Furries, also known as anthropomorphic animals, are fictional animal-like beings with human features. Unless you’re living under a rock, you’ve definitely seen at least one furry character in your life- whether it’s in a tv show, game, or art- they are everywhere.
Some popular characters that fall under the furry category are animal looney tunes characters (Bugs, Lola, Daffy, etc), zootopia characters (Nick Wilde, Judy Hopps, Finnick, etc) Crash Bandicoot characters (Crash, Coco and Tawna Bandicoot), Sonic The Hedgehog characters (Sonic, Amy Rose, Tails, Rouge, etc), animal crossing villagers, Mickey Mouse and friends, and much more! Basically, characters with human expressions, speech, walk on two legs, wear clothes and engage in daily human activities fall under the furry category.
You can “be” a furry too! To be part of the “furry fandom”, so a fandom that likes anthropomorphic animals, is usually by either drawing furries, dressing up in fursuits or creating them, consume furry media such as cartoons or books, and more. Doing as many of these or as less can qualify someone as a furry if they wish to be, same as someone who does all these activities who doesn’t consider themselves a furry. It is a very flexible fandom who accept anyone who wants to be part of it.
The Weird Side…
Of course, like in every fandom, there’s always some bad apples- and the furry community is no exception. There are a lot of problematic or weird people who gave the furries a bad reputation. From the amount of lewd artwork, creating porn (art, murrsuits (which are fursuits, but with extra parts if you know what I mean) fetish work, and much more), this fandom is more often that not associated with sexual misfits. But just because some furries consume or create this content mean that every furry is like that- but it is still a little hard to not associate the fandom with the weird side of it.
The Creative Side and Furaffinity
Furaffinity is a popular website that is specialized for furries to reunite and share their anthropomorphic animal artwork. It was founded in January 16, 2006, as an alternative to the sites “SheezyArt” or “DeviantArt”, with the site ownership sometime changing. The site is full of beautiful, wholesome furry artwork created by talented furries, but of course, you can’t escape the fetish or nsfw content- with only a few page clicks, you’ll most likely see some poorly made fetish content of your favourite characters. Same as deviantart, nsfw content is filtered, but suggestive, kinky or fetish artwork isn’t, and to someone who doesn’t exactly know that what they are looking at could be considered to be adult material, could be a problem.
But enough of that, there’s still a lot of great content in the fandom. Some talented furries create fursuits, so full body, fakefur suits of characters from scratch, and some even make a living out of it. Others are talented in art, selling commissions or have a great fanbase, while others are skilled in animation, whether it is 2d, 3d, stop-motion or clay. This community is incredibly creative, but the weird and bad art can overshadow them.
Overall, the furry community itself isn’t PROBLEMATIC as people claim they are- but the weird ones who expose themselves too much on the internet create a bad reputation for the fandom. Furries, good or bad, are all over the internet, and you’ve probably interacted with one of them at some point…