Fursona As Identity

Entering The Exotic

(Author’s Note: This is far more of an autoethnography than I like)

I want to help the public understand the Furry Fandom. In order to do so I need to explain some concepts, the first of which is how a sense of identity works in the fandom.

Pop Culture Roots

Taking another name is common. Plenty of entertainers and authors have done it.

Gordon Sumner took the name Sting, it stuck to such an extent that his own mother called him Sting.

Donald Eugune Lytle’s name was changed to Johnny Paycheck by record execs who wanted to vaguely follow Johnny Cash and create a similar brand. Johnny Paycheck is on his tombstone.

When Brian Hugh Warner changed his name his own father insisted he be referred to as Marilyn Manson.

Larry The Cable Guy, Rob Zombie, Zakk Wylde, Dimebag Darell, Alice Cooper, Snoop Dogg, and Bono from U2 are also some really good examples.

Cosplay In Other Fandoms

There is an essential difference between this fandom and others like ComiCon. People who cosplay as superheroes or Anime characters do so to attach themselves to that image and cultural capital of that character. Someone cosplaying as Batman will react to being called Bruce Wayne or Terry McGinnis in exactly the way you would expect. If someone is playing Vash the Stampede from Trigun, they have an innate connection to that character. They want to embody them.

There are rules within those universes and predictable reactions to those rules. A Joker and Batman will always play to the dynamic of their Comic Book, TV show, or Movie counterparts.

It isn’t common for people who like westerns to show up at a mystery novel convention.The Man With No Name can’t all of a sudden appear at a Sherlock Holmes meetup in costume. That wouldn’t make any sense. Their fandoms are too radically different.

How The Dynamics Are Different In The Furry Fandom

We like anthropomorphic animal people. That is a wide open sandbox with no other stipulations. We are not bound by anything else but that.

The rules are as we make them and as we want them to be. If we want to be a feline neurosurgeon next to a goat steam locomotive engineer, so be it. There are no boundaries and nothing to prevent people from just doing it.

There are cowboys, knights, detectives, futuristic cyborg warriors, Roman soldiers, video game characters, 1970’s NASCAR drivers, and so much more.

We will spend thousands of dollars on art that embodies that part of ourselves to live in that universe, to free what we identify as us. To express our sorrow, happiness, achievements, hobbies, adventures, vacations, erotic fantasies, non-erotic fantasies, and just for fun.

In his May 2020 paper entitled Fursonas: Furries, Community, and Identity Online, Ben Silverman has this to say about the sense of identity among those in the fandom

I have been a furry for more than 20 years. This is accurate.

The most important point is first person perspective. Silverman is correct. It is not universal. He is right that there are a lot of people here who do not refer to their fursona as “I.”

However, I know my experience has been different. For the most part, all my interactions are based in first person when referring to my own fursona. He and I seem mentally the same. When I talk to other people I use the second person when referring to their fursonas.

In day to day interaction with other furs, we refer to each other by our fursona name. We treat the avatar as the real person. When we invest in an art commission with another furry, it’s mostly “We look good in this piece,” not, “Our characters look good in this piece.

When you see artwork of our characters you aren’t seeing something insignificant. That is us, that is as much our identity as our human form. For some, that is what we go home to be.

We don’t want to be the animal, we want to be the fursona. We love that form factor, being bipedal and using opposably thumbs.

Interpersonal Dynamics

The way we talk to each other is also different in a few key ways. When we talk about introducing another furry to us, we need to know what species they play. We roleplay being in a rivalry, sometimes fighting like cats and dogs. We look forward to talking to people who understand our inner world because they have one like it. We sometimes refer to each other by our species as a greeting, like, “Hey puppy!” or, “Derg! (Dragon)”

We are looking to find common ground and talk about video games, cartoons, weightlifting, cooking, artwork, music, and current events with people who won’t judge us for liking Zootopia and who share our brand of creativity.

When you see an art commission online of someone’s character with an item like a motorcycle, it may be something that particular furry owns in real life.

If they buy a new car, guitar, firearm, or item they are proud of, they may commission an artist to draw our fursonas with it, to connect that part of ourselves to our real life.

When you see one of them SCUBA diving that may be art commissioned to celebrate a diving trip. If you see furries engaged in any sport that is an indication they want their fursona to like what they like.

I know I like it when my fursona does things I like to do.

Our fursonas have meaning to us. When we change our fursona it is a sign we are leaving behind an era in our lives. Just like people, our characters change.

Social Dynamics

When we go to conventions we wear convention badges, but they don’t have our face on them, they have our fursona, and we call each other by that name. We also refer to each other by our respective species. The need to be physically connected to that abstract idea is very strong.

