Furries have ingrained themselves in modern culture, but where did they come from? Patreon: / fredrikknudsen Twitter: / fredintheknud Merchandise: teespring.com/...
Isn't it interesting though, looking at this through the lens of the current era? especially around the now growing trend of trans surgeries and the hundreds of gender identities that get so ridiculous people are trying to introduce literal animal pronouns and things like actual BUGS into their identities? It seems humans have this insatiable desire for group identity...we want to belong to a meaningful group but the problem is, all these groups never speak to MEANINGFUL human values. How much of your life can you dedicate to anthro art? Not a lot. So it has to segment, over and over and OVER until you're left with hyper-niche identities which renders a person essentially a unique individual again, but surrounding themselves with others who happen to share those qualities as well...basically....friends. Look at what main stream religion does. It has groups of like-minded people getting together once (or more) a week to all share their collective beliefs with one another, and from that, stems communal identities. Communal support. What the furry communities have been doing, is what humans have been doing since the dawn of time. Pursuing deep meaning through group identity. But when these groups fail to provide that deep meaning (because its often superficial IDENTITY driven) you end up with shallow fandoms, shallow communities, all attacking one another, dividing over and over again There's no CORE belief holding the furry fandom together. It's literally just a visual artistic representation of animals. Anything further than that gets into religion, like attributing animals to human personality, which is done for example in the Chinese zodiac and Egyptian mythology. Psychology is fascinating. There's nothing a human being can do that would render me speechless, it would just render my mind into an endless assortment of questions. Furries just want to show you whoat the they are on the inside. It's not ALWAYS that they hate who they are (they do sometimes) its that they know, that deep inside, every single human being, there's something special. A "spirit" lets say. That spirit, is invisible, and the furry fandom makes that spirit visible. Which I think is amazing, despite it being of often confused and mislead into deviant human behaviors. Kindred spirits. Lost spirits. They'll find their own way, hopefully. Fascinating story.
@@CircmcisionIsChi1dAbus3 I agree in the main, but want to suggest some ideas. First, I think the group identity follows after the inner dream. I think that “groups of people” in and of themselves, do not think make for meaning. Meaning is a relationship between an event, and the impact of that event on desires. We are social, and dream of society, so that is part of it. But it’s not the only thing- it’s the dream that animated the desire and makes things meaningful. The group identity is meaningless if you don’t care about the group. I think that it just happens that in groups, people have the opportunity to obtain the leverage to bring deep dreams to reality. A “group” of people in itself is not enough. I say this because I think that the kind of anthropological lens towards looking at philosophical ideas of meaning miss the spirit for the body. “Oh, see the bodies find meaning through bodies.” But it misses the plot. I have a friend who says “Star Wars was popular in 1977 just because of the marketing budget.” No, that isn’t why. The furry fandom I suspect DOES have core beliefs. But separate from that, I think that more importantly. the furry fandom shares a core DREAM. And it’s not just the visual artistic representation of animals. That’s another point where it is the shell rather than the essence. If I would stake my guess: The Furry fandom is about the dream of intimacy. It is the dream of feeling unalienated between the human, and the animal, starting with within one’s own skin. It is about the hearth, friendship, and very critically, sexually. It is about warmth, masculinity, and femininity. I think the furry fandom holds the human in suspicion, but rather than pursuing the alien or the transcendental (angels, vampires,) the furry pursues the animal-human mix. I think the reason people feel lost, is because they haven’t seen a representation of their ground in a way that makes sense to them.
@@TWBIAP Every gamer who enjoys a violent video game is part of the mass shooting problem in the United States. Literally every one. Violent video games bad.
If it's the 'old' parties in the early 90s, honestly, they weren't that terrible. I think he was avoiding delving too deep into the old CYD archives and such. But a lot of them were, from the rumor mill and attendees--Mostly videogames, bootleg anime, and the religious watching of Animalympics, or screenings of cartoons before they were officially released, often due to the connections people in the parties had with animation. Later parties tend to change dramatically based on the group makeup. They run the range from very much gay swinger meetups, to LAN parties, to just sitting down and watching film. The ones I've been to, due to friends dragging me along mostly have been: 1) Why are these people not using the bedroom, I'm a lil uncomfortable with this. I think I'm gonna just focus on the movie and not THAT going on next to me. 2) Hanging out with nerdy lesbian girls, talking about The Secret World, and getting involved in the local Secret World community that was a thing at the time. Somehow the only one that involved talking about fetishes, as there was a discussion on softvore and one lady's extensive dildo collection, that she also doesn't use as she had a fear of penetration. 3) Videogames and MST3k. And then more videogames and MST3k. And D&D when we got sick of it. 4) Walk in the woods to talk about ethics and religion. 5) Drawmeets, where people just sit down, shoot shit, and attempt to draw as much as possible.
