Everytime I watch your channel more of that internalized cringe I have from being a teen on the internet in the 2010s disappears and my autism multiplies
my theory is cringe culture unironically set society back a good 30 years because trans and autistic people being unmasked is what pulls society forward.
@@Rosemorgana1312 yes exactly cringe culture SUCKS and it's just disguised hate, it's mostly ableism and anti lgbtq and they just put it as erm but it's weird and cringe which = bad apparently (it doesn't)
@@NeonLabsss being cringe is objectively good!! theres nothing better than embracing and loving your whole self even if you grow to regret some parts of who you were. Loving yourself in a loveless society is one of the most radical things a person can do
I'm neither a furry nor autistic, but this has, I think, probably helped me conceptualize a little better my own feelings about being almost machine-like. I am still neurodivergent (ADHD) and often end up feeling not animalistic but mechanistic - something built _by_ humans and reliant on them. I need my tasks scheduled, I need to be refueled and can only sometimes remember to do that on my own, I need cooling to avoid overheating durin routine operations, I need maintenance and care on so many levels before I function optimally but when I am functioning optimally I can do the work of four other normal people because Im hyperfocused and going full steam ahead. I don't always feel divorced from humanity socially, but at the same time, I do best with explicit instructions and honest and forthright conversations about needs and wants. I view things analytically and think of my perspective as a sorting or filing system, applying little flags to my conceptions of people or things that make people ask why I feel the need to categorize when everyones just their own unique person and you shouldn't try to pigeonhole people but thats not what im doing I need these flags to be orderly for my own ability to understand you and you will not take them away just because you think I can't view things beyond the layers and layers of basic categories. I don't know that I'll ever really 'get' being a furry in the visceral sense, but I do relate to feeling something other than human like everyone else seems to be.
Buddy, I mean this in the nicest possible way, but you might be autistic. You just described a lot of autistic traits and if you already have ADHD, there’s a high likelihood of crossover between the two.
I'm a large guy, I started needing to shave when I barely turned 13 and I have body hair over pretty much my whole body. When I was in high school I was basically forced to do a sport, and since I sucked at hand-eye coordination with my astigmatism I went into wrestling. Part of our practice, our coach would sometimes have us do a game where we were crawling (to practice ground control) and getting a ball to an opposite side goal. As all little games with balls go, we did shirts vs skins. Since I was the hairiest (and also sweated easily) it was deemed I only play skins. I got mocked and sneered at for being that way, the gross comic relief nobody wanted to touch. I was that scene from Along Came Polly, the gross out one with Ben Schneider playing basketball. I was already shoehorned into the "funny kid" role for being fat so I had to play along with this now. I feel way more comfortable being a furry than I do a human person. As a big binturong I'm more wanted and attractive being fat and fluffy. Folks don't feel disgusted about me being hairy, I don't have to be funny to keep myself safe from ridicule bout my body (now I can just be funny because I want to make bad puns). I didn't make a fursona to give myself a body type that's conventionally attractive, I made a fursona that's just me but as a binturong, and that feels far better than the human one.
"Represented in this cast is every kind of autism accent there is. You know it when you hear it. It's the voice of someone who conceptualizes every word in the sentence as its own event." Fuck the DSM-5, THESE are the kind of descriptions of autism that we really need. As an autistic person who works with several other autistic people, I haven't "Aha'ed!" this hard in a long time. Only quibble: you forgot the "overly-articulate, probably homeschooled know-it-all" accent, which is the one I happen to boast.
Listening to you speak about your relationship to the sensory and animal is very interesting. It's basically the inverse of my experience. My early teen fantasies were of distancing myself from the animal and the sensory. I found flesh, skin, and hair gross. The texture, the smells, the sounds... a lot of it was just grating and unpleasant. I had fantasies of being made of metal, or being a disembodied spirit, or fuck it, being a floating glass pyramid or something. Still, decidedly inhuman. I viewed it as being free of certain unwanted constraints, as well as being more "pure" and "clean". The elimination or "toning down" of sensory I found overwhelming and unpleasant. Being free of "bodily" passions. Back then, I might have been the "anti-furry". Don't worry though, I seek no quarrel with humble dogs who just want to live their lives.
REAL. Since I was a child I hated having a physical body so much. Its so distracting and annoying for me. I always imagine myself as like a smoke or a spirit that can go through different mathematical dimensions. I related to this video so much, but I seem to not go to the furry route as my identity. I am more of a shadow person than an animal person really.
What's funny is this is not the first time i've heard that. The robot thing I mean. It feels like every Autistic person either falls into realting to robots, furries, or eldritch monster. And these aren't mutually exclusive either.
Fun fact-The person who created the original Harkness test is still active, and is a really chill person. They never expected it to get as insanely popular as it did.
He is? Does he know that there's people out there, like this guy who misunderstand it so critically... it would be funny if it weren't so sad? I mean, of course he knows. But so what if Scooby-Doo and Mr. Peabody pass the Harkness Test? GlaDOS passes the Harkness Test, and nobody gets weirded out about that. The reason Zoophilia is immoral is because you cannot get consent, the reason pedophilia is immoral is because children cannot fully comprehend what they are supposedly "consenting" to, individuals under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol can't consent. Does this guy honestly think that Zoophilia is wrong because humans and animals are different species? Because judging from Maus and his other examples, he seems to think the only "valid" furries are the ones who are basically just humans with an aesthetic. So he's not only wrong, he wants to gatekeep everyone who thinks different.
@@econartist_therealest It was a reference to Harkness himself, but it was created by a furry. It's not actually serious, more of a tongue-in-cheek thing :0
@@econartist_therealestits kinda serious. Its main purpose is to establish a baseline within the world of make-believe so monsterfuckers cant be accused of bestiality. Also, theres no one version; some use different wordibg, sone specify verbal consent (even though that disqualifies many Real Human Adults)
i cannot imagine the courage it takes to just put a video about the philosophical implications of your love of furry porn on the internet. seriously just knowing this video exists has boosted my confidence in my public speaking abilities significantly
@@AnnDVine Writing about stuff like that is a piece of cake for me. _Speaking_ it? Now that’s just torturously awkward (I’m getting better about it though)
my mind is completely blown right now. I was so close to scoffing and just stopping this video within the first minute or two… fortunately I chose to continue watching instead, and I now understand my own (non-furry) neurodivergent personality on a profoundly deeper level and I am grateful. I am surprised I never considered the furry community more seriously in the past, since there is an important aspect to this that occurs on a deeper shamanic, spiritual layer that I am already familiar with - such as the animal/human hybrid forms prevalent in pre-religious, pre-dogmatic iconography of ancient cultures and within indigenous shamanism
it's actually very fascinating to think about how long humans have had a spiritual relationship with animals. Did you know the oldest anthropomorphic figure is that of a human with a lion's head?
