A Brief Introduction of Furry Culture and Furry fandom

(前言：此文为英语课演讲稿，简略地总结性地表述了我的一些个人观点，不免粗糙，欢迎批评。)

（此处缺失图像，详细请移步知乎：https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/616336634）

Hello Everyone！

I’m very honored to stand here and deliver a speech to you! As far as I know, there’re countless subculture fandoms（亚文化圈子） in our daily life, which may have impacted our life in various ways.

(“Fandom” means a community of fans who are obsessed with the same thing)

Today, I’ll talk about some own thoughts of subculture fandoms, by giving a brief introduction of “Furry Culture” and “Furry Fandom”, one kind of subculture I’m keen on.

According to dictionary, “furry” is an adjective to describe something covered with fur. But I want to ask a question. Have you heard about “Furry” as a subculture? If you say “yes”, what’s your impression about “Furry”? Of course, before we discuss something complex or you’ve never learnt about, we’d better try to give it a definition, no matter in general or in detail. However, it’s usually dangerous to define a subculture, on the ground that what’s included in it is always diverse from different perspectives of different people, and usually changeable as time goes on. No matter how we try to define it, various kinds of discontent, discord and disagreement from others always arises.

But anyway, we cannot study something constantly varying, which means that we have to define what is “Furry”. According to professional research and interaction with lots of furry fans, I define “Furry Culture” as an interest in anthropomorphic（拟人化的） animals, in a broad sense. As for in a narrow sense, it’s defined as not only an interest in personified animals, but also self-identification and self-satisfaction from this interest. When somebody is regarded as a “furry”, it refers to a fan who is obsessed with human-like animals and even obtains more or less self-identification from it. Some furry fans create their own fursona（=furry + persona，兽设）, a fictional anthropomorphic animal character related to self-personality, which can be played on their own. Usually, some characters loved by furry fans can be also called “Furry”. When furry fans are interlinked due to similar means of communication with similar preference for cultural consumption and even systems of subcultural reproduction（再生产）, we call this subculture community “Furry Fandom”.

Next, I’d like to show you some pictures and answer questions attached.

Of course, people who are fond of “pure” animals are not regarded as Furry, in most furry fans’ minds. There are many differences between furry fans and ordinary animal lovers, or even “Therians（兽信仰者）”, although there is also overlap among these.

Of course, people fascinated in “Kemonomimi（兽耳娘）” and shota（正太） with animal ears are not regarded as Furry, in most furry fans’ minds. Furry fans enjoy animals with humanity, not human beings with characteristics of animals.

To be honest, these animation characters are in line with my broad definition of Furry. In fact, many Chinese furry fans initiate a vague interest for “Furry” because of these characters. However, in some furry fans’ minds, these are not “Furry” enough, considering that one kind of subculture isn’t simply defined by art style, but by more other things.

Obviously, these characters are not covered by fur, but we also regard them as “Furry”, due to the fact that they are in line with definition of Furry, as anthropomorphic animals. However, not all human-like animal characters can be judged to be “Furry”, like most of insects. In a word, it’s not easy work to clarify every detail. Thus, we just need to learn about a brief overview of Furry culture.

Next, I’d like to introduce cultural products in furry fandom.

In fact, furry fans consume all kinds of products, covering from fictions to paintings, from short videos to cartoon films, from visual novels to interactive games, from digital products to physical goods. As for digital products, the most influential part is paintings. usually digital paintings. As for physical goods, the most famous part is fursuits（兽装）, animal based costumes associated with the furry fandom. There’s an important point to be made here. When we encounter furry fans by accident, what we see is always fursuits, because they’re most eye-catching. But fursuit is not the entire content of Furry culture. There are many other forms of Furry culture, as mentioned above.

Then, I’ll talk about how furry fans intercommunicate and form a subculture community.

Same as fans of other fandoms, furry fans will talk about anthropomorphic animal characters, primarily in all kinds of cartoons, usually on various Internet communication platforms or apps. They even based on these characters re-create（二创） new fan works（同人作品）. When interacting with other fans, some furry fans will play the part of their fursonae and interact  with each other through art works based on fursonae created on their own or by other artists. Therefore, the system of furry culture reproduction has come into being.