Really? I feel like documentation from these old parties would be hilarious and entertaining. To hear some of the wild stuff furries ACTUALLY got/get into would be major 🍿 🍿 🍿
@@ghost_1153While yes that is a problem in the world its only a small problem in the furry community since only 4% of people in the furry community are pedos/zoos. U might think the number is higher but its only because social media mostly shows the bad part of the furry community so people think most or all furries are pedos/zoos.
Eeee maybe that was the intention somewhere sometime. In reality the fandom has never had an issue with that, if people commit these crimes then theire not welcome in the fandom and that is common consensus. The burnt furs spiraled into nazis. Full blown nazis with flags and these arm ties and everything. The original posts might have made an obbious point that common decency should be held up in the fandom, but was already very hateful and aggresive. And the movement developed away from anything sensical and just became fascist nonsense. @@ghost_1153
@@Moon-tz1iy considering your channel's banner image has a bare ass on it with a little bit of fur and a tail, I'm not suprised you're the one to get mad at this comment
i like how it started with "we want more silly unserious comedy, people are too serious and mainstream" and then the 80s rolled by and then "we need more serios takes on our interests in the mainstream"
@@flyhighskyguy9972 Welcome to "the urge to reproduce which is necessary to facilitate the continued existence of an intelligent species but has negative side effects such as the inevitable invention of art moving into pornography"
@@dorklymorkly3290 Yeah, you don't get It. "Ironically", by definition", means to do/say/make something with an humourous aim. Let's take gay sex (since we are under a furry video It makes sense). Picture this. I am with my group of friends playing DnD or some other RPG. I play a female character. Then we go out to get a beer and while discussing the game I say "If I was a woman irl, I would totally fuck you dude" while joking about my character and he says "Let's fuck anyway, c'on" and then laugh. That's irony. If you then have sex in the bathroom, even if you say "no homo, it's Just a joke" It doesn't make It irony. There is a clear distinction between irony and "saying something is irony just to cover my real interest in something". In fiction this can be used in many ways. But if your parody of... Let's say, YA distopya novels, doesn't make the reader understand that it's a parody you Just made a bad parody. Irony, as written in novels at the start of the 900, was pretty easy to see because the writers did a good job
Not as in-depth as it COULD be, though. If you want a full account of anthropomorphized animals sweeping art communities, you could easily go as far back as the Ancient Egyptians... hell, Ancient Greece was notorious for all its anthros in its myths. If you said it was "for the temple," you could get away with anything as an artist. I suppose the takeaway here is that when you give artists creative freedom, inevitably someone is gonna draw lewd animals.
The 1973 iteration of Robin Hood (considered now to be the *other* seminal furry cartoon film released in 1973) was a mashup of Robin Hood and Reynard the Fox, a series of legends from the 12th century that was for decades on Walt Disney's wish list of possible adaptations. And that's just one example of something people likely assume as being far more recent in nature.
I find it incredible that with every popular long running internet fandom, it started out as a couple liking a thing, and then meeting up, causing a few other people to like a thing, then some of then proceeded to draw porn of it.
Hell, even the oldest recorded piece of art is a Furry: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion-man So, if you REALLY want to blame someone, blame possibly the first artist who ever lived.
@@dikbutkis7843 as a furry i can 100 percent that is the case. yes alot of people are open about having sex, and those people just so happen to be furries.
yah this is more psychology than philosophy. granted there is some over lap. But the study of human behavior is more the domain of sociology, anthropology and psychology than philosophy. Philosophy deals with ideas. Furry isn't an idea. It's an identity.
