Forums » Smalltalk » AMA: Been a furry for most of my life

I've been an avid part of the furry community since I was small! I'm 22 now, and still consider myself to be part of the fandom even if I'm not necessarily active within its spaces any more. I spent what I think was two-ish years being an admin for what became one of the largest (And most controversial) furry fandom spaces in the USA!

I understand insensitivity in these asks, all I ask is that you just don't deliberately be mean about it!

What about being a furry makes it something that keeps you around in the community and practicing that lifestyle?

Have you gone to cons in the past? Do you have your own fursona and costume to go with?

It's been home for so long! The community has its flaws, but the sheer passion and drive of all of the creators within it keeps me coming back for more no matter what. Plus, the absolute best activists I've ever known have been furries.

These are people who are, fundamentally, true to themselves in a way not many other groups get to be, and so many of them are positively bursting with joy every moment about it.

I have several sonas, but no suits! My partner designs them, however, and has made them professionally in the past. I'm kind of a tech nerd, so we're working on sketching out a protogen fursuit that uses the full extent of botho f our skills, but until we can find, like, three thousand dollars to create the suit itself, we can't do much! It'll be run through an Arduino, though, and hopefully come out fully kitted with all the bells and whistles. Programmable expressions, color-changing LEDs, internal fans and cooling, and maybe voice modulation!

What is it like to be a ‘furry’ yourself? I have my characters, Lizbeth and Max, both furries. I can’t say if I’m a furry myself, could be, I don’t know.
Do you think having a right to be mentioned in the queer community?
And I do NOT mean in the ‘sexual’ way, I don’t want to discuss about that. I mean what is a furry in daily life? How are you seen during daily business?

So, at the end of the day, it is a fandom, and some people are more into it than others. I participate in local community events and stuff, but it doesn't really push into my life beyond that and with the friends I keep around.

The conversation of whether or not we should be considered queer is... An interesting one, because it does need to be acknowledged that the overwhelming majority of furries are queer(I'm a bi trans woman), but it's also not a fundamental part of being in the space. I consider asexual people to be queer, but I don't think furries mesh with the community well enough. And I think the overwhelming queerness within the furry community is pretty self-explanatory, too; It is a communal group fantasy about a world where we're accepted no matter how weird other people may think we are. At the end of the day, being a furry is... Y'know. It's about being completely true to yourself. Which resonates a lot with LGBT folks, I think, and is why I still consider myself part of the community. But we are not inherently queer, and you can be cishet and be a furry.


At the end of the day, the only threshold you need to cross to be one is to consider yourself as one. There's no minimum requirement here. You don't even need to necessarily have an OC. A fursona is usually considered to be something of a self-insert, an idea of what you might be as an anthropomorphized animal, but even that definition is a little on the looser side. In the end? I would consider anyone to be a furry if they so much as like the art, and the community as a whole would agree to open them with open arms.

Thanks…. ☺️

Thanks so much, I hope everyone gets a little lesson from that 🙂

Can you talk about one do your fursonas? Like maybe the one you resonate with the nost

I am quite ignorant on the whole community I don't know much about it myself! I've liked reading this and hearing your experience a little.

I only became part of the furry community at 14/15 (or, well, that's when I joined Furcadia, at least!), and didn't realize what it was until I was 18, so I'm wondering what it was like for you, personally, to grow up as a furry.

Do your non-furry friends tease you, or do they even know about this aspect of you?

I don't actually have that many non-furry friends! A LOT of the trans community is made up of furries. But those that I do have are pretty chill about it

I don't know how well-equipped I am to answer questions about my own childhood. For reasons unrelated, my memory of it is largely nonexistent. But the community was a safe space for me, a place where I felt welcome and loved and able to participate in a shared interest. It was where I first took off with my writing and met like-minded artists, and where I got my start with activism.

The one I grew up with was a catboy named Jake. I made him when I was, like, twelve, and... He was fun. Kind of a self-insert, which got a little weird when my identity got funky. But he was a sweet guy who liked to cook and read and play games. Later on, just a few years ago, I retired him and created K4, a protogen! Kind of a cyborg sitch, except she was never totally biological. Custom-built for a scientist, she's got all the bells and whistles but an outdated OS and core hardware, which means she's more limited in how she can upgrade and augment herself. She's taken a core part in a few roleplays I've been in!

At her core, K4 is about a lot of themes that're very personal to me. Communication difficulties due to the lack of a proper face to emote with, psychological differences in how her and her peers think (Autism allegory go brrr), wildly different biological needs(She needs to eat and dirnk and stuff, but also needs electricity and hardware maintenance, which she can do some of on her own but also needs to go to specialists about), and living in a body that changes so... Frequently. She often needs to upgrade or update herself, which I often use as an exaggerated representation of moving on in life as a whole, moving past things and growing up even well into adulthood. She's who my suit is going to be of.

What's one of your happiest memories related to being a furry/part of that community? ^.^