significant furry population.

Dark networks can account for furry hotspots, where certain companies or certain roles are otherwise inexplicably furry-heavy. They can also reinforce the concept that some jobs are a natural furry choice, as is currently the case with IT and related disciplines.

Like everyone, furry and non-furry, our experiences help inform who we are. Furry experiences tend to diverge from the mainstream, either in the way we express ourselves in all-furry environments, or the way we manage our identity in the mundane worlds of school, family, and work. The internal and social skills required to negotiate these environments (as a furry) are often markedly different from those skills required by non-furries when negotiating the mainstream world.

The preponderance of furry in IT and artistic circles may have less to do with what makes us furry, and more to do with what furry makes us.

Refs

A Tilcsik, M Anteby, & CR Knight, Concealable Stigma and Occupational Segregation: Toward a Theory of Gay and Lesbian Occupations, Administrative Science Quarterly 2015
Data from the American Community Survey, where gay and lesbian workers were defined as employed individuals living with an unmarried same-sex partner.
O*Net Online “work values | independence” data (Occupations that satisfy this work value allow employees to work on their own and make decisions.)
O*Net Online “skills | social perceptiveness” data (Being aware of others’ reactions and understanding why they react as they do.)
C Marquis & A Tilcsik, Imprinting: Toward a multilevel theory, Academy of Management Annals 2013
M Radkowsky & LJ Siegel, The Gay Adolescent: Stressors, Adaptations, and Psychosocial Interventions, Clinical Psychology Review, 1997
JE Pachanki, The Psychological Implications of Concealing a Stigma: A Cognitive-affective-behavioral Model, Psychological Bulletin 2007

This article released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 license

as originally published on usatoday.com

It’s a jungle out there in the wild animated landscape of Zootopia.

Blending the anthropomorphism of classic cartoons such as Robin Hood with the buddy comedy vibe of 48 Hrs., the Disney movie (in theaters March 4, 2016) stars Jason Bateman as the voice of sly con-artist fox Nick Wilde and Ginnifer Goodwin as idealistic rookie rabbit cop Judy Hopps.

As in nature, the fox and the rabbit don’t get along at first, but circumstances change when Nick needs her help to get out of a jam and Judy relies on him to help crack a big case.

Zootopia is ultimately a story of two animals “who would naturally never hang out or like one another in the beginning, but over the course of the movie develop a relationship and become friends,” says Rich Moore (Wreck-It Ralph), who co-directs the film with Byron Howard (Tangled).

For Nick, whose sleepy eyes reflect his conniving nature, the filmmakers wanted a wily, dry-witted sort of voice, so choosing Bateman was a no-brainer. Plus, the actor could also bring “a funny yet heartfelt side” to the animated fox, Moore says.

“He’s a crafty, sarcastic schemer, and that I’ve been doing in parts since I was 12,” Bateman says of Nick. “I foolishly said, ‘What kind of voice do you guys want me to do?’ And they just looked at me like I was an idiot and said, ‘Just do what you do. Just talk.’ ”

The mammal metropolis of Zootopia — which was hatched by filmmakers after months of behavioral research and even an African safari — includes places such as Tundratown and Sahara Square, but Judy hails from rural Bunny Burrows, where she leaves farm life to do some good as a big-city police officer.

Goodwin brings “very centered sweetness, tremendous heart and a great sense of humor” to Judy, Moore says, but the bunny can be a spitfire, too: She’s “a little Pollyanna mixed with Furiosa,” referring to Charlize Theron’s no-nonsense Mad Max: Fury Road character.

And don’t call Judy cute, Howard points out. “People have said that to her all her life. She’s a little sensitive about that.”

There are situations where Judy becomes unhinged and “she gets hoppity emotionally,” Goodwin says. She also won’t be underestimated. “People mistake kindness for naivete or stupidity, and she is a good girl through and through. But she’s not a dumb bunny.”

All the furry animals reflect their real-life counterparts — from Judy’s twitchy nose to a sloth being slower than everybody else in town — and the world of Zootopia is “as fully immersive as though you walked into Disneyland,” Goodwin says. “This movie is begging for an entire division of the theme park.”