@@saladcaesar7716 Ok. I got a little bit tired of such rhetoric. Sometimes afrocentrists and black Israelites combined with other history revisionists sound much smarter and more original in comparison with these brilliant "jokes" and arguments aka "Damn! Egyptians wuz original furf@gz n' shiet!". Hope, that people who says this understand the difference between the myth and the modernity.
@@ophois9265 can't believe you brought zionism and nationalism in a discussion about anthropomorphic animals. Oh the mental gymnastic... Of course everyone knows the myths don't represent the "modern" versions. Of course Egyptians didn't mean to make their gods sexual like furries. Gods were meant to answers existential questions about life, nature etc. Why do we exist ? How does rain works ? Questions like that. So why do you take it so personally?
@@saladcaesar7716 "Zionism and nationalism" when I was talking about historical revisionism. It appears, you suffer from a dyslexia. Try again. When you look at these statements from the position of historical revisionism (aka you want to justify your political agenda or create a specific image for your political group) you eventually find out that crossing the fandom thing with historical entities like Ancient Egypt can be considered as a form of revisionism. If you believe that furries do not take this seriosly you might want to check their discussions related to topic of "Anthropomorphic vs Furry", and you will find out that there is a number of furries who do not take this statement simply as a joke.
I can't get over "funny animals" and the "funny animal fandom" because it sounds like he's trying so hard to cover up the term furry even though it's just that the term didn't exist yet "I'm not a furry I'm a FUNNY ANIMAL FAN"
I remember back in the mid-90s, my mom telling me some kids at my school got in trouble for emailing each other pictures of “cartoon animals having sex”! We all loved Disney and other stuff like that (some more than others), but I never knew such stuff existed.
The best comment I remember from that Twitter account was him saying something along the lines of "Daddy is going to spank all you naughty people if you don't behave" 😂😂 yeah you can just imagine the comments
Let's collectively take a moment to appreciate the stars that aligned to produce "Down the Rabbit Hole" and a history of furries in the same title. Also god damn, that puritanical purge manifesto read like someone cosplaying furry Hitler. There were some pretty dark undertones going on with that
Unsuprisingly there was a good deal of overlap between the Burned Furs and the Nazi furs, with even Foxler (yes actually) having claimed himself to be amongst their number. An incarnation of Burned furs have made a small comeback in the furry fandom of today, with namely older teens who want to sanitize the furry fandom. This has gottwn caught up in the much larger purge of zoophiles from the community as a whole, which looks to be actually working thankfully.
4:09 I've often wondered what furries find so fascinating in anthropomorphic cartoon animals, compared to cartoon characters in general. I think this letter finally shed some clarity on that for me. Like they say, humans are serious, human-shaped animals aren't. Combine it with animal characters possessing traditionally easy-to-recognize traits that allow creators to avoid irksome human complexities, and it all makes sense.
Yep! And it allows the characters to be more akin. No controversies no discrimination. Just funny human-like animals that are basically humans but look fluffy. That's a big part of the appeal.
@@Its_Asteria | It's also fascinating to me that y'all will tend to gravitate to the same handful of animals. Canine shapes clearly being the most popular. Any idea why that may be, aside from the positive connotations such imagery brings?
@@PotatoPatatoVonSpudsworthHI! Furry of seven years here. It might be just that! Canids (and by extension felids) were so present in such q large population of people's lives, be it through a childhood pet, a favorite media, a favorite animal, or just what kind of animal you could see yourself as. Though a lot of the times, it's also "I think that one looks cool, I'd like my character to be that." It is really interesting, though. I think a lot of the canine sona's come from (without going back to the previous acknowledgments) is just how popular canines tend to be in American (where most furries tend to be) pop culture. Think Balto, Paw-Patrol, those stupid "alpha Lone wolf" shirts that so many middle-aged dads wear for some reason. It's a recognizable species that you can look at and just go "yep, that's a dog right there," no matter what style they're applied in, I mean. Look at Bluey (albeit, not American, but you get the point), those bastards are cylinders, and you can still tell they're dogs. It could also be band-wagon philosophy, a young/new furry sees how many people have canine songs and jump on with them.
@@buttondowndingo | Thanks for taking the time to give me this analysis! What interests me even more though is how there seems to be a definitive furry artstyle. While individual styles do sometimes show up, I've noticed that the majority of fursonas I see online tend to lean towards a very specific "Disney-ish animal mascot" style. Is that the result of the media they grew up with? How do you think it'll evolve with time?
