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Furries: An Inside Look

Through an interactive platform of interviews with the camera, this documentary journeys through the subculture of those who chose Furry Fandom.

Furry fandom is a fandom for fictional anthropomorphic animal characters with human personalities and characteristics. Examples of anthropomorphic attributes include exhibiting human intelligence and facial expressions, the ability to speak, walk on two legs, and wear clothes. Furry fandom is also used to refer to the community of people who gather on the Internet and at conventions.

According to fandom historian Fred Patten, the concept of furry originated at a science fiction convention in 1980, when a character drawing from Steve Gallacci’s Albedo Anthropomorphics started a discussion of anthropomorphic characters in science fiction novels. This led to the formation of a discussion group that met at science fiction and comics conventions. Patten defined “Furry fandom” as “the organized appreciation and dissemination of art and prose regarding ‘Furries’, or fictional mammalian anthropomorphic characters.”

Historically, furry fandom has been male-dominated, but over time the proportion of females in the fandom—especially artists—has increased, approaching equality with males on furry art galleries.

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  1. Love furries! They’re all great, fun, creative, awesome bunch of people. <3 But you know… haters gonna hate.

  2. What in the world are people doing? I do not mean to be rude or mean, but these types of behaviors are sick. I suppose if anyone knew the REAL JESUS, our Creator where our origins are from & how out of this world amazingly God (un-created CREATOR Who dwell outside of space-time in Eternity) is, they would never ever want to do these things that are embarrassing!

  3. im part of the furry fandom and ive met my fair share of people who are sexual as furries and those who are strictly about expression. the reason everybody is making a big deal about furries having sex is because they think its zoophilia, but thats not even the story for most furries that do have sex in suit or sexualize their characters. people just see people sexualizing animals, but thats not what theyre doing, fursonas are and extention of themselves, if theyre a sexual person it shows in their character, to them, theyre not sexualizing animals, that animal IS them. they ARE that animal. its not zoophilia because of the fact that they themselves are that animal, its animal on animal action here, its only sexy to them because its them, their character, a representation of them. i personally dont do anything sexual with my characters, i simply enjoy the creative outlet fursonas give me

  4. furries are all dumb. i saw one fuck a dog once.

  5. Furries are cancer with only one solution: Auschwitz.

  6. i think the main issue here is that the documentarian came in with an agenda — to normalize furries — and that doesn’t make for a compelling documentary. rather than letting the footage dictate the product, he let the desired product dictate the footage.

  7. I agree with previous posters that there was too much interviewing and commentary and not enough footage of what actually happens at the convention. The shots of the costumes were just seconds long pans, and we didn’t get to see any of the comedian’s act. We kept hoping it would get better, but eventually turned it off about 10 min from the end. Skip this one.

  8. Boring, don’t waste your time.

  9. I just don’t get it….. too weird for me, but each to their own…..

  10. wow…just wow. as a documentary, not balanced at all, but so few are. As for the furries…seriously, I have a PhD in psychology and I still don;t understand these freaks.

  11. wow…just wow. as a documentary, not balanced at all, but so few are. As for the furries…seriously, I have a PhD in psychology and I still don;t understand these freaks.

  12. I don’t have much of a problem with furries, myself. I do, however, have a problem with this documentary. Only interviewing 5 people, all of them male? Really, documentary guy? Really? Also, the amount of furry porn on the internet, or indeed any other sort of weird fetish type art is.. just astounding. Rule 34, indeed.

  13.   Anyone who’s been around the net since at least the mid 90’s knows that furry took off from a few different places – 4chan for one. (If you know what /b/ is, then you know what im talking about) And those of us who have suffered the furfags forum wrath know full well that it is a sex-based subculture. Trying to compare it with other “nerdy” conventions is just stupid. Nobody goes to comic-con because they want to dress up like spiderman and be fucked by the beast… i’ll let that sink in, lol.

     The documentary seems like its trying to present furry as something its not. -people trying to express themselves through animal memes? Bullshit. Its a fetish. plain and simple. Don’t believe me? Go head over to any chan with a furry board and talk to a few… pretend to be one even. It wont take long, lol.

  14. I have to disagree in part with the downplay of sex in the furry
    community in this documentary, not just at cons, but also in general.
    Yes, humans, whether identified as such or not, are sexual beings, and
    when you get a lot of them together stuff is bound to go down. However,
    there is reasonable logic that can be followed here.

    Whether it is sightly to outsiders or not, sex is an integral part of
    what “furry” is, whether furs like to admit it or not. For one reason or
    another, that is simply how things came to be, though if I had to
    hazard a guess, it probably evolved from the open-minded nature that
    lies at the core of the fandom. Add to that that sex in the animal
    kingdom is pretty casual compared human sexual practices in society, and
    you have something else to glean from the “role models”, if you will,
    that is very attractive to an open-minded and animal-loving culture. 
    Sure, not everyone in the community is so animate about sex (everybody
    has their own preferences, and some just don’t care for it), but that
    doesn’t change how the majority fares.