I think this was in a post on the dead bird when she still used that, but I recall her saying something about distinctly textually imagining the feeling of yoga pants causing fur to matte to her ass and I was like Woah Holy Shit
"How can you adequately express a nonbinary identity in a society that only recognizes male and female? You just need to bark really loud." I think this video altered my brain chemistry.
@TheTownHeifer somehow not that long after i posted that i realised im a furry, a full ass cat but not in the way that i thought, honestly Patty explains it a lot better than me.. this is literally a video explaining a lot about furry existence BUT, im a cat in the way im an enby, im feminine and androgynous, im not anything in particular im a multitude of things simultaneously, namely an almost-human and a mostly-cat
i looked at the video and went "oh a video on the sexual side of furries? i dont think i trust a random reviewer to cover tha- oh wait no its patricia! thats fine" and was near immediately blessed with alpha and omega footage so i know this review is going to be GREAT
its been seventh months since i first saw this video and made this comment, however upon every rewatch i am plagued with one single thought while i enjoy it as one of my favorite videos of all time after i noticed something i can never unsee, the thought being "why do me and patricia own the same fucking cat ears"
Oh yes they would, I mean the stuff Diogenes would do is comparable to this. Diogenes holding a bald chicken and says to Plato who states the definition of man as a featherless biped says “Behold-a man!” Plato not getting the point then changes his definition to “featherless biped with flat, broad nails.” The main point is, oh yes they would, I bet that they would make even crazier videos then this one. This is pretty tame compared to the stuff they were doing back then. @@anti-furry-socialist
Important video. Here are some important timestamps. 3:16 "Do that to ME!" 4:59 "If your argument doesn't leave room for that, you aren't my fucking ally!" 5:27 Talking about 18+ Furry VN Authors: "[...] the Prose [...]" 5:33 "God makes no mistakes" 9:52 "Can you leave me in a room with your cat?" 13:20 "It is precisely Maus's refusal to explain or justify its furry characters that makes it furry, because the imagery is self-justifying" I'm writing that one on my wall, Holy Shit 14:00 "The assumed symbolic desirability of animal imagery, is one of the core facets of furry fandom media" 26:00 "Human art made by animals. Furry." 32:04 "On all levels except physical, I am your dog" 35:00 "Vocoders are a fundamentally autistic process" 38:58 "Why was it understood as erotic for a man to also be a swan? Because it's the supreme masculine form embodied in a feminine symbol of grace and beauty. Not in conflict, but taken simultaneously." 40:53 "[censored] Raccoons ass." 40:54 "I was treated like a failed human my entire life and you're surprised that my response was to become a dog and fuck other dogs? Fuck you!" 41:03 "The unceasing yearning to romance the inhuman is not mere a permissible quirk, it's fucking universal!" 41:49 "What if you're just a gamer and you have to hang around normies all day. Don't you feel like you're a do~ogy? You can tell me." Fuck timestamps, the last sentences are all important. "I - don't - care - about finding the secret normal way to be attracted to - or identified with - animal symbology because it's LITERALLY ALREADY FUCKING NORMAL" "So - to answer your question - is horny furry art morally comparable to bestiality? No, because horny furry art is the most human thing on earth." "No threat of being labelled a zoophile by normies should overwrite the blinding truth of the transcendental furryness in us all. It's not worth it." "The quality of being simultaneously human and inhuman transcends any line drawn in the sand of exactly what amount of animism is morally permissible."
For my own benefit, all of the musical 'do dogs have brains' segments: 0:00 - dogs are freaky 6:27 - dogs can't talk 9:55 - do dogs have brains 30:41 - they're human 32:59 - what happens when the world ends
"I'd say the real weirdos are the ones who managed to make it through life without being made to feel inhuman in some way, shape, or form!" Good god... I literally began identifying as a dragon because of the way I was treated as a child. I grew up on fairy tales, and in fairy tales dragons are portrayed as embodiments of evil, generally due to their inability to resist temptation. They're intelligent creatures that are slaves to their baser instincts. They’re attracted to shiny objects and hoard loot in their dens. They eat whatever happens to catch their eye, kidnap humans suddenly and for no discernible reason, and basically suffer from the same kind of impulse control that I struggle with thanks to ADHD. Dragons are also solitary creatures. When I was little, I was very lonely due to a lack of people my age in the neighborhood I grew up in, and when I did get to school where there were people my age, I had a lot of trouble making friends and was picked on by the majority of my peers. The bullying lasted a very long time and spread to people I didn’t even know. It was like I was on some kind of unseen blacklist. I wore an invisible kick me sign for a lot of my youth and I still have issues with self-esteem and social awkwardness. I was picked on mainly because, with ADHD, you don’t get the opportunity to proofread yourself. You do things on impulse and frequently speak before you’ve even got what you want to say lined up in your head. So, of course, I often made an ass of myself. When I’m provoked I have trouble telling myself to calm down, and (again, on impulse) fight back. Which usually only makes things worse. I was picked on because I was me, because there’s this thing about me that I can’t control very well that makes me look like a freak. Dragons are attacked just for being dragons. They live alone, they're hunted by humans, they find solace in hoarding objects. Just like me. I need everyone to understand how deeply affected I was by the song "100 Years" by Florence and the Machine. Didn't comprehend the lyrics for months or even years, didn't need to. I imagined myself as a dragon atop a mountain, drawn out by the sound of humans playing drums in a nearby field. It was magical. I still listen to that song and imagine myself leaping through the grass, catching the air on my wings. I don't care if that makes me cringe. I'm a fucking dragon.
