I'm not sure I agree with calling these things 'Furry comics', 'Furry films' etc. just because they star anthropomorphic animals as the majority of characters. Unless perhaps they're using the term 'Furry' to refer to these characters rather than the fans; which is something I can't stand anyway, as it leads to needless confusion. Just use the label for Furry Fandom-related stuff and nothing else, I say. Or is there some kind of in-fandom definition of the term that I'm not aware of?
Those sell-by-dates won't stop me because I can't read!Furry Comic is the term we use here, but you're right, using the term "furry" wantonly can lead to confusion. However, it's a bit hard to determine what is or isn't related to the Furry Fandom. Beyond the Western Deep wasn't created with the fandom in mind (according to The Rant here
), but guess who makes up most of the readership. Zootopia, on the other hand, while popular way beyond the fandom, was marketed with this Periphery Demographic in mind.
So I don't think there's a hard limit, more of a blur between the "true" Furry Fandom and the mainstream media. And I should add that my perception of this is not helped by the fact that while I call myself a furry, my interests are located mostly within this blurry area.
Except that, as I said, I've seen people argue that it's not furry. It's a sort of reverse No True Scotsman (i.e. "I liked it, therefore it can't be furry").
edited 19th Mar '16 3:05:36 PM by Aetol
Worldbuilding is fun, writing is a choreZootopia is furry. I mean it may not officially have the Furry Seal of Approval™, but if it's media that is 50+% anthropomorphic characters, for the most part it's considered furry by everyone nowadays, fandom or not.
There's the stereotypical cartoony art styled, murry purry goofy depiction of works made by and for the fandom, but ultimately the label can be applied to anything dealing with anthropomorphic characters, and like any other media, the style, themes, and quality all vary wildly.
edited 19th Mar '16 1:31:59 PM by Hashil
The furry label was initially that actually. It extended to any anthromorphic animal character. Disgruntled internet nerds just tried to include rule 34 in that label because god forbid porn art exists that you don't like.
You will still get some of those very same idiots dismissing your comic but if your comic is good loosing a few idiots won't affect you too harshly reputation wise.
The label confusion reminds me a bit of the steampunk community, actually. That word refers to both a genre, an art style/"look", the fandom surrounding those things, and probably a few other things as well. And it shares this kind of blurry area between stuff created specifically to appeal to the fandom, and things that just sort of do anyway.
I'm not a furry myself, but I'll never understand the haters. As I see it, an anthropomorphic animal is just another kind of made-up being, like an alien or an elf or whatever. Regardless of whether you're just a casual fan or a super-devoted cosplayer or whatever, I can't see how it's all that different from any other fandom.
Oh, and Usagi Yojimbo is awesome btw.
edited 19th Mar '16 2:42:51 PM by Corvidae
Still a great "screw depression" song even after seven years.All fandoms have their terrible stereotypes.
And all fandoms have their fair share of idiots that make them true.
And no matter how much you want to think that this world is a happy place, there either already is or soon will be porn of absolutely everything.
But as far as the original question that sparked this all: I do think the "furry stigma" is pretty widespread and it can really affect people's perception of "animal character media" in a very biased way. Most commonly "it has talking animals, so it must be for kids" or "it's got furfaggots, it must be shit."
Eh, I'm not too bothered by the sexual stuff either to be honest. I guess two decades online does that to you. And it's not like I've never been attracted to characters that aren't strictly human either.
I get that the stereotypes have to suck, though.
Still a great "screw depression" song even after seven years.![]()
When you say it is pretty widespread, do you mean on the Internet or among the general population ? The "it's for kids" stereotype is definitely the later (see : Watership Down), but "it's for weirdos"... I'm not so sure.
To be fair a lot of furry hate nowadays is just trolling and ribbing. Some of it's genuine but compared to a few years ago it's mostly calmed down.
And as mentioned earlier, if a product's good, furry or not most people will be down. Freedom Planet gets the odd "haha furry" comment here and there, but since it's effectively a better Sonic than Sonic has been in over a decade, it's endeared itself to most people.
And one of the most popular indie games in recent memory has anthropomorphic characters in a little less than half of its core cast.
Another thing that seems to massively help is that the creators do not market it on the basis of the characters being "furries". They don't emphasize with "look at Goat Mom! She's so goatly!" Nope, they're all just referred to as "monsters" instead of "anthros" like the fandom generally calls most animal people.
Heck, in cases liike Zootopia and Undertale, everyone would still fan over Toriel and Nick even if they had been humans in the first place, because of the writing. (I know both of those things stories would had not worked with them as humans, but the point was the character's personality and growth, not what they are on the outside.)
But anyhow, the overall hate seems to have calmed down a bit. Probably thanks to some of these "out of nowhere overnight fandoms" that have popped up and attracted peoploe who are looking for something new to hate on.
Annnd I have seem to gone off onto tangents again. Yay?
Unrelated : I've been wondering if fucking in fursuits (you know, the CSI depiction) is something that even actually happens. By all accounts, these suits can get pretty hot (one article I read about a convention made mention of refrigerated break rooms for fursuiters), wouldn't you get a heat stroke trying to have any kind of prolonged physical activity ?
edited 20th Mar '16 12:52:05 PM by Aetol
Worldbuilding is fun, writing is a choreThere apparently is a blog dedicated to warning people about disgusting individuals who wear their "murrsuits" out in public.
Sometimes even unwashed.
And offer hugs.
Plus, if a little discomfort was enough to turn people off, then masochism and bondage would have died out ages ago.
Though speaking of physical activity of non-lewd nature; some cons hold footraces for fursuiters.
Yup, somebody thinks it's a good idea to have people in bulky, padded, warm suits with poor visibility to run around and getting sweaty.
edited 20th Mar '16 8:55:06 AM by Volatile-Fox
I know from just wearing costumes or even masks that those kind of things get ridiculousy hot.
But having sex in a fursuit? Your more likely to die from heat exhaustion rather then getting any pleasure from that. Those things are likely to be ridiculously hot. I remember reading somewhere that mascot suits like from say Disney or for cosplays are really hard to stay in all day because of how sweltering hot it is in them (those things don't have any vents, or the vents are too small). I also recall reading somewhere that fursuits are actually not very easy to make on top of all that. You can't buy one easily either, they are apparently rather expensive.
So yeah CSI got that dead wrong. Wouldn't be the first time CSI had a Critical Research Failure. Kinda sick of people taking that show seriously.
If you want a more obvious example of internet furry hate in the recent out of nowhere fandoms. Look at FNAF and anything involving Foxy. Although FNAF has the extra problem that the targets of Rule 34 are...well robots that are also canonically controlled by dead children. Doesn't help that FNAF ironically has a lot of kid fans and there is definitely a group of furries that like it as well (mainly for Foxy and Bonnie).
Horror games get a lot of hate these days...
edited 20th Mar '16 1:56:19 PM by Bleddyn

Not even automatically, if it's good enough. If there's one thing to learn from the success of Zootopia, it's that people will readily pretend that something is in no way furry, no sir, if they happened to like it. And I've talked with someone who was baffled when I told him that Usagi Yojimbo was indeed a furry comic by any reasonable definition of the term.
edited 19th Mar '16 7:23:59 AM by Aetol
Worldbuilding is fun, writing is a chore