This comic was the first I heard of the term and even after looking it up, I'm still not entirely sure what it is.
I've only known what they are since either 2019 or 2020 myself. Though, from what I understand, they really blew up last year.Ah, yes, the tragedy of the Spontaneous Detonation Plague…
[...] and I'm a furry, [...]Wait, what ?
[...] and I'm a furry, [...]Wait, what ?
... more terms to google ...
Oh, ok. Not really a too clearly defined term, it seems. Fan of animal inspired characters, such as werewolves.
Add to that the general scale of the character's anthropomorphization, often referred to as 'Level of Furry' regardless of which of the two above definitions you're going with. There's dozens of visual graphics for this, but for an idea: Thundercats is (highly anthropomorphized) scaling to MLP (talking animal).
EDIT: Seems there's a couple varieties since last I checked. 5, 7, or 9 levels. In the cases with additional levels, level 1 trnds to be 'not a furry' and is a human wearing a animal ear headband with a fake tail clipped to their pants. Level 7or 8 is a non-talking non-sapient cartoon animal (typically labrled 'please reconsider'). Level 9 seems to be a non-talking photorealistic animal labeled 'Just NO. Go back!' or something to that effect.
(https://theawesomedaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/furry-scale-feat-1.jpg)
Here's a graphic from twenty years ago, and I can assure you it was a thing even further back.
"level of furry" is an idea made up by non-furries who both want to shit on furries *and* want to justify drooling over anime catgirls, but they couldn't handle the cognitive dissonance. So they made up a stupid arbitrary metric explaining why their own kinks are Not Creepy, Actually.Oh yeah definitely. Whenever someone says that it's not furry if it's just the ears and a tail I tell them to shut their trap and accept that they enjoy furry content.
Which I mean, fair. Any kink is creepy from a certain perspective. But:
a) Furries are the Internet's favourite punching bag, and it's tiresome because it's so arbitrary (see this: https://xkcd.com/471/ );
b) Hating on furries quite often has homophobic and transphobic undertones, because the furry fandom has been very LGBT-friendly pretty much since its inception, and any attempts by e.g. (crypto)fascists to infilitrate or co-opt it have always met with a strong pushback (compared to some other fandoms or hobbies).
Or to put it in simpler terms: hating on furries is a very "4chan" thing, as is trying to put "how furry is it?" on a scale. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
[...] and I'm a furry, [...]Wait, what ?
... more terms to google ...
Oh, ok. Not really a too clearly defined term, it seems. Fan of animal inspired characters, such as werewolves.
OK, I assumed most people on the English-speaking Internet were aware of the furry fandom. Even if through a somewhat negative lens, most of the time.
But yeah, "a furry" refers to either an animal character anthropomorphised to a large degree, a fan of fiction or art featuring such characters, or to a person with an alter ego (often used when interacting online) that's an anthropomorphic animal.
OK, I assumed most people on the English-speaking Internet were aware of the furry fandom. Even if through a somewhat negative lens, most of the time.
But yeah, "a furry" refers to either an animal character anthropomorphised to a large degree, a fan of fiction or art featuring such characters, or to a person with an alter ego (often used when interacting online) that's an anthropomorphic animal.
This is interesting to me. Would that make any massive fan of donald duck/mickey mouse etc. a furry? It doesn't matter anyway, if people feel they are furries, they are furries. Never understood the people who get weirded out by the term, unless they have completely misguided notions on what it means.
(click to show/hide)
"level of furry" is an idea made up by non-furries who both want to shit on furries *and* want to justify drooling over anime catgirls, but they couldn't handle the cognitive dissonance. So they made up a stupid arbitrary metric explaining why their own kinks are Not Creepy, Actually.
Which I mean, fair. Any kink is creepy from a certain perspective. But:
a) Furries are the Internet's favourite punching bag, and it's tiresome because it's so arbitrary (see this: https://xkcd.com/471/ );
b) Hating on furries quite often has homophobic and transphobic undertones, because the furry fandom has been very LGBT-friendly pretty much since its inception, and any attempts by e.g. (crypto)fascists to infilitrate or co-opt it have always met with a strong pushback (compared to some other fandoms or hobbies).
Or to put it in simpler terms: hating on furries is a very "4chan" thing, as is trying to put "how furry is it?" on a scale. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
Here's a graphic from twenty years ago, and I can assure you it was a thing even further back.
For bonus points, it has a problem with Star Trek fanfic (putting them in the bottom tier alongside furry stuff). Which notably is one of the first places where M/M pairings of fictional characters was a thing (and most fanfics, even in early ST fandom, are/were written by women).That's not true in reference to the graphic. "Fanfic writers" and "Trekkies" are both on the third level, and there's no intersection between them until the bottom-level "People Who Write Erotic Versions of Star Trek Fanfic Where All the Characters Are Furries[...] and They Put a Furry Version of Themselves as the Star of the Story", which is a lot more specific than just Star Tek fanfic.
I wouldn't be surprised that the followers of Aurelia, realizing she is either a not very online gen x or boomer an not current with many of the things of internet thinks is quaint and part of her charm...
OK, I assumed most people on the English-speaking Internet were aware of the furry fandom. Even if through a somewhat negative lens, most of the time.
But yeah, "a furry" refers to either an animal character anthropomorphised to a large degree, a fan of fiction or art featuring such characters, or to a person with an alter ego (often used when interacting online) that's an anthropomorphic animal.
This is interesting to me. Would that make any massive fan of donald duck/mickey mouse etc. a furry? It doesn't matter anyway, if people feel they are furries, they are furries. Never understood the people who get weirded out by the term, unless they have completely misguided notions on what it means.