How did I go this long without knowing your mother is an award-winning author who wrote a novel directly inspired by you? My goodness the talent is bountiful in your family
Hey, my fursona is a mouse. And I’m Jewish. It wasn’t on purpose at first, but it became meaningful when I realized how often mice are Jewish in media. The first vocally Jewish animated character was a mouse in An American Tail with Fievel. It makes sense to me that we would relate to vermin, as we are constantly compared to such. …Im also on the spectrum… Damn this video…
"The idea of possessing a human body yet remaining inextricably an animal: that's autism." I felt this so hard. I lived my entire life feeling nonhuman and eventually discovering I was a blue jay therian/furry made much more sense. It's totally linked to my Autism and this sentiment is what I've been feeling for the past However Long of my life.
Something I'm surprised you didn't mention about the Harkness test- Consenting adults in REAL LIFE can fail the Harkness test. I fail the harkness test by being nonverbal sometimes. I'm literally 20.
Yeah that's one of the flaws of the Harkness Test, it takes a neurotypical-centric/verbal-centric approach to communication, and ignores other forms of communications' *existence* let alone use. I have to address that every time I bring it up in regards to one of the characters I'm most autistic (affectionate) about, Perry the Platypus from Phineas and Ferb, because he doesn't talk either. That's a core character trait of his, being basically completely nonverbal. And it never stops him from communicating, he's perfectly capable of making his consent, or lack thereof, known, he just doesn't use words in particular to communicate that. And he never *needs* to, because people who care about him and his feelings will make the effort to understand. (Spoken) Words are not the be-all end-all of communication and it's about time we stopped treating them like it.
Mental maturity should be added to the list. Crows that have been taught to speak words could just about squeeze into passing the Harkness test, since a study in New Zealand suggest they have spacial reasoning skills equivalent to that of a typical seven-year-old. Yes, it's a word-but-not-spirit interpretation, but it's very important to set down what defines intelligence for the purposes of consent.
the Harkness test is used for explicitly mythical creatures or otherwise Not Real. Despite being nonverbal sometimes, you can still communicate with another human... Idk about neurotypical-centric or verbal-centric but language is the most clearest form of communication, AND the test itself has an addendum for if attempted language communication fails so like... 😭 huh
Uh... If someone's nonverbal (and isn't communicating in any other way either), pretty sure that, at least for the current moment, you _definitely shouldn't_ boink them
@@gaminggeckos4388 "Nonverbal" and "unable to communicate" are different things, though. The problem is that the former is frequently treated as, or assumed to stand in for, the latter without regard for the distinction; this flaw is present in the Harkness Test.
I cannot describe how the line "put me in a Blare White video - see if i care" made me feel due to myself having a shutdown not even two days ago because of one of her videos which took a person like me and identified them as not valid. God thank you so much, you have legitimately made me feel joy
@@Haunted_PlushBlaire White is a trans commentary youtuber who makes a lot of political content, specifically from a conservative and bigoted perspective
@@Haunted_Plushsome people honestly think that cuddling up to the people who hate you will somehow soften thier hatred. They don't understand that poison doesn't stop when it's welcomed in.
i knew the name sounded familiar and was flabbergasted to realize she made eeaaoo song and also did a video essay ive had on my watch later for ages def gonna check out more stuff from her!
OH MY GOD I love hearing you describe media as Autistic in a nice way and explaining how its so relatable. Like the difference between autistic(insulting) and Autistic (Complimentary and Media Theory). This is so good
gurl im literally making a thesis about furires and to me you woke up one day and said "i'm gonna make a wholeass carrer for a mexican furry i've never met" thank you SO much
Can I comprehend this as a non-autistic neurodivergent? Only barely. Am I still enthralled and hanging off every word? Absofuckinglutely. More of this pretty please
"I was treated like a failed human my entire life and you're surprised that my response was to become a dog"...That changed my brain chemistry in a way I'm not ready to unpack
The statement itself is an obvious admittance that this behavior is simply coping. They weren't treated the way they wanted/expected, so... they became a dog? This is obviously someone who felt they were abnormal, because they were and so instead of trying to adapt to normal social life, instead decided to cope by becoming extremely abnormal. It's one thing to do it in your personal, private life. It's another to do it openly and shout it from the rooftops. Goodluck to this person, I hope they don't have to wait for there to be a sale on rope before they buy it.
I think it took me this video to finally realize why I get into *legitimate distress* over the fact that I'm not a dragon. You describing furries as *being* their species in some part, connecting to it in a way that "normal" people just don't, but most other furries have an animal thats real. They know what that animal is like. I don't. There's no dragon to look at in the real world to say "you're like this!" So I try to project myself onto a concept that I think feels right but I can't know for certain if that's the concept that *is* right. There's probably a better way to word what I'm trying to say but I think the best way of saying it is that I can't project my essence onto something, so I instead project it onto myself, and it freaks me out
@@suspiciouslyBee I'm not sure. From what I've heard from other people, being otherkin means that they fully believe that they're that species. Not just that, but they have some attributes that they're able to take away from said species (i.e. a clever/mischievous fox, headstrong cat, etc.). I can't really believe that I'm a dragon since they don't exist and there's not really a consistent personality that they have. Western depictions of dragons see them as ferocious beasts that horde wealth, while Eastern dragons are usually divine beings of wisdom and fortune. I certainly wish that I could *be* a dragon, but I can't really say that I'd know what that would look like. Hell, I've often joked to my friends that were I to put on a fursuit of my sona that I'd get some sense of "gender euphoria", mind you I'm a cis man that's fully confident in his status as a man.
after years of being a furry and talking about how uncomfortable i am with playing human characters in games, earlier this year i finally started identifying as a dog, and i've genuinely been way happier than i've ever been, even amidst the rest of my mental health struggles. everything you say in this video about being a dog resonates with me so much. as someone who's autistic and trans and was in the closet for nearly a decade i've become so dissociated from humanity and from my own physical body that i can't recognize myself in humans anymore. calling me a dog is more true to who i am than the body i inhabit could ever represent. one of my partners (who is a cat) bought me a customized collar with my name (basil) on it and i can't wait for them to visit soon and pet me and call me a good boy. this video is the first thing i've seen that really explains this aspect of my identity, and it does it way better than i ever could. thank you :3
@@Iskou307 i'm being completely earnest here! the video resonated with me a lot, and i think if you maybe rewatched the video, especially the interlude in the second half, it would be a bit easier to understand where i'm coming from. some people just have a different relationship with humanity because of things like disability and the circumstances of their life. i think it's cool how people are able to find joy in their own way, even if that means falling outside of what's typically considered "normal" by society. it's better to be happy and free than be forced to act normal, right?
