Furry balkanization

Also known as: “The stuff you can find via WikiFur”

OK, long time since I’ve written something furry-related. But I wanted to ask about how the furry fandom and its associates (otherkin, ASFR, etc.) has tended to separate from the more mainstream websites and other services to create services of a similar purpose, but only catering to the furry fandom exclusively.

Of course, it started with the conventions, the text-based TELNET roleplaying kingdoms, and the IRC networks. Then you’ve had a myriad of furry specific art and story galleries (dating from the 90s), some of which have been created in the 2000s as reactions to what is often known as “fursecution” on more mainstream multimedia galleries, such as DeviantART, SheezyArt and y!Gallery. But it hasn’t stopped here.

Now, instead of just LiveJournal and MySpace, you have furry social networking sites. Instead of just Second Life and IMVU, you have furry graphical chat systems and virtual worlds. Also, furry news websites, furry image boards (in the style of 4chan and 2ch), furry auction sites, furry blog hosts, and other furry-specific manifestations of mainstream website types.

Now, IMO, furry communication does manage to attract a wider (and often, seemingly more “base”) audience and produce a potentially greater variety and amount of content when it is “forked” into its own communities. They also tend to attract and make contact with other interests that, previously, wouldn’t have had much to do with the furry fandom/genre/fetish/whatever except that they, also, have been informally classified as deviant, voyeuristic or simply strange and otherworldly.

It’s somewhat like trying to burrow into the earth to find gold, and then departing from your original party to seek out what other else may lie underneath, such as the mole men or something like that. Then the mole men hitch along in your auger vehicle to find other places and drill a hole that others can follow you through to the center of the Earth.

But what is to come of this furry forking that tends to occur mostly on the Internet? What if the ever-migratory furry fandom on the Internet ends up alot like, say, the Mormons who gradually inched further and further away from the solidly Protestant East Coast and Midwest of the United States to settle in that partly-desert area called Utah where they finally became the majority population (and became known for the Mormon Tabernacle choir’s Christmas singing on television)? Notably, along the way, the Latter-Day Saints left off a few communities that were led off the currently-dominant Brigham Young wing, some of which settled in other, more isolated areas of the Western United States; these particular, tiny church-centered communities, having secluded themselves in plain sight from the view of Protestant neighbors for years, have become infamous for the frequency of (“Bible-sanctioned”) polygamy that is found among the resident families, even though the Brigham Young wing of the CJCLDS had long ago abandoned the practice.

The furry fandom, long ago, crossed the threshold from general “art fandom” to “fetish fandom”, but has not yet finished that jump and probably will retain that dual nature for some time to come. But the furry fandom continues to accrue other fetishes, while maintaining a clear distinction between “mature” and “clean” (and sometimes “adult”).

So as it migrates further out “West” on the Internet, how will the furry fandom evolve? And where/when on the Internet will it become established as the de-facto subculture, with its own trends and mores and local sub-subcultures?

And how will the furry fandom’s Internet denizens, who are often stereotyped as thin-skinned and easily shaken in the face of criticism from non-furries (hence the creation of the separate, furry-optimized websites and networks), find settlement within it and with other furries? Will it happen once every fur’s interest and fetish is covered and addressed within a furry context? Will it happen once a distinct category of “furry personality/character”, or a personality that can successfully address any personal or social issue within an intra-furry context, is realized?

And why a “furry personality”, of all things? Stereotypically, when someone who is raised within a religious, political or ethnic group wants to give a personal view on a particular issue of a social, personal or environmental issue, the way that the person addresses that issue will be influenced in some form or fashion by his previous life experiences, a good deal of which took place within the social group and conditions in which he was raised. A Mormon will give his view of an issue in as far as what his life as a Mormon has dictated and impressed upon him, an Israeli will give his view from his experience as an Israeli, an African-American will give his view within his African-American experience, and so on.

Plus, any such social groups tend to congregate separately within their own geographical placements. This further generates the development of personal-social interactive features that are often only found within that group. Hence, the “personality” and the types of personality that are enjoyed and exhulted within that social group, while being either damned or not heard of in others.

So has the furry subculture gotten to that point where it has its own personalities, ideals and traditions that are distinct to it?

Apart from the “furry/anthropomorphic” part, I’d have to say No. From the beginning, the furry subculture has only been unique in its position as a metasubculture that draws from the strength of other subcultures and traditions: furry conventions were forked from the older comics/games/animation fandoms, furry online art galleries were forked from the general art galleries, furry roleplaying kingdoms were forked from the original MUDs, and so on. Furthermore, the furry fandom’s “mature” exhibitions tend to draw from other fetish subcultures, including BDSM, Bear, Hypnosis, etc. Even the cleaner depictions of furry multimedia have been based on older traditions, except that the “furry” part tends to be much more persistent and sticky for the individual than, say, the stereotypical Star Wars fan in the Imperial Stormtroopers uniform or the roaming children’s puppeteer troupes.

The balkanization of the furry fandom from the mainstream Internet has given visibility to this status as a persistent and multifaceted metasubculture that increasingly transcends boundaries of all sorts and purposes.

Probably the purpose of this balkanization of the furry fandom is to provide a “furry mirror” to the world, all that may dwell in it, and all the interests that they may possess and exhibit.

But is there more beyond the “furry Looking Glass”? Is there anything within the furry subculture that is only available within it and it alone?

Maybe we won’t find that out until the next decade comes.