Bateman’s daughter Francesca, 8, may be first in line. “I showed her the teaser the other day on my computer,” he says. “And she looked at me like, ‘Oh, so that’s where you disappear to. … OK, you actually do something I like.’ “

as originally posted on adjective species.com

Guest article by Flip. Flip has been involved with furry and other fandoms since the late 1980s, running conventions since the mid 90s, and generally being an uberfan. He is currently helping organize Furry Migration, which is held in Minneapolis August 28-30 this year.

This document started as a refinement of the Wikipedia definition to the nebulous “beginning of Furry” as a fan culture, but it quickly became apparent it would get bogged down in some nuanced specifics that, although really useful in understanding what started when historically, do not lend themselves to the brevity required by Wikis. In the end, this is more a thesis on specifically when furry started and what were the central galvanizing themes that set it apart from its sister fandoms/art forms. It may be useful to have both WikiFur and Wikipedia up as references for specific definitions and explanations. Warning: There is some graphic language due to specific quotes and citations, but general context is kept as PG-13 as possible.

The existing definition of the start of Modern Furry is somewhere around 1980-1985. It is the combination of funny animal comics and the use of anthropomorphism in science fiction into a form that is a sub-genre apart from both: Furry Fandom. WikiFur’s identification puts this point between the publications Vootie and Rowrbrazzle. Wikipedia tends to suggest Furry’s genesis as more a product of Science Fiction fandom and their corresponding conventions. Although Wikifur is more specifically correct in that furry fandom is a product of some particular underground comics, it is important to note that Wikipedia’s definition is still generally correct, but missing some nuance.

To understand all the pieces involved here, it is important to recognize what was happening during the 1970s, specifically in society and popular culture. It was a tremendous time of personal discovery, social expression and artistic experimentation. Specifically to pre-modern furry concerns, the use of anthropomorphism continued to be expanded in new ways across various media. Much of this is easily seen in the animation, science fiction and comic books of the time.

For animation, three examples of would be Disney pieces like Robin Hood (1973) in the mainstream, characters like Lieutenant M’Ress from Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973-4) in Science Fiction fandom, and Fritz the Cat (1965-72) as an example from Underground Comics stemming from developments of counterculture in the 1960s. Although these forms were still “funny animal”, design and context was pushed from their previous use of referential comical parody/irony/satire that was indicative of the mid 20th century, to more direct serious introspection of the human condition, be that emotional reflection, cultural analysis, or scathing social commentary.

To be fair, a good deal of the expansion of the use of anthropomorphism was in works of Science Fiction, which for this article includes the major subgenres of Fantasy and Horror. Using anthropomorphic races, everything from alien races to modern updates of myths like werewolves or ents, was very common in the 1960s and 1970’s. Modern Science Fiction primarily used anthropomorphism as a literary device in stories. The most common device was to provide an “outside” perspective to the human condition, where a “near human” could ask questions about the somewhat arbitrary idiosyncrasies of humans while still having a coherent intelligence and emotional understanding of life as a “civilized” entity.

To draw back to the original thesis, Wikipedia’s citation of Science Fiction as the genesis of Furry is fair. Modern Furry, or something very similar to it, would likely have arisen in time given this environment. However, even though we can see the roots and building blocks of what would be Modern Furry here, it needed something else, some spark, to evolve into Furry. If shown examples of Robin Hood or M’Ress to fans of the Furry genre, those fans commonly comment, “They look Furry, yet somehow do not ‘feel’ Furry.” Fritz the Cat seems to come closer, but still not quite. True, Fritz has a “funny animal” design and adult content, but there seems to be an essential aspect that is missing. What needs to be identified here is the underlying Furry Aesthetic and the moment that came into being. Also, to list out some of the central themes and methods that typify this sub-genre. The fact that many fans of Modern Furry, comics, and Science Fiction see each other as “different” suggests that there are notable differences outside of whether or not anthropomorphism is used. In short, the Modern Furry Aesthetic is a blend of existing genres but in a unique way.