"The Preachfuzz emerges when I open my fucking mouth" Everyone knew something was wrong with me, but no one had the word, it wasn't until I was in my early twenties that I was finally diagnosed with autism. my life was peach fuzz. thank you for articulating that in a way that makes me feel so incredibly seen and understood.
as a trans man i relate to this like i think there is so much normal deviation in peoples experience of their own body that is just pathologized or denied. like there is value in the experience of wishing for a new body and im not exactly sure where im going with this but if they invented hormones that turned people into furries id hope that they would give it out via informed consent
As a fellow trans guy (and a scalie) I'm with you lol, that would rule I feel pretty comfortable and happy with my human body most of the time, but like also if I could instantly become an anthro dragon I would cause the expression of "dragon" externally fully encapsulates my feelings of intrinsic identity including my gender and masculinity
@@nicolasnamed Your pfp, I can't. Now I'm just imagining a spongebob episode where Patrick gets turned into a dragon by one of plankton's schemes and just vibes.
it kinda concerns me that out of every argument and viewpoint i’ve heard on transgenderism, some guy telling me “well, what if you were your fursona” is the one i find the most convincing
@spilogale_putorius what the fuck is transgenderism. do you mean being trans? theres no need to argue in favor of me being trans because you cant stop me 👍🏼
I dunno if I would say I identify as an animal but I'm definitely a cat autistic. When I was a kid I used to try to fall asleep in a position like a cat hoping I'd wake up as one. I think there's definitely a good reason why autism is overrepresented in the furry community and that's definitely whatever this is. The feeling of difference from other people and alienation and familiarity in such a different way to most allistics. I definitely wish I was a cat person sometimes.
@@pinkajou656 You're obviously mentally ill. It's one thing to be autistic, which isn't something you can do anything about, but wishing you were a cat is beyond the pale. Stop listening to the enablers on the internet, go and get help. It may not seem like anything major now, but it's only going to get worse if you fixate and focus on it for the rest of your life.
Me, autistic, who spends most of my disabled life cuddled up with my cat son who doesn't understand he's a cat because he was raised by humans... I feel like we meet in the middle and understand each other better than humans understand me and cats understand him
As an autistic trans intersex therianthropic extranthic label label label label vocal synth music producer I think you’re the only being who should be able to talk ever again.
This is the most compelling argument I've ever heard for why my furriness need not be justified to those who necessarily see me as subhuman. Thank you for articulating the logical and emotional conclusion to literally tens of thousands of peoples' inner turmoil Patricia, very good fuckin BOY
The ending of Pom Poko is such a powerful moment. I think about it all the time, and I think this is the first time I’ve seen someone other than myself acknowledge what a good metaphor for autism it is.
Then there's me - a person that just can't mask at all. I guess I would be a Tankui that can't do magic? Never watched that movie but I guess that there weren't any like that in it. It was kinda surreal for me to read about experiences of autistic people learning to not mask and just be themselves despite what society thought them. I always feel kinda left out as the only thing I can do is wonder about how would my life look like If I could mask.
@@AleksoLaĈevalo999Honestly, might be a good thing that you can't Mask. Masking (in the Autism sense) is something only really done out of necessity of survival which can really fuck you up over time. Like, I Mask a bit, but I don't think it's nearly as much as other people have to. It took me a lot of therapy in my early childhood to learn how to socialize though, and I can do it fairly normally without masking. But you can still absolutely tell if you pay attention. Point is, you're not missing out on much.
I've been in the fandom for over a decade, but I've been so hesitant over making a fursona because I'm stressed out over interacting as something intrinsically tied to me. Watching this and realizing that I'm just a scaredy cat trying to make sure an environment is safe while masking as a human is incredibly cathartic.
This was kind of hard to watch because it clashes so hard with the internalised cringe inside of me, I wish I could be as unapologetically myself as you are, seems like I've got a lot to work on lol
"I was treated like a failed human being and you're surprised that my response was to become a dog and fuck other dogs?!" ..i.. Can't say i relate, but that's fair. Update: Nevermind, turns out i was just treating myself as a failed human and started wanting to be a funky robot instead. Can relate and that's fair.
this is why i don't think bojack horseman is a furry show. no furry would not give the anthro animals tails. especially mr. peanutbutter. and to not give him fuzzy little paws? treason.
You know what? Fuck it. I'm a Leafeon. Leafeon ain't even REAL but you've convinced me. That sensory feeling of being a plant dog fox cat rabbit thing is just too damn enticing to ignore. This creature doesn't exist but I still feel like I understand it on a level more than I understand my own body. Bravo Patricia. I think you've released the beast in a lot of us, at the very least you did for me.
I've always tried to be respectful of my friends who identify as nonhumans, but it never really... clicked, for me. I guess it's not something I've experienced. This video honestly helped me understand the idea way better, so thanks!
@@swiftrebooted7704 Sometimes I see comments like this and wonder what you'd expect professionals to do. It doesn't sound like the friends are doing anything actually dangerous toward themselves or others, they just feel/believe something you think is wrong. It's like when I read people saying someone needs professional help because they believe Jesus existed as the son of God, walked on water, and rose from the dead, etc. Like, I don't agree with Christians on that and do think those are absurd beliefs and I don't believe Christians are right when they say they can feel God with them. But I also don't think medical professionals would be alarmed or do anything. Sometimes people just believe or feel things that don't really make sense to you and it's fine. In fact, it's normal.