@potatopatato6610 That's more of a common "poster style" that more popular artists (Falfie is one to mention. Though we don't particularly like her much anymore) use. But art styles (including my own) are usually a big mesh of different inspirations, Disney is always a popular one because of just how much of a presence it has over almost every community centered around art ever. I think they're going to stay the same for the foreseeable future. The big artists in the fandom have always had some sort of a semi-toony style, with exaggerated features. I don't think it'll change anytime soon. But I have noticed a shift with more "loose" anatomy and features, really throwing the concept of "semi-realistic anatomy" at a wall and making out pf the resulting mush. A lot of furry artists are embracing the cartoon-iness and absurdity of it all, and I'm so happy to see it.
i very much apreciate the sexual anthropermorphic pornographic content spawned from the community but im not a furry myself, furries use persona as an escape as they dont have any personal values that they themselfs can apreciate, as well as for others, thats why they try to be something else, disturbing really
Imagine my horror, having only known of furries as a fringe group of enthusiasts born and contained within the Internet - extrapolating from my experience on old social media sites and video game culture... and then being informed that *in the year I was born* - the "original" furries were at the height of their power, AND were some of the earliest adopters of anime in the States. My entire existence is a prank at this point, man. I'm at a loss for words.
Dude, I know right. I was born in 85. A totally different era to me from now. Michael Jackson, pop music, blockbuster flicks, NES and arcade games... I can't even accept that in the 80ies this shit was already a thing. In my mind I have always associated this movement with the rise of internet platforms as a central way to interact with the world, so with the early 2000's, because never ever before across my childhood and teenage years I had heard of this.
@@standard-carrier-wo-chan hours, days, months, years, all part of the christian calendar. one example of people using a different calendar was during the french revolution where they used different “seconds”
*Sumerians! Egypt adopted many of their cultural norms, including their gods and animal-headed humanoids. But Sumeria was definitely first, or at least the first we've found that were writing it down.
+Miguel Vieira The Romans had orgies, painted themselves naked, and burned Christians, who burned innocent women for being 'witches'. In total, they were both insane. The people you glorify were fools and bigots.
This was surprisingly more in-depth than I expected, which I suppose shouldn't be as much of a surprise considering the level of research Mr. Knudsen seems to do for all his videos.
The thing to remember is that fandoms aren’t cults. They’re not organized with a specific hierarchy or agenda. They’re just individual people who all happen to have overlapping interests. In other words, most furries probably don’t know what each other are doing at any given point in time and no one furry can represent the tendency and intentions of the entire fandom. The same goes for all fandoms.
That is why I always got problems with the "toxic fandom" mantra :v7 is like.... they are not an organized group, they don't have a set of rules... they are in the same group just because be fans of something one being toxic or weird or whatever doesn´t give an absolute true image about the others + the entire point of identify a toxic person o group of friends is to AVOID them, so what Im suppose to do with that? "X fandom is toxic, so don´t be a X Fan or speak with other people that likes X" is like saying that I shouldn´t speak to humans because they can stab me, it would technically work, but is so unpractical xd
Hearing these people writing long over written essays that sound so dramatic and serious and then remembering that its about something as pointless as people dressing up in cartoon animal suits is incredibly hilarious
I watched the full thing and dude, split this into a few episodes and bam u have a Netflix masterpiece ready to bring in the green also bro ur voice is chill that probably what got me through
Fritz the Cat was a very Unusual Film. There were times when it felt like a Porno and times when it felt like I was high on Drugs. It was the original Furry Porn.
My dude and guide of the internet. Bro I watched hetalia through and through when I was like 12 but now I know the dark truth of what had happened far from my eyes
Fun fact: Charlene Trotman, the creator of the "burned furs" mentioned in this video, would later go by the name C. Spike Trotman, or Spike, and found Iron Circus Comics, a fairly major force in the indie comix scene and Chicago's largest indie comic company. She's also an avid pornographer and has published multiple smutty comics by well-known adult comic artists. After 20+ years, I think she's mellowed out quite a bit and I honestly can't find it in me to bear her any ill will; for all that her moralizing and puritanical attitude harmed the fandom as a whole, she always seemed to approach it from an angle of genuine, if misguided, frustration with the people she saw as harming her weird little niche of the internet.