For some, those who take it seriously, It is not superficial, it is a profound external component to our identity. We get no credit or recognition for it in our normal lives. It brings us value, and brings us great joy to counteract otherwise negative parts of our lives. We are desperate for a connection with others who share common ground. We are scared we will be judged because we have been judged.

Furries are always on the bleeding edge of social movements. Getting there first allows us to define every new development. Because we invite mockery, we need this. We need to set up and define our spaces before others do it for us.

Many of us came here because we feel a lack of personal agency and less social control than we wanted. We create a piece of media for an audience of one, and invite others to take part in it, bringing the version of themselves they created for themselves along to play.

Societal Rejection

While the trash talk shows and episodes of shows like CSI saw good ratings and easy targets, we see an uncaring and capricious world that rejects us. We see a world that brutally and specifically rejects us. They do not understand that they are mocking something we see as an extension of ourselves.

Personal Growth And Social Support Within The Community

It helps people who are neurodivergent, have extreme anxiety, and other issues to exit themselves and cope with life. It helps people who are very shy. It helps people who have all sorts of social burdens.

I have seen veterans come back from combat and gain a lot of control over their PTSD by creating a fake animal version of themselves. It gave them a sense of power over their destiny and helped them interact with a world they hardly recognized. I have seen furry vets meet other vets and enjoy another dynamic to their warrior bond.

When the rich online fantasy becomes so important the cat is out of the bag. The fandom is not going away and this dynamic will always exist. When conventions have to cap attendance because they can’t handle more than 16,000 attendees, when a group photo of around 25% of the attendees who perform in fursuits becomes impossible to take due to how many there are, then you have something too large to erase.

How Deeply Ingrained This Is to My Own Identity.

When I created my fursona, and this new one, it was a watershed moment in my life that I couldn’t share with my family.

Almost no furries share anything about their furry life with their family. It is a deeply private thing.

I did something different, I opened up to my family about it, showed them my fursuit, explained how fun it is to play my character. They accepted it but didn’t totally understand.

This is the mask I created for myself. I love the agency I have to change it, to place it into an environment or scenario I imagine. Arriving here gave me a sense that I was in control of something that was mine and mine alone. Others feel the same way.

I can reach out to an artist and say I want my character to be drawn next to an automobile I want, in the old west, the American Revolution, or in the 1970s. I was never there, I can’t afford the car, and can’t travel through time, but my surrogate, my alter-ego can.

I can talk to other furries and we can agree to get art of our characters together, despite it being almost or totally impossible for us to meet in real life. It is not like a photograph, it is deeper than that. It is an opportunity to find a connection in a way nobody else can.

Conflicted Ideas

I half believe this next part and half think it is an indication this is my conning myself intro justifying why I am taking part in cultlike behavior.

I feel as if the general public, those that have no idea how or why this works are missing out, and I pity them. In a few ways I feel sad on their behalf, who are too conventional to even entertain this idea. They will live an entire life scared to embrace radical creativity and even see that as a threat to their own existence. In a lot of ways I understand. This is a wild concept, and one that may never resonate with them.

By being a furry I know I have more control over a specific domain than the general public. They have more resources to engage in other hobbies, but I can relatively cheaply split off a persona/fursona and by doing that it can feel like I am pulling a fast one on reality. It may be and probably is a delusion. The comfort it gives me more than compensates for the self-awareness that this is fake.

I feel sad that normal people haven’t had the liberating feeling of watching something they create and embody take on a life of its own. I feel sad that they are so scared and live such controlled lives down a narrow, centered and straight path and never feel the call to adventure and allow themselves the luxury to be silly.

I feel sad that they spend the limited time on this planet passively consuming media slop rather than finding an outlet to push their own boundaries.

(This does create a unique to the fandom attack vector I will write an opinion piece on later.)

It’s a common belief in my fandom that, just because there is a straight and narrow road ahead doesn’t also mean that it has to be level. It can be a fun roller coaster. It can be a way someone can control rather than letting life imagine it for them. It is a delusion of control, yes, but it is an amount.

We live like nobody outside the fandom can take it from us.

Ask a furry on Bluesky or X if they think that their fursona is their identity, if that is their public face. I contest that most of the time they will skittishly say yes.

Given what I have told you, Why else would one think that we would use our fursona’s art and name on our public social media? Why would we use that to interact with the general public rather than our face and civilian name?

More in Part 2 where I discuss the dynamics in our art market.

My Patreon Subscribers can read that 48 hours before the general public.

That can be found here https://www.patreon.com/cw/BlackStag.