    Statistically, most people (particularly the males, stereotypes be
    damned) will say that they enjoy sex. That’s just how it is most places,
    furry or not. However, in a culture like furry, where sex, sexuality,
    and “being what you want” are embraced, accepted, and encouraged,
    inhibitions are much more easily eliminated, and naturally sex occurs
    more rapidly and across more like-minded people more readily. Basically,
    everybody knows that sex is accepted by the people around them within
    the boundaries of the furry community, so more people are willing to
    hook up with more people more easily than if they were to try and hook
    up anywhere else outside of the fur community. Adding more like-minded
    people (at a convention, for instance) simply expands the number of
    potential sexual partners. The common interest is already there, and
    that common interest also happens to be very accepting of sex in
    general. What more could you need to get started?

    The furry community actually has a special word for sex known the fandom
    over: Yiff. It’s really more of the anthropomorphic analog for
    “fucking”. You can yiff or get yiffed. My point here being: How many
    fandoms can you name that have it’s own word for sex? How many fandoms
    even need one? You can’t even argue that they use yiff over other words
    because it eliminates taboo, due to how open the community already is
    about sex. Sure, there are plenty of people who probably use it
    expressly for the purpose of feeling less-embarrassed when talking about
    having sex, but the point still stands. Furry is one of the only
    fandoms that has it’s own word for fucking, and at current time, either
    by ignorance or lack of material, I really can’t think of any other
    fandom that can boast that to the degree that the furry community can,
    and there is solid-enough reasoning for it: Sex is that big a part of
    what furry as a whole is.

  15. A very long and boring documentary. The camera work, when applied was fantastic! But most of the 30 minutes was just talking heads. Show, don’t tell. Let me see more of the interactions between furries.

  16. A very long and boring documentary. The camera work, when applied was fantastic! But most of the 30 minutes was just talking heads. Show, don’t tell. Let me see more of the interactions between furries.

  17. All furries are, are people who have serious issues interacting within social society. 

    It’s a great way for them to avoid dealing with their flaws and “pretending” to be someone else. 

    Perhaps they should spend less time making fur suits and spend more time doing some internal searching to figure out what the deeper problem is. 

  18. All furries are, are people who have serious issues interacting within social society. 

    It’s a great way for them to avoid dealing with their flaws and “pretending” to be someone else. 

    Perhaps they should spend less time making fur suits and spend more time doing some internal searching to figure out what the deeper problem is. 

    • Instead of judging the fandom maybe you should take a look at yourself and determine why you think everyone who is different from you should go to therapy… Maybe you need therapy? Quite possible. It’s rather normal to want a temporary escape from society. It’s why people go to movies, concerts, and read books. The type of people I’m worried about are the ones that stare at a TV 10 hours a day.

    • Instead of judging the fandom maybe you should take a look at yourself and determine why you think everyone who is different from you should go to therapy… Maybe you need therapy? Quite possible. It’s rather normal to want a temporary escape from society. It’s why people go to movies, concerts, and read books. The type of people I’m worried about are the ones that stare at a TV 10 hours a day.

  19. A very disappointing one sided documentary that seemed forced and disingenuous. The video talks to 5 different men at a convention that are clearly hen pecked for public relations. These people were so careful about what they said it became bland and uninformative. If they really wanted to portray their community effectively they would just let the documentarian film the convention especially the acts of the comedian (I think people would be interested in learning what furry humor is like) and the chairman. Overall a waste of 45 minutes.  

  20. Kind of disappointing he didn’t even get a 1-line quote from anyone else in a 5000 strong convention, makes it look very staged and the convention organizers clearly steered him towards people they wanted him to talk to. Interesting topic but I wish it had shown both sides more clearly, pretty shoddy journalism 

  21. I’m pretty sure the creator of this documentary is too spergy to have been able to interview girls or to be able to make an interesting documentary.

  22. Oh man, where do I start? This documentary takes a very interesting subject and makes it boring. The reason why furries are interesting is because there’s something a little freakish about them. But this documentary takes the approach that “oh, furries are just normal people, with boring cubicle jobs and blah blah blah…” Who gives a shit? They hardly even show the “furry” side of furries. It is mostly just bland, nerdy men talking in seemingly endless monologues about how they chose the color of their furry (periwinkle, seriously?) or how they got a job based on their status as a furry (apparently furries are everywhere, ready to hire and promote other furries). And the guy who ended up with a periwinkle-colored furry? He’s a dead ringer for Wesley Crusher/Wil Wheaton circa 1989.

    So everything you thought about furries that was bitchin, such as furry sex, is not much like furry life. Apparently these people lead lives as equally boring as our own. Ho hum.

  23. GTFO FURFAGS