Why do people think that furries are a bad thing?

[Silver7]

What's so negative about a furry?

Why do so many people think furries are bad?

[NickRowler]

I think the reasons why people look at furries in a negative way is...

a) it's an unusual hobby and a lot of people just find it odd. A lot of people who are furries might see them selves as outcasts and probably find kinship in a community that is accepting of people who are LGBTQ, neurodivergent, and sex positive. People who want to uphold more "traditional" values don't like how furries are more open and accepting.

b) some subsets of the furry fandom (not everyone) can get very sexual and fetishy. While not all furries part take in these activities and art, it's often something that turns most non-furries off.

[Legendofgenii]

It’s all personal opinion.

I don’t like Marmite.

[Innocynce]

Hey.... Um can I show you? I don't know all the rules yet, just basic things like: "No gore, bullying or NSFW" ...I only wanted to give a example..
Sonic fandom Google Images
I'm unsure if I should post even this tame screenshot, but even this is the tip of the iceberg as furries sometimes spill into beastiality... And actual REAL LIFE beasts don't like it: THAT'S WHY.

Personally, I don't mind seeing and drawing some furry art. But people too easily and too often go into the deep end and NEVER even TRY to come back from it... It's not the concept if furries, it's what humanity does with it...

[VibrantFox]

The 'funny' thing about it is there's nothing inherently wrong with being a furry or consuming furry content since at it's core its simply consumption, creation or enjoyment of media featuring animal mascot type characters so in the broadest most surface level definition it's pretty normal

If anything i think it's a consequence of folks taking the fringe sections of a demographic and using it to represent the whole (re kink fanart, fetish content and other nsfw content) but again it's just one small section of a whole group

There's also the fact that folks try to lump furries in with zoophiles which most furries themselves are strongly opposed to those types and often have to clarify that it's not the case

Obviously folks who have boundaries with the way they wish to see animal or animal mascot characters portrayed will have very strong opinions about furries or the furry community, as well as non furries overall, especially if they're only exposed to fringe content but in a general sense furries are pretty normal folks (which Nick's comment covers quite well in point a)

At the end of the day tho it definitely boils down to a combination of ignorance and assumptions but unless folks actually inform themselves about the topic (as with any subject) it's common that the immediate reaction is "ew, gross, bad, evil" or whatever else

[darthmongoose]

They're fine, honestly. Like yeah, it's not my personal cup of tea, but in all my interaction with them, furries have been nothing but polite and pleasant people who don't force their interests on me. I hear a lot from other artists that they are fantastic clients to do art for; they pay well and they're nice and appreciative, which is pretty great!

Like every interest group, there are bad apples, but they mostly seem all right.

I think people who are bullies just like to find people they can label as "cringe" as an excuse to be mean, and with people being more aware of things like neurodiversity, disability, racism, LGBTQ+ etc. these days, and it being less acceptable to be mean to people with those characteristics, people have decided to be mean to furries because they're an easy target, as people with "weird" interests, but without the protection of being a "marginalised group", same as LARPers, really. Some people are just dicks, and they just want somebody to bully, usually because they're insecure. Furries know what they're about and they live their best lives, and honestly, I respect that.

[DanielRKM]

Oh man, I've been waiting, like, 3 years for this thread!

It's really interesting. I was only vaguely aware of furry-dom before I started my comic (a lot of what I had previously associated with furries was the stigma/fetishized elements). And passed that, I didn't have many more thoughts on the matter. And that was a shame.

I never realized that by making a webcomic featuring anthropomorphic characters that I'd be taking on a lot of that stigma too (apparently I'm new to the internet). Regardless, making my comic and interacting with people on the forums has been really awesome. I'm not going to get into the warm and fluffy of it (puns!) because I can't succinctly sum up my experience, but I'd love to see more understanding on the subject (online) as a whole.

Side note- I wonder if the stigma is mostly from digital art versus print media. I see a trend where people tend to see the worst in online art featuring anthropomorphic characters (because it's so easy to find pornography/fetishized art online as opposed to a typical comic shop/bookstore). The thing is, I just don't see the same stigma bleeding over to the brick and mortar sector (but I do see no shortage of praise from people in comic shops over Blacksad, Stray Dogs, Animal Castle, etc.. All have come very highly recommended to me by various types of shop owners, but if the art is online only, it does seem to get lumped in with "cringe" pretty dang quick).