@@genericname8727 , from my perspective, any mental health professional who necessarily conflates "normality" with health and/or who considers it their "job" or raison d'etre to merely "help" clients to be "normal" is *dangerously* behind the curve by about a hundred years. Yes, part of the job does absolutely entail helping clients to adjust to reality and challenging their counterproductive and delusional beliefs and assumptions, but you really can't reason or lecture people out of their deeply-rooted feelings about or fundamental sense of themselves, and I think it can be incredibly damaging and disrespectful to even try. A person who literally thinks they're Napoleon or Jesus due to a thought disorder and who can't function in the world or take care of themselves as a result of that delusion is meaningfully different from a person who feels "different" or non-human at some level, fully realizes that this feeling is "weird," and can generally function in the world and do what they need to do to survive and get by. The people who glibly declare that "weirdos" need "professional help" would be or are usually disappointed to learn that *good* therapy doesn't actually consist of a Dr. Phil-type sitting a person down and lecturing or scolding them, and that's the point when such people usually throw up their hands and declare therapy to be snowflakery and quackery. I reckon a truly seasoned and savvy therapist would usually target a therian client's feelings of alienation and disenfranchisement and maybe help them with life and social skills to help them to feel more competent in navigating interactions and the world at large. Just telling your therian client that they're not actually a dog or a dragon isn't going to do anything.
hearing someone with an actual internet following describe what a “barney error” is is so surreal to me, good lord i was obsessed with those as an 8 year old. and yeah, the video itself genuinely spoke to me as an autistic and convinced me of multiple things that really had my brain working more than it should’ve been on, but the barney error just has to be the main thing i point out😼
"Detroit: Become Nonverbal" made my brain rotate at 300km/h and the goblins that live in there are having a great time about it. I've never felt so valid
The journey from discovering your channel 2hrs ago (through a video on microtonality) to hearing that you identify as dog has been something truly unique.
Going from an hour of talking about the random marble game I only knew existed because of a demo on my grandparents' xbox 360 to this was just as interesting, even if it was over a longer period of time
I’m going to have “the most f-ed up stuff can become not only permissible but also comforting and wholesome” stuck in my head for a long time, as someone who has been through some really messed up abuse and also engages in such things with friends in private I love this entire essay but the intro was especially powerful, because like you I’ve also felt a lot of the common deflections don’t entirely adequately address the core issues of what does the aesthetic MEAN Also the part about wanting to be able to sniff and bite partners made me realise I’ve had absolutely no compunctions about doing exactly that since I was 16. Literally I’m like “oh did you change your HRT dose?” bc of subtle sweat scent changes and so on. So I really relate to all that, except catte instead of dawwg. Also “pop the puppy endorphins” is a banger lyric
I do feel like the feeling of being the "animal in the room" vibe is something that I've definitely feel like I needed in my hierarchy of needs. Like, for me, I love the idea of being someone's Digimon or Pokemon much more than being someone's partner or spouse, and if that isn't furry as all hell then I don't know what is. To be seen as non-human while still retaining mental human capabilities and feelings is the ultimate ideal for my furry-ness and what differentiates myself from being a therian, in my own opinion. Also, being asexual I can't totally relate to everything you said, but I feel like the "vibe" is generally the same as what I feel. While I don't want to boink, I do want to bite and make noises at people I love :>
If it helps, my ace and autistic roommate has expressed a similar sort of thing! Like he doesn't want to be a catboy or anthro cat or anything, he's said that he wants to just be a little cat, or in the case of being someone's pokemon he's expressed wanting to be Rika's (I think that's her name? Elite 4 androgynous lady) clodsire. He's even also expressed wanting to bite people lol So I hope this helps you feel a little less alone my friend!
I love this gal, she can take any topic and wrap it around into the most thought provoking philosophical epic of your entire life, only for you to remember the topic and its BANGING FURRIES
I do recall the strong desire to be pet but the fear of optics as a black person 💀💀💀 also thanks for mentioning Ken lol, he & max blackrabbit were integral to my own style growing up as a twelve-year-old with unfettered access to the internet lol , furry stuff was probably the least offensive content
ah that reminds me of a little personal anecdote of mine. now i started out with unrestricted internet access as a kid and then had that SHARPLY reduced around late middle school/early highschool as some scare story put some primal fear in my dads heart something terrible may happen to me if i tip-toe into any corner of the internet too Weird and Horny. with that he restricted my access to most if not all things that were directly labeled as furry. he had no problem with animal characters and things like that i still had a fursona i just couldnt like call it that. furaffinity and similar were blocked. the works. all this to say im still extremely aggressively furry and none of this stopped me from finding hardcore anime torture porn in highschool so like. thanks dad you tried. least offensive content indeed
@@s.e.vasquez1274omg this, i want. to be pet but like i don’t want anyone to do it because they want to be weird about touching my hair or something.. (i’m black btw 💀)
I have to imagine this isn't the same thing, but I'm Latine and I have incredibly thick dark hair. It's not at all uncommon to have white people want to pet me, I-I mean *feel my hair* because I feel like there's an almost jealousy at times. White women who are jealous that my hair isn't stringy, white men that are far, far more at risk at baldness than I am, etc. The difference being that, assumedly unlike with y'all, they don't want to touch my hair because "ooOoOOooh wEiRd~~~!" Even with my Black furry friends, I'm always cautious before petting them because I don't want to be accidentally cringe.
@@CrystalDoggoIsMissing The classic struggle. I don't identify as a non-human animal so I can't truly comment on that part, but I am a black person with dreads and...whoo boy, the number of times white people have wanted to touch my hair or straight up touched it is too many, especially those who have never seen a black person in person. I can only imagine the frustration with wanting to be petted out of the desire to be pet but not wanting to be pet due to experiencing racism. If that makes any sense. It's fucked up.
i think you are largely correct but i disagree with the idea that world building (like in zootopia) and the consideration of daily practicalities are against the furry aesthetic. As a bonafide furry myself i LOVE considering those things. Ive worldbuilt my own universe complete with creation origin, pantheon, fundamental aspects of reality and the history of the primary inhabited world. all for the purpose of reverse engineering furries to be not only be the primary lifeform, but FEELING like they belong and naturally arose from the initial conditions of the world. Similar to how you say alot of furry media focuses on the sensation and aesthetics of a snoot. i too love these things, but for the sensation of the snoot to feel as real as possible, building a believable grounded world around the snoot makes it even better, and is fun! tldr: a believable, grounded snoot feels more real and tangible to imagine booping, and is therefore better! at least, for some of us. Its also fun to make and look at anthro-body designed clothing. Like tail gaps with a little strap around it for pants. owo
I think Patricia's point here was intended to be more that Zootopia spends a ton of time on its worldbuilding without a ton of consideration of how all these animals' lives map to the consideratons of (marginalized) humans' lives.
the section about her being a dog and wanting to be petted was very relatable to me but like in the reverse. as a robot girl, my chassis is highly sensitive equipment and if you touch me the wrong way i might blue-screen. non-human solidarity ❤️❤️❤️
not personally none human identifying (i am kinda a fox boy though?) but as part of a system that has multiple non human people i support all of y'all 💕
hi. other autistic furry here. i didnt want this video to be true but unfortunately it awoke something in me. im going to go be a pig now, and not be so worried about what people think.