Goddamn. Disney and old comic strips invented the funny animal, a weeb who was also a funny animal fan made a bootleg cartoon fan club, the funny animal fanzines hit the stands, then the porn artists got people excited about it and a random dude at a party named them "furries". What a history
No, cavemen invented the "funny animal". The oldest piece of art ever found is from prehistory and is a mammoth bone carved into a humanoid figure with a lion's head.
Oh wow, there is more to the Furries' backstory than I thought. And here I always assumed it started with too many people watching Thundercats and having the hots for Cheetara.
Oh wow! For me, this is extra information not mentioned in the Fandom documentary Ash Coyote made. This talks even more about of how the fandom was created! What a great video!
@@Its_Asteria Thanks, until a few days ago I hadn't seen Ash "unmasked". I understand Ash is trans female? Please correct me if I'm wrong about that! Thanks and all the best to you Martin aka Keneko The Anthro-tiger;) (yeah, i have a fursona now)
Furries have ingrained themselves in modern culture, but who are they, and where did they come from? where do they go? where did they they come from? cotton eyed joe?
The reason they are so common now is the exponential growth of the fandom. It’s the fastest growing fandom in the world and it’s rate of spread increases every year
It's the people in the fandom, not neccesarily everyone. This is a fandom where everyone on the outside will judge no matter what, so you hear a lot more bad things about it than good. It's just one of the many downsides to the fandom. Though being a furry myself, I don't see a lot of the negative stuff aside from the art theives but that's everywhere. Then there's also the horrible fursuit makers that either put sharp metal in their fursuit heads or are just a total ass to their customers. Again, not everything about the fandom is bad. People tend to just focus on the negative more than the positive with this fandom.
@@flavc5434 literally in the video there are multiple occasions where multiple sources say it's not the same as zoophilia. and it's not zoophilia. most of the fandom hates zoophiles and i often get furries in my timeline on twitter saying "zoophile, block and report" same with nazi furries and pedophiles. a really popular person in the fandom (fluffz) turned out to be a pedophile and is now hated by most people.
You know, I never realized that the furry community has a history that predates the internet, and even during the early years, had it's issues. Video was neat man!
I've been a furry since 2012. It was helpful for me as a kid who had very few friends. I had a group of friends from a site called furryteens that was from around the country (and the world). I felt like I had a group of friends I belonged to, although I couldn't see them personally. Furries are pretty tight knit, a bit odd, but almost universally very nice. The ones who want attention are usually the ones starting and continuing drama, go figure. The community has helped me through a lot of dark times in my life. I'm a deer, if anyone's wondering. That was my original pick and it's been 9 years, I feel like it fits me very well. I had some idea of the history of furries up to the 80s, but this is so in depth. I appreciate you taking a very unbiased approach and researching something that must have been very obscure. And possibly disturbing lol. Great video, you've won my gratitude
I'm actually amazed furries go back so far. I thought they were created in the mid 2000s. And it's really funny to me that the first weebs were furries
@@fursona_au_chocolat By your definition all of humanity was furry, you can't claim an Animist amulet is in any way connected to people dressing up as wolves for kinks.
"Le Roman de Renart" have a story about our foxy hero getting really intimate with his wolf rival, Ysengrin's wife. Then, he piss on Ysengrin's childs.
"Human's in general are too serious. They get puffed up, self important, and full of a satiable desire for impact and significance. Human character's are self-righteous, know all the answers, and are ready to enforce them on everyone else." Almost everyone on the internet ever.
Very educational video. It even made me want to meet few people into this when opportunity came, after I first watched, who are passionately into this subculture and I must say I was blown away by the quantity of unique, personality, creativity, intelligence and we remained very closed friends. I even tried on a fur suit but I find it too warm and uncomfortable to "get into" the character. Very open people, mostly with no sexual taboos and although they are called retards by so called "normal" majority I find that very unfair because they are highly intelligent and imaginative (one very respected stem scientist/reearcher), they are not limited to/by their fursonas, they have very wide range of interests and knowledge.
