This is gonna be a kind of rant post here. I don’t normally do this but I just wanted to get a little something off my chest. I have been in the Furry community since I was approximately 14 years old. I've seen the fandom grow in ways I never thought possible honestly. Some of the oldest comics and artists I remember reading and seeing were Jay Naylor, Blotch, Michele Light, MilesDF and so many others. Dog Days of Summer by Blotch was one of the earliest gay works of fiction I had ever read and introduced me to the whole concept if I'm being honest. It may sound silly but my 14 year old mind really didn't understand the idea of homosexual relationships. Not that I was against it, it just seemed... unreal. I had never seen one so in my head it must not be real. Hey, I was a kid, and it was, like, 2011. That comic and Love Can Be Different by MilesDF helped really introduce me to furry stories and Twokinds by Tom Fischbach solidified it, especially since that one wasn't so explicit.

Being a Furry in 2010/2011 was kinda strange because despite the fact that i really liked it, the consensus on the internet was that they were weird. I saw all kinds of jokes and hatred towards them for years and I genuinely never understood why. Have you seen their fursuits? They're so creative! Have you seen the art they make? It's freaking beautiful! Have you read their comics and stories? They're amazing! What is with the hate? I don't think the hate started to die down until around 2016 when everyone just kinda collectively moved on to a new target. There's kind of a trend on the internet where eventually people just kinda stop hating on something so hard and pick a new target to aim at. Furries were that target from 2000 all the way to about 2018 at the latest. Now the game has changed and it's... interesting.

I have seen furries shoot up in popularity lately by all manner of people. Even folks who either hated them originally or never bothered to pay attention now suddenly are posting about furries they think are hot or drawing artwork of some from recent furry adjacent waifu or husbando. Furries have been in animated works for years but I think the biggest ones have been Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps from Disney's Zootopia. COUNTLESS people have been admitting their thirst over the both of them and now it has spread to other furry characters slowly being accepted as acceptable baddies. The whole "I'm not a Furry... But!" joke is said constantly because with the massive boost in diverse designs and animations and characterizations and everything, it's becoming impossible to not have at least ONE furry girl or guy you're into.

And now it's spreading.

Video games like Zenless Zone Zero, on top of already having some curvaceous women, have a new furry girl on the field named Pulchra. They even released an animation online of her receiving a massage and EVERYBODY loved that. Shows like Beastars with the best wolf boy Legoshi and Deer boy Louis and even Juno are now beloved, Bad Guys with Wolf and Diane Foxington and the sequel with Kitty Kat, Games like Wild Assault is filled to the brim with furry characters and they WANT you to notice them, most recently the movie Goat has been a huge hit with furries and non furries alike It's just.... wow.

I am kinda skeptical if this is good.

I have seen this kind of thing happen with both video games and anime. Back in the day, Anime was seen as weird and nerdy and only weirdo loner weebs watched that shit. I remember those days explicitly because I got bullied by someone who stole a manga I was reading and threw it into a lake at camp. I had to read my books in secret because everyone hated me reading these "weird backwards asian books". Now EVERYONE watches anime or at least knows a few they don't mind. You used to be seen as weird for watching it, now you're weird if you DON'T. Video games had a bad rep for a long while! Look at how they were represented before 2008. Loners and geeks and social outcasts and really awkward boys played them. They were weak and always bullied and no one liked them and you'd rarely see a positive representation. Nowadays video games are freaking massive! Hell, it's gotten to the point where a bunch of companies are buying up video games studios just to get them to shill out an awful title cause they know these games can bring in bank. That's a discussion for another time.

As more time has gone on, I've seen the individual heart and soul of some of the things I love be corrupted and slowly phased out of style. Anime and gaming has changed. I won't say it's for the worse but it definitely doesn't make me feel as warm as I used to. The same people who used to bully me about watching and playing this stuff have now joined in and are complaining about how it doesn't suit their interests and rather than leaving and finding something new, they're actually getting folks to listen to their wrong complaints and change things. The whole culture around this stuff is wildly out of speck.

I've heard the word "Tourist" be applied to these folks. Some people call it offensive but I think it's a perfect explanation. Not all of these folks are fans, they may like one game/show and then are upset that not everything is like it. I'm just a little worried that something similar is happening with Furries. I want this fandom to stay a little weird, to have its moments of creativity and joy and individuality. I don't want it to conform to what's popular and what's current and new. I want it to keep its heart and soul. Whenever I need a new source of inspiration, I always come here. To any Furry site. Cause it works! I see the unapologetic brilliance of this fandom and how proud they are to be themselves.

I love this fandom. I really do. And I'm only 27 at the time of this. I can't even imagine how folks who actually grew up in the beginning of this fandom in the 80's or 90's feel. Maybe I'm alone here. Maybe I'm just yelling at clouds and this is all a wonderful thing. I dunno. I hope I'm wrong.