Furry fandom is not an “accepting” community.

I was introduced to “Furry Fandom” in 1994

I was spending time in a role playing chatroom on America On-Line. Some friends of mine at the time introduced me to this thing called TLK Muck where I could role-play in the Lion King universe. It was basically a whole world built out of a chat network. I joined that for a few months and met some others who introduced me to something called “FurryMUCK”. This is how I learned about the Furry Fandom.

Care Bear at Heart

When I was growing up I would watch the care bears every morning at 5:30 before going to school. This was where I learned to socialize. I learned about being considerate of others and caring about their feelings. I learned to be nice instead of mean. Because of this, I did not get along well with most of the people at school, because most of them are dicks who do not care about anyone but themselves and their own instant gratification. Before you think I’m being extreme, we are talking about 10-18 year olds here.

O.G. Furry

Furry fandom spoke to all of my interests. I started attending and volunteering at conventions. I worked 10 years in the security department for Midwest FurFest, and 10 years in the Audio/Video department for Anthrocon. I was also on the Anthrocon Board of Directors for 3 years, as the head of the A/V crew. I worked 90 hour weekends. It was physically and emotionally taxing, and I enjoyed it because I was building this thing that so many people were enjoying.

“Retirement”

In 2009 I suffered a painful break-up and lost my job a few months later. The stress was too much. It was difficult enough finding money to attend conventions and so I stopped volunteering. It wasn’t until 2013 that I really got back on my feet, when I moved to Georgia and started my own business as a technology consultant.

I have been attending FWA each year since, and while I have felt the craving to volunteer I’ve forced myself to stay in retirement. Other people can do the hard work, and I will just enjoy it, I’ve told myself.

Making Friends Online

I’ve made most of my friends using the internet since the mid 1990s. Several of my friends have died in recent years, and others have written me out of their lives for this or that bullshit reason. So to find new friends I returned to the internet. I started joining “furry” themed chat groups based on interests I share. Surely I could find some new friends this way, I thought.

Furries are bullies. Furries are trolls.

What actually happened was something different entirely. I got banned from more than half of the groups I joined because I stood up to bullying. The pattern was so consistent I was able to identify the exact method they use, which I will describe in a moment. Every where I went, IRC, Telegram, Forums, and so on, the same thing happened.

The Playbook

I mentioned that the bullies use a consistent method, and here it is. Someone throws out some “innocent” looking statement into the chat, usually something based on the stated interest focus of that chat group. When someone responds to it, they gang up on that person. This happened to me a lot, because I thought the point of being in chat rooms for specific interests was to chat about those interests. I did not know they’ve been taken over completely by social predators. When I learned to stop taking the bait, I started seeing them doing it to other people.

Once the victim has been identified, you see the exact same people every time gang up on that victim. If this goes on long enough, the victim gets “banned” for “causing trouble”.

The Definition of Cause

The victim did not cause the trouble, the cause of the trouble was the person who threw out the bait in the first place.

the whole ugly thing is hiding behind “free hugs” like a creepy man handing out candy to children from his van.

This is the reality of “furry fandom” culture.

This is an organized and pervasive culture of bullying, it is going on every day, in every “furry” chat group.  This is not an “accepting” fandom. It’s a hostile place, full of real life predators, and the whole ugly thing is hiding behind “free hugs” like a creepy man handing out candy to children from his van.

I love anthropomorphic art and stories and I think a lot of furries are really awesome people. But this thing that I’ve born witness to for the past decade is not anything that I would ever support.

Sex is okay tho.

You want to know what doesn’t get attacked? Sex. If you’re sharing porn or encouraging sexual behavior, with the obvious exception of groups that explicitly forbid that, the bullies never target that. Intelligent conversations get you banned, mindless masturbation material is encouraged. This is 100% true, and not accidental at all. It’s intentional and it’s organized and it’s everywhere.

P.S. The Irony..

I tried posting something about this on /r/furry, a sub-reddit on the popular reddit forum service. They banned me. With their action in spite of my warnings they validated everything I’ve said.