I was unceremoniously introduced to the Furry phenomenon in college. I was invited to attend a "costume party" on Halloween by a girl I had gone out with a couple of times. Obviously I assumed that a "costume party" meant people dressed up as vampires, movie and TV characters, and girls in various iterations of "sexy ____". When I picked up the girl to go to the party, she was wearing a full-body fur suit of some dog-like thing. Not knowing what Furries were yet, I complimented her on having such a dedication to a unique costume. When we arrived, though, it seemed that her costume wasn't so unique after all. In fact, the only one who stood out was me, dressed as a Highland warrior a-la-Braveheart in a kilt. Everyone else was in the same kind of big, plush animal costume as my date. If that wasn't weird enough, there was a couple in the corner of the living room, one in a turtle costume and the other in an anime-ish blue fox suit, who were _blatantly_ having sex in front of everyone. I quickly went right back outside. My date followed me out, took off her head piece and explained that this was a "Furry Party". I don't why she didn't explain this _before_ exposing me to it. Maybe she just needed a ride. Maybe she was embarrassed about her fetish and thought this was the best way to "come out" (it wasn't). Either way, I stopped dating her then and there. If you're a Furry and you're not sure how to talk about it with your romantic partners, I can tell you from experience that tossing them into the deep end without warning probably _won't_ result in a favorable outcome.
@@QBG So young, idiot teens start fucking each other at a party? Eh, that's pretty normal by teen standards. Plus, it seems pretty easy to get laid as a 'Furry', just wear a costume, and bam, virginity gone. You don't even need to keep your eyes closed or anything, because it's impossible to see anything out of the little eye-holes, another advantage! (Please don't take this seriously.)
Good lord. You poor man. But I had to laugh when you said you were dressed as a highlander with a kilt. If it had been myself within grasping distance of an even mildly functional claymore, I probably would have ended up pleading for a crime of passion in front of a judge by sun up :)
3:15 "You see the whole point of funny animals fandom is that humans in general too serious. We'd like to get funny animals back to the status they deserve." 9:42 "For some time a sentiment had been growing in the funny animal fandom that there was a lack of funny animal media done in a more serious manor."
At first I thought this was gonna be like the million other furry videos on yt that are just like "furries like animals and here's some drama" but this was surprisingly insightful! Great job!
I expected this to be 'Mickey Mouse then one thing led to another Zootopia' But instead this was a deep dive into the social strife in the furry community about sexual deviancy, and I still can't complain. Great video as always, my guy
Drawing commissions even for a week shows you the different levels of the furry community... The wholesome people who just want them and their friends illustrated as furries. The people who just want a way to showcase their hobby. The ones who want a way to introduce themselves. Creators of stories and whatnot. And then there's the thirsty ass ones who make me procrastinate and constantly repeat the "God stays in heaven because he too fears his own creation" line every time the price goes over 25$.
@@FeneFeline it's because most people sort of like anthropomorphic animals, but the ones who call themselves furries are far more likely to be in it for the adult nature of it. I like my childhood cartoons as much as the next guy, but not if the next guy is a furry.
@@daringiconoclast6547 I mean I am a furry but i am not a thirsty furry. Because those are the ones that make themselves be known everyone paints the community with the same brush.
I realize now that there truly is no fandom without porn, even the good ones, and some that are based around it have just been in the game for so long that they just absorbed it into themselves
I'm a fan of several obscure pieces of literary fiction that have virtually no art for them whatsoever, let alone p*rn, but I'm scared to name any of them because if I do, someone will go out of their way to make rule 34 come true.
watching a documentary on the history of furries is somewhere at the top of the list of things I didn't think I'd ever be doing... Thanks 2020 quarantine
Note that many images of people here are taken much after the fact. Like 20 years after, at least. Also some logos are anachronistic like Furaffinity's. It's really difficult to show an accurate image with so little media. Only a very tiny percentage of furries I have met look like that. Most are rather young.
Got to give a shoutout to Lava dome 3, 4 and especially 5. I met many artists on there, notably Rangarig, Ahastar, Diablo, Timanth, Salamander, and Zed's Lair (Zed being the biggest influence to me to discover the larger community) . Each artsist's webpage had a 'Links' button that took you to their list of other artists they liked. Some animators and artists from 1998 are still in the fandom (most notably FA)
@@Mikko74 sweating his ass off and pretty blind...I'm just picturing a suiter doing backflips now and I'm not sure how he's sticking the landing without crashing lol