As silly as that "Level of Furry" chart may be, it does explain the failure of Cats the film. I don't think anyone could handle the cognitive dissonance of hating on furries and enjoying that film.
You could call "Cats" a failure based on its level of furry, you could also talk about Uncanny Valley.
If it was a bad film, it was a bad film. Nothing complicated about that.
As silly as that "Level of Furry" chart may be, it does explain the failure of Cats the film. I don't think anyone could handle the cognitive dissonance of hating on furries and enjoying that film.I just think they did a terrible job of mixing human and non-human features with the end result being unappealing to most people regardless of whether they're furry or not. I haven't seen the full movie but I've seen some clips and screenshots and my personal conclusion was "It was a brave attempt but it didn't work out."
Again, "unappealing" and "didn't work out" I can easily accept.I'm not sure how to explain it. The only real comparison I have is the original design for Sonic in the Sonic The Hedgehog movie. I believe that received roughly the same reaction where people didn't just consider it bad, they found it actively repulsive. I don't know how to explain the why, but I do know that the reaction was genuine and well-documented.
It's the "kill it with fire" reaction (as oddtail put it) that, for mine, wants further explanation. There are a lot of bad films out there. Some of them extraordinarily bad. Few get that level of reaction. Some of the truly bad ones end up cult favourites.
Actually, Marten got me wondering 'Why aren't there AI furries?"
Most of the AIs we see are at least anthropomorphic if not full out humanoid, which makes a lot of sense from the function of a comic. After all it's a lot easier to show personality with someone who looks like Bubbles than with a floating, black slab. But we do know that Mech bodies are options for AIs. May wanted to be a fighter jet - not a fighter jet pilot.
But the only animalistic robot I recall was a nightmare fuel spider. (maybe Yelling Bird was an AI?)
I find it easy to imagine AI companions who might opt for 'dog' (especially Winslow - I can see Winslow as a golden retriever). I can imagine Yay Newfriend with a cat body, great for stealth. Elephant, dinosaur, and shark/whale bodies
Actually, Marten got me wondering 'Why aren't there AI furries?"
[...]
But the only animalistic robot I recall was a nightmare fuel spider. (maybe Yelling Bird was an AI?)
I find it easy to imagine AI companions who might opt for 'dog' (especially Winslow - I can see Winslow as a golden retriever). I can imagine Yay Newfriend with a cat body, great for stealth. Elephant, dinosaur, and shark/whale bodies
Well, there is the bear-janitor for the non-profit.
Maybe it was audio only?
As silly as that "Level of Furry" chart may be, it does explain the failure of Cats the film. I don't think anyone could handle the cognitive dissonance of hating on furries and enjoying that film.Lindsay Ellis has a video essay on that. It was a cocktail of the director, uncanny valley, and ways it deviated from the original material.
As silly as that "Level of Furry" chart may be, it does explain the failure of Cats the film. I don't think anyone could handle the cognitive dissonance of hating on furries and enjoying that film.Lindsay Ellis has a video essay on that. It was a cocktail of the director, uncanny valley, and ways it deviated from the original material.
Maybe it was audio only?
As silly as that "Level of Furry" chart may be, it does explain the failure of Cats the film. I don't think anyone could handle the cognitive dissonance of hating on furries and enjoying that film.I just think they did a terrible job of mixing human and non-human features with the end result being unappealing to most people regardless of whether they're furry or not. I haven't seen the full movie but I've seen some clips and screenshots and my personal conclusion was "It was a brave attempt but it didn't work out."
Also somewhat supported by the fact that I don't think I've seen a lot of furry art which looked like the characters from the movie, and I've seen a lot of furry art.
(the technical reason has to do with only hearing your voice through air, rather than with the additional tones that are conducted through your skull-bones)
I like Marten in this comic.
"I'll just chill with Cosmo"
He's not inserting himself. He's not interfering. He's not questioning. It's Claire's questionable decision to make.
I havent watched anyone with an avatar yet, but its pretty common for gamers on YouTube etc to first display a logo of some sort, until a game is started, so I bet thats whats currently displayed.
New comic.
According to Google, the name for 'cowboy phobia' is 'pistolpetaphobia'. I take this term with a grain of salt, though.
Also: no, Claire. You might have been anonymous, but that is not your story to tell.
Very probably.New comic.
According to Google, the name for 'cowboy phobia' is 'pistolpetaphobia'. I take this term with a grain of salt, though.
Also: no, Claire. You might have been anonymous, but that is not your story to tell.
That is likely fear of a specific cowboy, or group of cowboys: Pistol Pete is the gun-toting cowboy mascot of the Oklahoma State Cowboys.
That depends. Do all phobia names have Greek roots?Good point.
Since “Phobos” is Greek, to do otherwise would be mixing.
On the furry thing, I've noticed as I get older that the urge to denigrate one's fellow humans remains a constant of human nature, all that changes is which attributes are found acceptable for looking down on your fellow humans.
This seems to be morphing into the 'English is weird' thread
There's only one "rule" about coining a new word.
Can you convince a lot of other people to start using it?
If so, congratulations. You've just coined a new word that will soon make it into dictionaries.
There's only one "rule" about coining a new word.
Can you convince a lot of other people to start using it?
If so, congratulations. You've just coined a new word that will soon make it into dictionaries.
Shall I try to persuade you to accept it?
A guesstimate is an estimate that comes with an acknowledgement that its basis is so slender that it is actually hardly better than a guess. Its usage is firmly tongue-in-cheek.
"Estimate" loses that acknowledgement. "Extrapolate" is even worse. And "guess" doesn't really capture this word's facetious flavour.
So the word earns its place IMO, admittedly as a conversational, casual word.