Anyhow, stigmas are lame and I'm truly enjoying the thread. Carry on!

[ThunderChicken]

I can't get into the Furry thing myself, but I love anthro/furry comics as long as they're not sexual in nature. Some of the best comic art is in anthro comics.

[irresponsiblepics]

Its always been around the internet just expanded it.

I'm open minded (heck there are MANY of us who enjoy animation/anthro stuff but are not furries) BUT I always scope out the media beforehand as I am personally not interested in degenerate stuff. Usually its easy to spot as it always have a "style"

My unpopular opinion is that if the fandom wants to not have this stigma then they need to clean house. Sure there will be always be this kind of kink but the kink is saturated to point its damaging to the community.

Are all furries bad? No. But its not surprising they're stigmatised.

[BoomerZ]

My take is it has the hentai problem. Too many people not involved with anime equate anime with hentai, not knowing they are two very different genre to most people. (yes I get hentai is anime, but bear with me.) People look at animal headed people but they also see the sexual side of it in lots of the stories. The problem is most anthropomorphic is not about drawing animals, but that it's easier than drawing people. And if you get it wrong, no one knows anyway. And how can you make the case your anatomy is wrong on a furry. And you can push the character designs farther than a human.

No one that likes Donald Duck is considered a furry. But because of a lot of the "everything looks human except the head" type of comics that are heavily sexual (like dogs headed females that have huge human type breasts) it gets thrown in with the overly sexual stuff.

[UrMom]

Can't get into it more than what everyone else has. (The stigma being around the porn aspect and such.) As far as my personal experience I've never had a problem with it, even the fetish stuff was fine to me given usually kinks = coping with trauma. In a way I've always consumed furry stuff, as a child watching the Frog and Toad shorts along with other John Clark Matthews animations like Uncle Elephant, and I liked Bartok the Magnificent which has a total furry fetish scene in it (Not to mention other Don Bluth movies like Secret of NIHM, An American Tail and A Land Before Time.), Disney's Robin Hood, Mickey Mouse, things like that. You can say those aren't furry related, but I've read a good few stories on how those awakened the "furry" in a lot of kids... platonically, of course, for the most part.

Edit: Cats The Musical = Furry.

I'm not actively a furry, wasn't super interested in learning about it until the last 5-6 years when some readers were talking to me about getting into it because they thought my style would be great for furry art. Can't say that I haven't thought about making the jump given the good things I've heard about commissioners, and how nice the community is, but I'm not interesting in being a furry, soooo yeah.

The stigma definitely comes from the kinksters, though. Lol

[TheLemmaLlama]

Every community has its weird fetishy parts though; I have doubts this is really more common with furries. I feel like part of why furries in particular are targeted is because it's animals, and real life animals can't consent to you-know-what with humans, and people have a notoriously annoying tendency to profile others based on their thoughts and tastes in fiction which leads to them think that furries actually want to abuse animals IRL.

[UrMom]

Yeah, that's pretty much what it is. I mean, the focus is the kinksters, but that's only so focused on because it's a niche community of people who like to roleplay and dress like anthropomorphic animals. And people can't distinguish fiction from reality, and/or have a poor understanding of the relationship fiction has to reality 99% of the time.

[Lensing]

Maybe it´s a generation conflict and not understanding it.
I´m 48, I don´t get it, I only know about furries because I´m in the comic scene,
people of my age and older don´t know what furries are and then they assume
that it must have to do with porn, kinks and fetish

[thepenmonster]

Historically, any social group that minded its own business and kept to itself was subject to rumor and hearsay. And this leads to fear and hate because humans are scum.

And unfortunately we're at a point in history where the regressive reactionaries have gained control of the social and political machinery in most democracies and so any out-group is going to be attacked, kinkster or not.

[GothickangelStudios]

Its not my thing. But I know people who are into furries but its more for the cosplay part only. I am aware that its also been called a f3tish at times too. But my friends just dress up as any one would for their own OC.