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What?

4 (10.5%)

Yes

10 (26.3%)

No

3 (7.9%)

Vaguely

17 (44.7%)

Its a virtual idol on youtube and other sites

4 (10.5%)

Total Members Voted: 31

Voting closed: 14 Nov 2021, 18:19

[shanejayell]

New comic!

I only recently knew what a vtuber was....

[St.Clair]

Same.

Marten's mom is (or was) a professional domme, I don't think he'll bat an eye.

[DaiJB]

I was thinking "Marten doesn't know what a vtuber is? Damn, he must be getting old."
Then I realized that I only know about it because my kids do, so 

[Farideh]

True, Marten's benchmark for 'weird' is pretty high.

[shanejayell]

I only found out what vtubers were because I was seeing fanart of them and went 'Who's that?' So, eh....

[Tova]

I only found out due to it being mentioned by this comic, and I still had to google it to remind myself ... 

[sitnspin]

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.

[shanejayell]

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.

Basically a virtual, online celeberty. They're often gamers, and followers watch them game, interact with them and so on....

[Tova]

As far as I can tell, instead of just putting your webcam output in a corner of the screen while you game, it instead hooks it up to some kind of neural network (I guess?) that maps your expressions and movements onto a virtual avatar, and displays that instead. So it kind of extends a fantasy element of whatever you're playing.

[John Allenson]

A Vtuber is what Aurelia Augustus and Marigold are.  Those are my two points of reference.

[Gyrre]

(click to show/hide)

.....Did Marten just discover he had a new kink?

[BenRG]

Okay, why is Aurelia acting as if this is some huge, dark secret? I mean... surely Clinton should have showed that, basically, her kids won't care beyond some concerns about her safety given the nature of her fan-base?

Please, don't let there by a sub-arc about Marten finding Aurelia's avatar attractive to the point it makes Claire feel inadequate.

[snubnose]

Oh ! So VTuber is a real thing. I had no clue. I honestly just figured that "VTube" must be the QC name for "YouTube".

[oddtail]

Can't really blame anyone for not knowing what a VTuber is.

I only recently (this year, I think?) learnt the term, and I'm a furry, so I'd say I'm statistically more likely to have stumbled upon the term.

[traroth]

Seconds passed since I learned what a vtuber is: 0.

[Gyrre]

I've only known what they are since either 2019 or 2020 myself.  Though, from what I understand, they really blew up last year.

[Mr_Rose]

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…
But yeah, lots of suddenly unemployed or mostly kinda technically employed people hitting the net looking for entertainment and, hey, new thing built out of funny animals and cute? The rest was inevitable at that point.

[snubnose]

[...] 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.

[oddtail]

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.

[dutchrvl]

The problem (well, depending on who you ask) is that many people who are only vaguely aware of the term 'furry' seem to think of it as purely a sexual fetish (or even worse connect it with bestiality), which to the few furries I know makes them very hesitant to use the term with anyone who doesn't already know the community

[Farideh]

New comic.

Does it matter whether or not your mother is a furry, Claire?

[shanejayell]

 

"What's a furry?"

 

[Gnabberwocky]

Spinning chairs are just the best. Put me in a spinning chair and give me something to do and I will be content for hours.

[Gyrre]

[...] 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.

Nope. And it's super annoying that there's no term delineation between 'I think anthropomorphic animal characters are neat' and the 'I want to bone down with said anthropomorphic animal characters'.

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.

[DaiJB]

I'm favouring the "perfect internet compartmentalization", because if there's anything that rivals the Augustus "lack of chill", it's the Augustus "total obliviousness"...though Clinton is usually the best exponent of this trait...

Now, if it was Marten's mom, I'd definitely go for "god-tier troll" 

edit: ...And I am looking forward to the day that the two moms meet. I hope there's some warning, I'll buy popcorn.

[BenRG]

Okay, maybe Clinton was right to be worried. At the moment, Aurelia's picture is in the phrase-book next to "Innocent Abroad".

[oddtail]

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.

"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.

[Tova]

Great talk, would subscribe to your YouTube channel.

[St.Clair]

Here's a graphic from twenty years ago, and I can assure you it was a thing even further back.

[oddtail]

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).

I think that only reinforces my general belief that much of what's mocked about fandoms and/or nerd stuff is a target for homophobic and/or misogynist reasons.

Related (and much more articulate than what I could ever write): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8E_C00dKwI

[Tova]

Here's a graphic from twenty years ago, and I can assure you it was a thing even further back.

I can assure you that the types of people on 4chan didn't just spring into existence in 2003 either.

[Potato Farmer]

"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.

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.

It's a person with animalistic traits. I don't care if it's not 'all the way' or whatever they'd want to call it, it's furry. The only people who care about the distinction between furry and non-furry are the ones who want to be free to shit on furries, which means there's no reason to comply with their ideas of where the line is drawn, especially when that line is extremely convenient in how they still get to enjoy catgirls and the like without having to face their own bigotry and hypocrisy.

[Marco]

[...] 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.

Am I imagining things, or Jeph just read yesterday's forum and made the "what is a furry?" joke on the spot?

[dutchrvl]

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.

[oddtail]

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.