Comics, especially “funny animal” and Underground Comics of the 1960’s and 1970’s seem to be the key in understanding this transformation. Comics can use anthropomorphism in sharp relief to function as literary technique like parody, irony, satire and absurdist humor, usually referring to someone’s character or an aspect of the human condition. To feature a cowardly character as a chicken is an example. With the close of the Silver Age of Comic Books and the growth of counterculture in the 1960s, comics and comic books were rebranding themselves, trying to bring insightful humor to a new clientele. Some comics tried reimagining of “funny animal” characters in fantastic, cosmic new roles. Example: the original Rocket Raccoon was created and refined in this period. Other comics went darker and more into science fiction like 2000 AD, which created characters like Judge Dredd. Some also followed the counterculture, invoking a theme of “sex, drugs, and rock and roll” and a deep cynicism for “polite society”. Artist like Robert Crumb and Steve Gerber created new “funny animal” characters whose awareness, if not indulgence, of “sex, drugs, and rock and roll”, as well as cynicism and distrust of authority, was part of everyday life.

If we look at the Fritz the Cat comic, we are looking specifically at a satirical comic that depicted anthropomorphic characters smoking weed, having casual sex, and being violently anti-authoritarian. However, Fritz is ultimately NOT Furry because it is based in satire and the dynamic of a “dark mirror” on real society. The use of the various animal species is analogy to various races, jobs and/or social standings of people in human society. The characters exist to point at issues in society, but the use of anthropomorphic animals is more of a convenient and incidental label or trope in a broad character sense. Something about this seems insufficient in defining the Furry Aesthetic. The fact that Fritz was different in that it was adult oriented and had adult themes does separate it from earlier funny animal comics, but by itself does not make it Furry.

WikiFur identifies a major turning point somewhere between Vootie and Rowrbrazzle. Vootie was an amateur press association (APA) founded by Reed Waller and Ken Fletcher, who had worked previously on a more Science Fiction/Fantasy style APA named Rune. Both artists have identified multiple influences from the examples above. Influences also came from a close group of friends and artists in the Minneapolis area, a Science Fiction convention called Minicon, and book stores and print shops like Uncle Hugo’s and Dreamhaven. Many of these same local friends, like Timothy Fay, later worked on Rowrbrazzle. Looking at the individual issues of Vootie, the publication is a crossroads of Science Fiction and comics’ use of anthropomorphism in fun and new ways. If the “spark” of furry were to be identified, it would be in Vootie #4 in 1977. The name of the comic is “Disguise Adroit de Plastique”, or pidgin French for, “Clever Plastic Disguise”. The beginning of this comic is very much a satire with “funny animal” characters in a Fritz sort of way. A wolf is grumbling about the death of Underground Comics (and really the death of the counterculture as Reagan and the cleaning up of society that marked the 80’s were just around the corner), with a turkey and a sheep arguing that, “It’s not that bad, we accomplished so much.” They then point at sanitized versions of mainstream “underground” publications. The wolf starts to agree. The sad joke here is that, truth be told, the mainstreaming of these comics had extinguished the vibrant, defiant and artistic fire that made these comics important in first place.

But then the comic takes a novel turn. A sexy vixen shows up and tells them to stop moping and “act like animals,” claiming to the wolf he has been there so long he has forgotten what he is and thinks he is a person. She goads him, “You’re an animal, so act like it!” as she proudly presents a sexy, ample chest. A brief cloths ripping, foreplay scene later, the bear bartender demands, “What the hell are you doing?” This set the scene as a conflict between giving into primal urges versus following the rules of society.

The bear bartender in this scene can be seen as to represent “we” the reader, listening to the arguments and finally making a decision as to which is the “true” argument. The turkey and sheep stress that if we act all feral, we can’t be taken seriously. The vixen states if the animals don’t act feral, they are LYING to themselves. In a series of panels that encapsulates the Furry Aesthetic, she declares, “All that stuff about ideals might be okay if we were human, but we’re just Animals! All we understand is fucking, and mothering, and killing, and eating.” “Let’s fuck and feast and forget we ever knew that Disney shit!”

This is a new switch. This was not just a “near human” character simply observing an “odd behavior” of the human condition, but an outright rejection of some aspects of it. It also rejects some of the classic analogy/parody use of anthropomorphism and instead suggests a more alter ego or even idealized pure Form as per the philosophical concepts of the Theory of Forms. The argument here is that most of us are lying to ourselves, often not listening to our base instincts. We are far too worried about the dangers of hedonism or just “acting appropriately”, that we defy our “true” nature. In short, we see “funny animals” change from an allegory of humans to something specifically NOT “appropriately human,” and we should be more like the animal character if we wish to be instinctually honest with ourselves.