"The furry aesthetic as a whole is a concession towards the symbolic, the sensory, the ever so slightly autistic." Even since the first time I heard that I knew it was the biggest takeaway from the video... plus all the other fantastic takeaways I quote almost daily.
THIS video was a flash bang let off 3 inches from my face. I'm an autistic trans guy and while I'm not a furry I'm just sorta adjacent as a monster/ horror enthusiast, and for the longest time I didn't even KNOW that being trans or autistic was a thing- like at all, and for the longest time I just never understood why I felt so wrong and different and well dehumanized by others now that I look back at it. The unwitting and undeniable connections between the horrors and any marginalized group is is painful but explains why I can see myself in monsters like changelings or Jason Voorhees, the insidious rhetoric and dehumanization that people who are different from the norm are bad and evil; but I've found comfort in reclaiming that monstrosity, defining it by my terms and frankly scaring cis people. While I'm not someone who particularly identifies with a non-human identity, I feel like I almost viscerally understand it, its almost like seeing someone who's basically a doppelgänger of you but a little to the left.
the comment section on this is filled with a lot of people with zero critical thinking skills whatsoever and it's fascinating. thank you for this video, by the way, enjoyed it very much
Not a furry, but I am a robot. The autistic need to feel something other than skin when you touch your face is painfully real. This video is deeply appreciated
"I might look like a human, you can squeeze my upper arm and it'll feel a bit like human skin, but the peach fuzz emerges when I open my mouth." I love this quote. It so succinctly describes the experience of feeling nonhuman in a human body. I relate to it so much and I have a love/hate relationship with that fact. Edit: this now has a double meaning to me because JOKE'S ON ME I GUESS, I figured out I'm trans.
When this isn't even close to "your section of RU-vid," but you decide to invest 40 minutes of your life learning about the psychology and philosophical rationals behind furry culture, because (much like that one episode of Ru Paul's Drag Race that you watched out of curiosity) you know this will not be anything you could have anticipated.
I've been in the furry fandom for close to 15 years, and this is the best and most specific articulation of what it means to be furry that I've ever heard. Like, there was always this unexplainable "something" that made furry art/media what it was. It always felt different from other things that were simply "cartoon animals." I always thought it was the fact that it was created by self-identified furries. But you've articulated that "something" in a way that makes a lot of sense. I struggled with the last part, about the ties to autism, because it can very easily sound like a pejorative. Like, calling something "autistic" is usually shorthand for "this is bad in an ableist way". But you are specifically talking about the EXPERIENCE of being someone on the autism spectrum, and seeing that experience reflected back at you in the media you mentioned. And I kinda dig that. So, thanks for the awesome thoughtful analysis. I enjoyed this. Keep up the good work!
@@theothertonydutch "having" autism means that its a small facet of yourself, and "being" autistic is that its an important part of yourself. for the former, some people have it be just another character trait. for the latter, being autistic is an integral part of your likes, needs and kinship with others. at least thats how i see it
My only criticism is how there's no mention of the friggin' ANCIENT horny furry art that humans have been drawing in caves since forever. Or the fact that lots of old human cultures had rituals that involved dressing up in sacred fursonas and doing horny passion plays so that the sun would remember to shine, the grass would remember to grow, and life would remember to be good. These are just nitpicks though, which I only bring up out of a desire to share information.
Well, there are a lot of people who say that the cave paintings were inspired by drug trips. And ,considering how often neurodivergent people get accused of being on drugs whenever they do something creative, I'd call that good evidence for the existence spectrum cave painters.
Ight fellas I'm gonna speak from experience with furries before before watching this. From outside this community is either massively overanalyzed or boiled down and is always ultimately totally misunderstood. So I joined it bc damnit I was curious and I was interested, especially since I consider it being a subset of the broader sci-fi/fantasy community. Anyway the "cuddle" aspect of this culture is absolutely a thing. Fur is cuddly, and anything cuddly is great for releasing oxytocin. Why? We're social beings and it's what forms bonds, we've evolved these needs and yet we live in a severely upsidedown alienating society nowadays where loneliness has become a serious epidemic issue. Furry culture ain't about sex. Yes, it provides an atmosphere of sex-positivity in terms of the expression of one's self, but it also reaches much more prominently for a very much more intimate platonic experience in relationships. Seriously, hugging is a universal greeting/parting gesture in the community in my experience. The big three reasons people are into this: 1) It's an incredibly tight-knit yet decentralized community that basically acts as a fraternal society / third place. An incredibly reliable social network in my experience. 2) It provides an outlet which encourages arts, crafts, hobbies. Can even function as a professional network for said things, especially for artists and tech workers and enthusiasts. Much more important though is the fact that, again, this community functions as a creative outlet. 3) It provides a medium for the exploration of identity via self-expression through alter-egos (fursonas) in a generally very open-minded environment. Tl;Dr for these reasons there's a lot of haven this community provides especially for neurodivergent people and lgbtq people. It's a shame to see it get boiled down to a kink of all things (or worse yet conflated with a shameful philia) in the eyes of the general public and subsequently get trashed on.
Not a furry but wow, this made me rethink why i choose to represent myself the way i do through certain characteristics and how that correlates to how i feel completely inhuman and othered. For reference, im a trans guy (he/him) with cptsd. My friends and i joke about me being a backrooms monster lmfao but ive always been told i was more mature, i was independent, i learned things way too fast for a normal child, i looked and behaved as though i had been here much longer than my body, etc etc etc. i choose to represent myself in fictional works as a being that was once human -- innocent and loved -- to something uncanny after a bout of horrible trauma, painful transformation, awakening surrounded by bodies of forgotten people, covered in their blood. slowly forgetting what it meant to be human and having to relearn love and trust and peace. And... this video made me realize why. I understand now, both why furries represent themselves the way they do and why i represent myself in the way i do. A monster, trying so desperately to be what it once was, human. Flooded with thoughts of pain and sorrow and death, and facing them with no feeling. Wondering why i am so broken, why i cant just be what i once was, why i cant remember what it feels like _to_ feel. And also i think the future devil from chainsaw man FUCKS!!! I would bed that mf in an instant, hes silly with it and knows what he wants. And hes an ancient being older than anything that we could ever know, just like me. This video tore me open and was really introspective, thank you, you'll probably never see this.