What’s more, based on special culture reproduction system and culture exchange network, furry fans have formed unique ways to communicate and unique communities to interact, which may have impacted their daily life. Offline, except small gathering, furry fans may hold furry conventions（兽展）, similar to ACG exhibition（漫展）, a big gathering where furry fans interact with each other. When looking back to these social relationships, we retrospectively construct a concept called “Furry” so as to put these into words and facilitate the system of culture reproduction and try to harden this community. This is the truth about “Furry Fandom”, meaning that it’s not only concept’s motion, but the movement of realistic social relationships.

It's a good question that “why people come in furry fandom?”.  To be honest, different circumstances make different reasons. As far as I know, some are just obsessed with human-like animal characters, and some desire for self-identification and self-satisfaction which are difficult to attain owing to various realistic reasons. Similar to other subculture fandom, people come here to seek for friends sharing similar hearts, for warmth and kindness hardly obtained in daily life, for self-identity or identity from others, for realization of self-value and self-satisfaction out of dissimilatory（异化的） society. Meanwhile, some get involved in order to fill deep gap of their burning desire, for exploitative wealth, for oppressive fame, for wanton sexuality, for other selfish desire that violates the rights of others and even the public.

Next, I’d like to introduce the pretty brief history of Furry culture and Furry fandom.

As widely acknowledged, modern furry culture and furry fandom originated in North America which was separated form science fiction fandom in the late last century. It was impacted by many kinds of western traditional culture, and the art style of “funny animal”, an art style features talking animals, and even the counterculture movement（反文化运动） with the great ideological liberation in the 1970s. It’s complicated to clarify all the details and their relationship within few minutes, so we’d better move on.

Across the ocean, also in the late last century, a genre of art and character design that prominently features fictional anthropomorphic animal characters in human-like settings and situations. It is widely used in manga and anime (日漫), many of which are popular in the rest of the world. It is called Jūjin (獣人 or じゅうじん), or more well-known, Kemono. There’re lots of interflow between “Kemono” and “North America Furry”, having formed two similar but relatively independent subculture fandoms, separated by different regions.  

As for China, there were plenty of works including anthropomorphic animals, such as various legends and myths, the Classic of Mountains and Rivers（山海经）, Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio（聊斋志异） and so on. After the Founding of New China, Chinese cartoon artists absorbed the art style of “funny animal”, and created lots of remarkable works, such as Black cat Sheriff（黑猫警长）, Shuke and Beita（舒克与贝塔） and others. However, modern furry culture and furry fandom in China came into being in early 2000s, not only impacted by cultural inertia and social status, but also profoundly influenced by “Kemono” and “North America Furry” . Chinese furry fandom has gone through “BBS Era（论坛时代）”, “Tiebar Era（贴吧时代）” and now “Pluralistic Era（多元时代）”, which is based on different patterns of culture reproduction, communication ways and community platforms.

For instance, in “BBS Era”, furry fans mostly gathered on various BBSes, which was influenced by North America Furry Fandom more. In “Tirbar Era”, furry fans mainly collected in Baidu Tiebar, which was impacted by Japanese Kemono fandom more. In “Pluralistic Era”, the scale and range of furry fans, spread on diverse Internet platforms, has expanded dramatically. Chinese furry culture and furry fandom have been developing its own characteristics, meanwhile many common or specific issues have been arising, such as commercialization（商业化矛盾）, localization（本土化冲突）, more the young（“（心理）低龄”小鬼泛滥）, content homogenization（内容输出同质化）, community differentiation（社群分化）, “Gray Zone”（灰色地带）, LGBT+ issue（性少数群体问题） and so on.

Due to lack of time, I can’t discuss these issues in detail, although what is more significant are these issues, rooting in realistic social status and relationships. After all, the driving force of advancement comes from contradiction movement.

All in all, when analyzing one kind of subculture, it’s useful to study its culture reproduction system and formed community, based on both historically and realistically comparative analysis. Try to discover and interpret contradictions and seek for reasonable solutions.

Thanks for your attentive listening.

Jiaoxia Zolank

In NJU 2023/3/21