What is Furry?

A furry generally refers to a person who enjoys stories, art, and other media relating to furry characters. What's a furry character? It's an anthropomorphized animal, i.e. an animal with human-like attributes (being able to walk upright or having human-like hands and feet, or being able to speak). Another way to think of this is a human with animal-like traits (ears, fur, tail). Furries enjoy drawing, writing stories about, discussing, or watching cartoons of furry characters. Furry characters include toons or cartoon characters, and it is not uncommon for discussions of commercial cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny, Mrs. Brisby (The Secret Of NIMH), or Fifi La Fume (Tiny Toon Adventures) to be common among furries. Now the term furry can be a bit misleading... a creature does not need to have fur to be furry in this sense. Crocodiles, lizards, eagles, and worms can also be furry.

Often furries have their own furry character(s) that they write stories about or draw pictures of. Also they can have what can be called a furry personas (back in the old days these were called "personal furries"). Furry personas are usually the furries own representation/aspiration of themselves in the form of their favorite animal species.

How much a furry "gets into" their character and the furry fandom can range anywhere from being just a casual fan of a particular cartoon series, or someone who just likes foxes, to someone who fully enjoyes drawing pictures of their character, to people who bark and yip their greetings, to even dressing up in costume (called a fursuit) as a furry character. On the extreme other end are the furries who believe solemly and spiritually that they are connected in some way to a specific species of animal spiritually, believing that inside, he/she is not human and has an animal heart and spirit. These furries often tend to act more like their specific furry species in real life than people with only Furry Personas.

It is worth noting that sometimes this concept can become extreme in certain cases and the person loses touch with reality to the point of denying any relationship with the human species, seeking out animal totems, or performing channeling rituals. Unfortunately these extreme cases have, in some cases, become strerotypical views towards the furry subculture.

sm_sosf.gif is copyright ((c)) Ken Singshow, used with permission and is based on Disney's animated feature classic "Robin Hood" and Don Bluth's animated feature "The Secret of N.I.M.H.".

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