I think there's a social component of being a furry. Kinda like "trekkie" implies being part of a certain fan community in addition to enjoying Star Trek.

In general, I think furries are vaguely defined for a very "I'll know one when I see one" reason. You know fursonas, the fictional furry alter egos people have that I mentioned earlier? I've known a guy whose fursona was a train. A train with no humanlike physical characteristics, mind you. I've met more than one person whose fursona was a human. Sure, those "fursonas" are in part at least tongue-in-cheek, but they exist. On their face, they make no sense and don't qualify as "furry". But they're accepted as fursonas because their "owners" are part of the furry fandom.

And there are plenty of people whose fursonas are fictional animals, animal hybrids, griffins, dragons and other mythological creatures. They are not technically anthro animals, but nobody really cares that much. EDIT: and taurs are, like, the most furry thing ever, and they're clearly not even close to actual animals. A taur is like a centaur, except the lower half is any four-legged animal (like a lion, for instance), and the upper half is a furry character instead of a human. I'm pretty sure I've never seen a taur character outside furry fandom circles.

On the other hand, when making fun of edgelord Batman fans who insist Batman should be serious and dark and brooding, the joke is made quite often that "Batman" is Bruce Wayne's fursona. And while I've seen - again, tongue-in-cheek - elaborate justifications of this position, and it *technically* fits, very few people would make a serious claim that Batman is actually a furry in any meaningful sense. Why? Because of social significance and intention.

Reminds me of a quote of what Salvador Dali allegedly said: "The only difference between me and a madman is that I am not one.". Being a furry is kind of an inverse of that. The only difference between me and a non-furry is that I *am* one.

So - is a huge fan of Mickey Mouse a furry? Not automatically. *can* a huge fan of MM be considered a furry based on liking MM a lot, and nothing else? Sure, why not. I think the general attitude among furries is "everyone's invited* ", and I think that impacts the definition being very loose and broad.

*Except Nazis. Nazi furs, famously, can f*ck off.

[St.Clair]

All fans of Disney's Robin Hood, on the other hand, are automatically furries.
This is known.

[John Allenson]

as regards to the furry discussion....

I identify with Marten in this comic, comfortable chair - WHEEEEE!!

As to the geek hierarchy chart, I claim sixteen of the boxes!

Isn't there an overlap between furry and shifter fandoms?

(Edit spelling)

[dutchrvl]

Marten, please and thank you.

[Akima]

Am I too late to suggest that Claire looked udderly horrified?

[Gyrre]

(click to show/hide)

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.

"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.

I'm actually familiar with points a and b

(click to show/hide)

(I'm also a furry to a degree)

. If any kink is going to be made a punching bag, I'm surprised it's not blimping or vore (if you don't know what those are, don't look it up).

EDIT: added spoiler so the post wasn't so long.

[shanejayell]

Comics up.

Yeah, I ALSO rarely google stuff in comment. Don't wanna know.

[Farideh]

I read the comic.

I Googled it.

Only read the descriptions, didn't look at the pictures. The words were bad enough.

[Romanticide]

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...

[Scarlet Manuka]

Here's a graphic from twenty years ago, and I can assure you it was a thing even further back.

However, it's worth noting that many of the arrows - including all the ones from visually higher levels to "Furries" - are bidirectional.

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.
The relevant groups which are on the same level as "Furries" are "Erotic Fanfic Writers who Put Themselves In the Story" and "Trekkies Who Get Married in Klingon Garb".

Also, I just noticed that my forum title is currently "Furry furrier", which seems appropriate for this discussion

[shanejayell]

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...

"WE MUST PROTECT THE CINNAMON ROLL!" basically.

Wonder if Burger Oni gets that, or it's more "Drown her in lewds!"

[badbum61]

Today's strip is best read in a stereoscopic 3D viewer...there's two parallel storylines there.

[sitnspin]

Burger Oni seems like Marigold's vehicle for being more confident and assertive and I fully suspect she leans into the trashy parts of internet culture.

[Gyrre]

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.

To answer your question, yes.
That's why it's annoying that there's not really a distinct term for furry content specifically geared towards adults. I've seen 'tail' used on occasion for specific fandoms[1], but I'm unfamiliar with much else aside from things that get me labeled as an 'anti' for being against.[2] But, generally speaking, a vast majority of people who enjoy SFW furry content aren't inyo as a kink. [3] In light of all of this, just make sure that your family-filter/SafeSearch or whathaveyou is turned on when looking up fanart of anything.[4]

[1]and then the 2017 tumblr titty ban happened
[2] pedos/paedos insist on ruining everything
[3] but yes, there are people who want to bone down with Bugs and/or Lola Bunny
[4] a lesson hard learned as there are things you can't unsee.

EDIT: typo correction and organizing my thoughts.

[SmilingCat]

I used to have a poor opinion of furrys in general in my younger years due to the actions of one loud mouthed clown in particular that I was able to observe as they happened.

As I grew older and wiser, I started to realize he was a loud mouthed clown because he was a loud mouthed clown, not because he was a furry, no matter how hard that part of his life was shoved in everybody's faces.

(his affects were pronounced. Years later, you still can't mention furrys on the official battletech boards without some of the older mods getting nervous)

[Tova]

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.