THERE’S A PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLANATION FOR THE WESTERN WORLD’S PROLIFERATION OF FURRIES??
Okay no, you can’t just drop a knowledge bomb like that and not EXPLAIN! Or at least link! Gimme a search term?! Anything!
ok i’ll write up the lightning-bolt of bizarre mental synthesis later but here:
the pacific standard article and the pdf of the study in question
find the term “folkbiological reasoning” and peruse this paragraph in the psmag article:
“Studies show that Western urban children grow up so closed off in man-made environments that their brains never form a deep or complex connection to the natural world. While studying children from the U.S., researchers have suggested a developmental timeline for what is called “folkbiological reasoning.” These studies posit that it is not until children are around 7 years old that they stop projecting human qualities onto animals and begin to understand that humans are one animal among many. Compared to Yucatec Maya communities in Mexico, however, Western urban children appear to be developmentally delayed in this regard. Children who grow up constantly interacting with the natural world are much less likely to anthropomorphize other living things into late childhood.”
now consider, and i say this in the least pejorative way possible, that furry culture seems to arise at least partially from a desire/instinct to anthropomorphize and identify with non-human animals, often in broad, non-species-specific categories (cat, dog, etc.).
i need to lie down
As an outsider to furry culture the whole thing is really interesting.
I approach animals from a certain point of view (veterinary medicine) and I think I understand them, what they are and what they do pretty well. I assumed somebody who goes around introducing themselves as a cat, for example, actually knows something about cats.
Not in this case.
So one evening my brother brought a few of his friends around to my home with fursonas consisting of a dog, cat and kangaroo.
I was bottle raising a litter of seven adorable kittens at the time (a handful and a half, let me tell you) and I thought this was brilliant. Three animal lovers, in my home, which don’t have any pets of their own. Perfect future kitten owners, right?
I mean, at a certain stage in kitten season you start trying to pimp out those cute little fuzzballs to anybody.
Mr Cat Fursona had no idea what to do with a real live cat or kitten. He’d never interacted with one, he’d only seen pictures and videos. He was so thoroughly awkward, and possibly a little bit afraid, completely unsure about how to hold them, what to do if they wiggled and even if they were happy. He marveled at the way their ears twitch when they swallow but freaked out about their toileting habits. And to my surprise he wasn’t actually interested in these real cats for more than three minutes.
They had minimal interest in this litter of kittens, they were not interested in real animals. They were not familiar with real animals.
I don’t think they’re ascribing human characteristics to an animal. This group seemed to be taking perceived animal qualities (eg dog=loyalty, cat=aloof) and applying it to themselves. Even if the real animals don’t actually have those qualities at all, they were interested in the qualities that society had assigned those animals and then applying that to themselves. Is was society’s concept of a cat that was of interest to him, not the real thing.
So you can be a cat, it seems, without knowing a single thing about cats. And perhaps if he had grown up with cats then he wouldn’t have chosen one for his fursona.
Fascinating!
I grew up in the woods, in farm country, very close to nature and animals. I wonder if that’s why I’m not a furry? *shrug*
id like to thank god, jesus, and those bullshit lake camps my parents sent me to when I was ten
here’s the post I was referring to.
This post is a bit irritating to me. Whether on purpose or not, this is a bit insulting and pretty blatantly untrue. I’m literally a year away from my BA in Biology and Animal Science, and I know several other furries that are studying veterinary and wildlife medicine, or are into taxidermy, or at the very least, love to go camping. Not to mention, it would probably be more of an anomaly if I knew a furry that didn’t have a pet than one that did.
Tumblr has this weird thing where they like to speculate on the furry subculture but never dare to actually contact a single one. Like, if you want to know why a furry is a furry so bad, just ask. It’s not an enigma.
Some reasons people are furries, just off the top of my head, include:
dyscalculia and difficulty recognizing faces, but fursonas are colorful and unique and a lot easier to recognize;
intense bullying and unstable homes and furry was a support network;
was just a bookish kid that loved redwall/other fantasies;
mental/physical disability and furry was, again, a support network;
or a VERY big and VERY OFTEN overlooked factor: LGBT looking for other LGBT. Literally almost 75 percent of furries are some flavor of LGBT.
The furry subculture, like any subculture, cannot be pinned down to one definitive reason why it exists, but it follows a pattern of attracting people that are in any way marginalized: LGBT, mental or physical disorders (i know of several Deaf, autistic/asperger’s, and crippled furries, and I personally have anxiety), or just generally meek, shy, nerdy, artsy, or ‘weird’ kids.
I loved dragons for as long as I can remember. I was also intensely bullied, and the idea of covetous, protective dragons keeping me safe from people pulling my hair or kicking my desk was just reinforced from that. Then I found that ‘furry’ thing and I found my partner and we both had the same mental escapes and bullying problems when we were in grade school. Now we’ve known each other for almost a decade. Whoops.
People with no experience to the subculture tend to be really, really repulsed by it and I still don’t know why. I guess it’s because it looks intensely childish and naive and cringey, and that can be true with some furries, especially. I’m not denying that. But the weird outright hostility and patronization is something I can’t tolerate, especially when such a large percentage of furries are marginalized in some way or another. Like, a lack of exposure to the outdoors? Come on, dude.
Reblogging for the last bit.
^^^^^^^^
QueerAnarchism 