Here's an idea: furries perfectly exemplify the postmodern age.
This post, we'll be taking one last look at the postmodern world around us. For those in the know, Mike Rugnetta, friend of the blog (ed. We wish), takes one idea every week and explores it, in great detail, on his Youtube production, the Idea Channel. Above, I've included a great speech Mr. Rugnetta delivered at the 2013 XOXO Festival, which celebrates "creativity and innovation in forms [...] considered alternative or disruptive to the prevailing social or professional context." Mr. Rugnetta's Youtube channel inspired many posts on this very blog, including its own title (check out the "If you have to ask, you're streets behind" page over on the sidebar for some vague explanation). But this speech is of particular interest to me because he spends some time talking about something he hasn't gotten to on the Idea Channel and something of a personal interest of my own.
I'll sum up the beginning half of the video like so: the Internet is a big deal. And the Internet's native format is to connect people in communities. Here's what Mike means: the Internet is, in so many ways, completely different from anything that came before it. Never before could people from so distant places connect so easily with each other. And why is this important? Well, now, people who before would have to travel great distances and go to great lengths in order to connect with others of similar, unusual interests (a la sci-fi conventions, etc.) can simply go to the relevant forum or subreddit or special community site in order to do... whatever it is that they do.
This, of course, is not hard to see from our own experiences. However, there's something about each of these communities that they share(d), even when they didn't have a home on the internet. Most communities like this, or fandoms as they also may be called, have some canonical media to be a fan of. "Trekkers" have Star Trek. DnD players have, well, Dungeons and Dragons. "Bronies," perhaps the most recent group, have My Little Pony. Because of this, although the Internet makes it easier for these people to connect, the Internet also did nothing to create them. Ante-Internet, these people would've shipped out to conventions, or found a meager few near themselves, or held these interests more or less to themselves in their garage or whatever.
The trick is, nowhere here did the Internet itself create a venue where any of these ideas could be cultivated. None of these fandoms are quite... postmodern enough. There is, however, at least one fandom that exists today that we could argue is, that, though it technically does predate the Internet some used the Internet to more or less create its own canon media to be fans of. They are furries.
The furry fandom, as well as anybody can date anything, was begun in the year 1980, as a "funny animal" sci-fi discussion group inspired by the art of Steve Gallacci that met at various conventions. Of course, it is predated by a variety of anthropomorphic media (Disney's Robin Hood, for example), but this is seen as, more or less, the first time anybody met to discuss such media. What you may notice, though, is that it started with a canon media: Albeda Anthropomorphics, Gallacci's work.
With this beginning, though, it was not long before the fandom grew in an entirely different way. MUCKs, Multi User Content Kingdoms, are a sort of text-based MMORPG (like World of Warcraft) where fans morphed from discussing anthropomorphic art to performing it, acting as various anthropomorphic animals in chat and action. Now, there was more than Gallacci's art; there was the beginning of something bigger.
In the time since the 80s, various other forms of communication have arisen between members of this fandom. Though MUCKs have fallen by the wayside for the most part, now there is an increasing presence in IRCs, a variety of forums, and most importantly, social media-like art communities. The largest of these is FurAffinity, begun in 2005 and has already collected millions of submissions. Submissions consist of drawings, writings, music, and anything else that users want to share with a like-minded audience. However, most importantly, these drawings are, largely, original content. They don't relate to any strict canonical media (though there does exist a significant amount of cross-fandom activity between Bronies and Furries). They only are joined together by an idea, a general structure to follow.
Even that is tenuous. Nowhere will you find a hard and concrete definition of what a furry, or furry media is. Generally speaking, it's somebody or something that relates to art (not just visual, but written and so on) involving anthropomorphic animals. BUT, not all art that does this is furry. Is Robin Hood, a piece created before a formal furry fandom even existed, furry art? How about TwoKinds, a webcomic created by Tom Fischbach using animals and humans as allegory for racism and, at least according to Tom, not intended to be anything related to a furry fandom? Nobody can tell you explicitly. On the /r/furry subreddit, one of the most frequent posts are questions of whether individuals are furries. The answer? "What do you think?" The fandom as a whole is an ever-changing, ever-whirling maelstrom where the edges are never constant but the center always is. Nothing can be stated resolutely but this; those who identify as furries enjoy art of anthropomorphic animals.
The trick is, this really couldn't exist in quite the same state without the Internet. For one thing, just gathering these people together would be difficult. But what's more compelling about this is the way people can change how they represent themselves on the Internet. Whereas in person, to those they know they are bound by their known character, and to those they don't they are still bound by their bodies and appearance. But, on the internet, none of this applies.
With this beginning, though, it was not long before the fandom grew in an entirely different way. MUCKs, Multi User Content Kingdoms, are a sort of text-based MMORPG (like World of Warcraft) where fans morphed from discussing anthropomorphic art to performing it, acting as various anthropomorphic animals in chat and action. Now, there was more than Gallacci's art; there was the beginning of something bigger.
In the time since the 80s, various other forms of communication have arisen between members of this fandom. Though MUCKs have fallen by the wayside for the most part, now there is an increasing presence in IRCs, a variety of forums, and most importantly, social media-like art communities. The largest of these is FurAffinity, begun in 2005 and has already collected millions of submissions. Submissions consist of drawings, writings, music, and anything else that users want to share with a like-minded audience. However, most importantly, these drawings are, largely, original content. They don't relate to any strict canonical media (though there does exist a significant amount of cross-fandom activity between Bronies and Furries). They only are joined together by an idea, a general structure to follow.
Even that is tenuous. Nowhere will you find a hard and concrete definition of what a furry, or furry media is. Generally speaking, it's somebody or something that relates to art (not just visual, but written and so on) involving anthropomorphic animals. BUT, not all art that does this is furry. Is Robin Hood, a piece created before a formal furry fandom even existed, furry art? How about TwoKinds, a webcomic created by Tom Fischbach using animals and humans as allegory for racism and, at least according to Tom, not intended to be anything related to a furry fandom? Nobody can tell you explicitly. On the /r/furry subreddit, one of the most frequent posts are questions of whether individuals are furries. The answer? "What do you think?" The fandom as a whole is an ever-changing, ever-whirling maelstrom where the edges are never constant but the center always is. Nothing can be stated resolutely but this; those who identify as furries enjoy art of anthropomorphic animals.
The trick is, this really couldn't exist in quite the same state without the Internet. For one thing, just gathering these people together would be difficult. But what's more compelling about this is the way people can change how they represent themselves on the Internet. Whereas in person, to those they know they are bound by their known character, and to those they don't they are still bound by their bodies and appearance. But, on the internet, none of this applies.
People can represent themselves however they like. Sherry Turkle, in her book Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet (from 1995), talks about the way people use and, to some, misuse communicative technology on the Internet. Specifically, she argues that misrepresenting oneself, whether by gender or by personality or, in the case of furries, by species can be therapeutic, where people can gain insights into the lives of others by pretending to be them, where there are no consequences. Of course, this also can lead to catfishing (what happened to Manti Te'o) and predatorial relations, but Turkle sought instead to look at the positive. But, ultimately, this is an act restricted to the Internet, where every girl's a guy and every kid's an undercover FBI agent.
So, furries, love them or hate them, are nothing if not interesting to talk about. More than just freaks in suits, they embody a whole principle of ideas about the world we live in today. Can you say the same?
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