Combine this comic with the later and better known, “There Ain’t Enuff Sex in Funny Animal Comics” in Vootie #5, as well as everything in this vein afterwards, and we get an artistic aesthetic. An aesthetic, as a philosophical school, points to a truth. More importantly, from this point forward there is a schism in Funny Animal Comics/Science Fiction; where a group of artists and writers go in a new direction chasing this aesthetic where animal instinct provides insights to the human condition. The Truth being pursued is a sense that there is better self honesty in listening to our baser brain in some situations. This seems to be a recurring theme in Furry but not always funny animals from that point forward.

To clarify, this artistic aesthetic is not in all Furry works. But it seems to be a constant thematic base line for Furry. For instance, not all Star Trek episodes highlight its baseline aesthetic of the utopian society of fairness among equals. But it keeps coming back as a general theme in the series. Similarly, not all Furry needs to be adult or sexual in nature to be effective. In fact, Albedo Anthropomorphics, published in 1983, goes back more towards the Science Fiction roots. However, in it the Furry Aesthetic is alive and well. Characters are not just felines, canines, etc. for the sake of an analogue of job, social class, race, etc. like in Fritz. Being a feline fundamentally changes the way a character experiences the universe, and in many ways the “human” side of the equation is the analogous reference used in the perceptions of the character. Tangential as this may seem, we are still using story for analyzing the human condition. This is important to note, as the Furry Aesthetic assumes a sentience and active moral agency as part of its literary device, even when analyzing base and raw emotions and actions. This makes a clear distinction between Furry and Zoophilia.

There is a challenge that this aesthetic is, “Nothing new and we have seen it before.” This is correct, but ubiquitous use as we see in Furry had not been done in 20th Century culture, and this is the reason why I use the term Modern Furry. If we look at some of the older mythology and storytelling, we see a willingness to dwell in the dark feral domains of the human condition with anthropomorphic characters more often. We do see several instances in these older stories where an animal’s nature gives us insight to the human condition. However, many cultures, including western culture, have something like the concept of a “great chain of being.” In these systems, animals are considered “below” us and, effectively, offer nothing to teach us. The use of anthropomorphism shifted from instinctual/insightful to analogous/referential as a literary device where this paradigm is culturally prominent. Modern Furry denotes a subculture where that literary use shifts back.

Today, we clearly have fandom identified as Modern Furry with a fan base commonly using this Furry Aesthetic. They use former “funny animals” to be unapologetically honest about feelings and motivations. This can be as either alter ego (fursona) or idealized pure form. This creates a point of reflection for the human condition that can be viewed as a classic Id/Ego/Superego tension. Understanding this aspect of the Furry Aesthetic helps us understand why, although not focused on a gay community in its inception, Furry fandom found easy audience and was a great medium to aid in discovery, portrayal of, and dealing with specific challenges of the LGBT community that is indicative of 2nd generation Furry in the counterculture of the 1990’s. This is why the Furry Aesthetic continues to find an audience with people in the counterculture communities involved with BDSM, eco-spirituality and mysticism, emotional self development, alternative relationship systems, and gender identification, just to name a few.

In conclusion, if we are to understand what Modern Furry is, we need to understand it was developed in a mix from Science Fiction, counterculture and Comics. It is an artistic aesthetic that does have some separation from those genres, and it seemed to have an inception point in the middle issues of Vootie between 1977 and 1978. The Furry Aesthetic is the artistic use of anthropomorphism to put in sharp relief the tensions of our animal instincts and societal demands and how they both impact the human condition.

This article released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 license

Not to take away from the article, this is my 2nd attempt to post something from Adjective Species.com. Which more about a HUGE misunderstanding of my attentions, than anything else. The editor Makyo and I came to an agreement, which was more or less I could repost any pf there articles. But I had to do it a certain way. After all it was posted on their site first, not mine and I can’t just steal it, as that wouldn’t be right. So enjoy the first of many articles. By the way this one article came recommended by Makyo