Somewhere in this video, Pat releases her inner CJ the X and it's a surreal experience. I was hearing him speak in her voice. And somewhere in there, I felt her argument about self-dehumanization in the act of her simoultaniously being the most herself, and a different distinct recognizable human being. Simoultaniously but not in conflict.
Not a furry (although was big in the brony fandom, i guess that counts a little bit?) and also not autistic, although highly neurodivergent (that early line about OCD and policing one's own morals PIERCED MY SOUL), I constantly conceptualize myself as agender monsters with features that are considered stereotypically ugly - skin peeling off, swollen joints, toothless mouth, empty eye sockets. I guess that's my way of coping with trauma - if I'm not desirable in a very literal sense, no one would harrass me, right? Right?.. So thank you Patricia for showing us all that combining human and inhuman is normal and omnipresent. It lifted a huge weight off my shoulders
It's funny I'm not a furry, and yet I remember try to describe how I felt going to a school where I was a religious minority and I described feeling like I was a talking dog. On the one hand no one was overtly mean to me, there were even times where I got along with people pretty well, but any time there was any friction I was dismissed out of hand. At the end of the day if I disagreed with someone their response was basically "you can't tell me what to do, you're just a dog." Again most of my interactions weren't really antagonistic, but a lot of that came from them not seeing me as human enough to matter. It might be novel or emotionally validating to talk to me, but it was not the same as talking to a person. I had several people who trauma dumped on me because they basically felt like telling me that they were in an abusive relationship wasn't actually telling anyone. I wasn't one of them so telling me wasn't the same as them complaining about the relationship that they had sworn to uphold in front of their god.
31:12 Wow.. I used to look down on "animal-genders" as being a modern step too far, but I understand it now. A "gender" is the embodiment of societal norms and expectations being designated onto a person. An example would be boundaries, the common expectation is that humans dont pet each other, whilst we pet dogs. Simple, so if you viewed it as a normal expectation to be pet, then it's fair to identify as a dog. It's comparable to lets say rough housing or being tough. Society teaches us it's understandable that between two guys, that things can be tougher and rougher, whether physically or in conversation, it's masculine. In contrast, the norms and expectations between gals would be different, more feminine and delicate in those two regards of physicality and conversation. I can understand and see now, how identifying as an animal, or dog in this case, isn't just some random weird decision but something that is done to best match ones norms and expectations and shouldn't actually be frowned upon or thought as "weird". - hopefully i explained my thoughts and realization right
I'm no furry but I really relate to the experience of dehumanization on a very personal level with living as an autistic person. I often relate to monsters more readily so I consider myself a monsterfucker. Like the way you articulate how it feels to be wearing a human mask despite not feeling human is so on-point
I have been drawing furry boinking for about five years now, and I honest to god never expected to watch a video that had me questioning whether I was a furry, even if I came back with a resounding "yes". The descriptions here were incisive to me in a way I have literally never felt before. I was forced to question who I was both as a human and as whatever the fuck else I am. A bird? A kobold? A dragon? But also, something that struck a chord with me is right around 32:30, where the idea of the dogginess as a metaphor comes up, and the idea of being a furry to convey "non-human" desires and habits. At least, I hope I'm interpreting that correctly, as I agonize over how this RU-vid comment might be perceived for five millenia. And, like. Yeah. I'm not a bird as in I literally have feathers and eat grubs from the ground and will probably get killed by an outdoor cat. But I am sometimes a bird in that I chew over language and echo it back, and that I like to have a nest, and that I have the very fun sort of intelligence where I love games... but not in a human way, where they're oft viewed as frivolities. I'm sometimes a kobold in that I want to help and serve someone with borderline deific reverence for them. I'm sometimes a dragon in that I desire absolute dominion over a hoard that I'll guard with vicious jealousy. It is symbolic and sensory and a means of conveying that I am not a human in every way that the average human I would run into would expect. Personal feelings aside, I do, on a technical level, really like the way you've defined being furry. It accurately explains the inclusion of things like aeromorphs, as well as the exclusion of certain anthropomorphized animals.
I can’t explain how eye opening this video was from me like. I feel like some brain chemistry has been altered, and a part unlocked. It makes me want to be unapologetically me as well, but then some part of me is hanging onto “no be normal” I don’t know how to explain. It feels like I’m eating some forbidden fruit yk. Everything could stay in paradise, and sure, every once in a month I’ll have a gut harrowing “I don’t feel human” episode, and then go back to ignorance, but. This video feels like some invitation to a bite of the apple. Good lord I don’t know where to go from here, and I’ll probably look back and feel like crying when I think to myself “my eye opener was a video named ‘on the ethics of blinking animal people’”, but this video definitely HAS done something. Something about it feels like home. Feels right. I SOUND LIKE IM BEING INVITED INTO A CULT UHM o(-( I love your humour btw :,)
Hey, how are you doing now? I think every creature who's recognised and reconciled with their nonhuman alignment has been where you are. You are weird, and that's okay. We're all weird. There are some times (a lot of times) you'll have to be human and appear human to interact with the world as it is, but take it as if it's a type of gender- you're dysphoric because of your lack of animal/creature traits. That's hard. Sometimes you just wanna grieve the tail and paws you didn't get.
Patty's art and words had already turned me into a cat long before I finally sat down and watched this, but this video felt like having my eyes opened all over again. She fuckin gets it.
"i live in constant paralyzing vigilance on the matters of my own moral integrity" is the most relatable phrase i've ever heard!!! Truly this is something i've never been able to put into words, thank you!
Scrupulosity is *wild.* You would think that being deeply sceptical of objective morality and the fundamental coherence of moral judgements as a reflection of reality would have some impact on the way that one's OCD functions, but no, it very much *does not.* I wasn't raised any kind of Catholic or Reformed but the fear of some abstract damnation is quite real.
@@ConvincingPeople it really is, I also never had any real religious upbringing, but the want of balance in life for humans as a whole kinda lends itself to believing some kind of punishment for wrong doing, without ever defining what wrong doing is, or where punishment comes from Also I've never been diagnosed with OCD so maybe relating to this is somewhat alarming
A day ago I was working for a Comic Con where I live and I saw this duo of two old dudes wearing Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde's ears and tail on my break, and I automatically assumed they weren't furry just because they brought Disney bags with them. Sometime after being off my break, a girl wearing big black cat ears and pawbs with pink beans on them came through bag check and made a grabby motion, and seconds after she walked in the prom, I did the grabby motion to myself and giggled a lil bit. What I'm getting at posting this here is i might be a little autistic
This is literally my gender & autistic stuggles put into words in a way I myself could never express. For me though it's more like I'm a cryptid or other more monstrous thing that is still soft & huggable. 🥺
The only thing I would really argue against in this essay is that it can be VERY autistic to consider the real world ramifications of furry animal people so arguably Zootopia is still very furry in this aspect. Like I've met and known furries who are obessed with how Furry Glasses work, coming up with complex solutions for something that is clearly just visual flare. One of my favorite furry artists is writing a story about a Worm Transitioning into being a Dragon and what that means to transition species, especially to a Fiction species. Overthinking the world of furry animal people in a literal sense I think can also be very autistic, it goes into the "literal thinking" and the "needing to over-explain everything" flavor autism.
@@JaxBaxwell8819 I’m using Autistic in the same why it’s being used within this video essay. As a defined trait of furry-dom I’m also autistic myself and the way I’m trying to use it specifically “This is a autistic thing to do.” As in the literal sense. To me infodumping, taking things literally, overthinking a simple premise simply for the joy of it, and needing to over-explain are autistic behaviors/traits. And I think if a furry work has those traits then you can argue it’s autistic. Which by the definition of this video essay, makes it more furry. Which was the point I was trying to make originally.
@@blazeys_planet2003 They’re called Grey Folie! They haven’t released anything for it yet just little snippets and designs here and there but I highly recommend their comics since they’re often times really beautiful looking along with really well written. Though they do handle heavy subjects such as sui and being put through a mental health center. Either way, huge recommendation for their work in general
I need to know that I'm not the only one who played Echo JUST because Pat won't stop talking about how great it is. Had the most terrifying and beautiful experience in my life and now I won't sleep alright until she makes a video essay talking about the game.
psst.. idk if you know this already but Locke (one of Pat’s friends) made a 2 hour long video on echo that Pat helped in the making of it. You’ve probably already seen it as it’s sitting at around 70k views now tho.
dude same. She said "I don't care who you are, if you have a passing interest in psychological horror, you will play this furry visual novel!" and I went "Yes ma'am." Haven't gone through the whole thing yet but have loved the parts I did.
I’m autistic and my special interest is sexology and kink and all that good stuff. And the reason for it is because of my own awakening and overlearning my own self hatred. Now I only have love and fascination for all of the freakiness this world has to offer. Unfortunately I’m a hyperlogical person the ethics of it was a huge deal to me and a big part of the self hatred. But I still love pondering it now. All this to say is I LOVE this video. My brain is so activated
I am so out of my depth being here, but good video? I guess? No, really, I think humanity as a whole needs these kinds of pure unfiltered examinations of the human condition.
Yes! This is why I’ve always identified as a changeling! A creature that took the place of a normal human and is now struggling to fit in because I simply am not human, I’m autistic, and Changeling makes sense
I did not expect this to be as eye opening as it was when I saw it in my feed. Having someone put it all into words didn’t just make me feel seen, it made me feel like I was autopsied. Very rarely have I truly felt like I watched some stranger’s youtube video and come away from it with a greater understanding of myself. Thank you for this video it was genuinely amazing.
I regularly go back to this video because it did to me what watching Pom Poko did to you as a kid. Thank you, Patty. I feel like a more empathetic, kinder person than I was before listening and fully understanding what you said.Your deep sense of self-reflection and connection to the world around you, and your confidence not in spite but because of it, is inspiring. I want to be more like you. Thank you.
So glad this was in my video recommendations. As an ND, furry, and therian, this video spoke to me on a spiritual level. I really identify with werewolves because of the human and wolf dualities. I have to check out that werewolf album you mentioned! 10/10 essay. Subbed.
I think that another detail that gets ignored by both anti-furries accusing them of being zoos and pro-furries defending them is that they both treat the act of anthropomorphization as somehow completely incidental. To act like a dog and a modified humanoid dog are the exact same thing. This is another flaw in the Harkness test argument, because it doesn’t account for body plan either. There’s nothing preventing fictional quadrupeds like Scooby from being sapient or communicating. And this also isn’t just a moral question- furries don’t anthropomorphize animals just to beat the allegations. It’s a core part of the sexual appeal of furries. Equalizing the size, shape and body plan of vastly different species of animal is the only way you could imagine them fucking eachother. How else are a cat and mouse supposed to engage in species-play? Another example of this is how selective furries are about which animal sex characteristics they want to assign to their characters, how most people only give them 2 nipples like humans, or how it’s only really canine and equine penises that get commonly retained, with most furries just having humanoid genitals. There are sex positions only a humanoid biped can get into, moans only human voices can make. To me anthropomorphism isn’t just about “passing the Harkness test,” it’s about making concessions to human desires within the context of animal aesthetics. I want to feel the wolf boy’s big tongue in my mouth, but I also want to put his knees over my shoulder and mating press him while I do it. And you can’t have both of those things with either a human or an animal, it has to be an *animal person.*
@@glibfacsimile how can anyone not be made to feel subhuman in a society that does not care if someone else is dying in the streets? Zoophiles should go get fucking mental help or be put in prison, but there is a massive distinction between Anthro characters and a felony.
Okay, but I'd totally try out sex while temporarily transformed into a quadruped with another most-of-the-time-human temporarily transformed into a quadruped and I don't think that's weird.
How do so many of your videos hit me at my autistic core so goddamn hard. Everything about the sensory bit made sense to me. The idea of being something else while still being understood to be human is the autistic ideal that I never understood. I’m not a furry in any sense but a lot of this resonated with me that will keep me thinking for a while once I’m sure the wasp in my living room is gone
