Simple poll question: How do you feel about the furry fandom? If you have no clue what I’m talking about, this is a very easy question to answer. If you have an idea, what informed your opinion of furries?
OK, I’ll play. What’s furry fandom?
I find that odd that this fandom, out of all fandoms, has become such a punching bag. I have nothing against it. I figure it’s not that much weirder than other fandoms normally, and at extremes, well, still not worse than other fandom extremes.
Furry fandom is fandom based around anthropomorphic animals.
I think it’s really strange and I find it hard to believe that it’s real. I can’t imagine it being too widespread. Also, I don’t want these people in my neighborhood. Ick.
My first reaction was to laugh contemptuously when I heard about it. Since then, I’ve had a chance to think about it. It currently doesn’t strike me as being any odder than really hardcore S&M, except terribly, terribly uncool. 
Was this in jest?
Me too. I see nothing appealing about it at all, but there are a lot of things I don’t understand, it doesn’t mean I have to actively hate them.
Fandom in general often has some very visible and very embarrassing members. The whole “furry” thing tends to either bring up thoughts of children who never grew up or those pre-verts who put on furry costumes and have sex. Neither is a particularly flattering image, so the furries tend to catch a lot of flack.
Me? I think they’re a bunch of goddamned freaks. 
Wait a minute. By “furry fandom” are we talking about (a) people who are sexually attracted to anthropomorphic cartoon animals, (b) people who like to dress up as anthropomorphic cartoon animals, or © people who like to dress up as anthropomorphic cartoon animals and then have sex with other people dressed up as anthropomorphic cartoon animals?
If (a), all I can say is that I’ve seen some pretty erotic anthropomorphic cartoon animals in my time.
If (b), I don’t think it’s any stranger than somebody dressing up in a Star Fleet uniform.
If ©, well, I think the person definitely needs some serious therapy, but to each his own.
Barry
[furry goodwill ambassador]
Not specifically any of those, godzillatemple. The furry fandom consists of people who take an interest in anthropomorphic animals and art and associated products thereof, and includes many subgenres. The cartoon stuff is sometimes tacked on because most mainstream anthropomorphic animals are animated. But neither cartoons nor sex is intrinsically part of the equation, and more than Harry Potter slash is a part of being a fan of said series.
[/furry goodwill ambassador]
Also, I would like to reiterate my request for people who have an idea of what furrydom is (or think they do) to post where they got said idea.
Some of my best friends are into it. I frankly don’t really understand that part of their lives, but heck, I like the rest of 'em, so I ignore it, except to snicker to those who can take the joke.
First time I heard of them was via the Brunching Shuttlecocks. ( http://www.brunching.com/ ), but sadly the search function no longer works so I can’t find the article.
In general, the non-sexual variety strikes me as no weirder than anime, star trek or other fandoms. The sexual variety makes me just about piss my pants laughing.
It can’t be anymore bizarre than the Buffy fandom.
The Geek Hierarchy, cajela?
I don’t have any particular opinion on furries. It’s not that appealing to me, though.
Mostly it simply points out to me the amazing communications and networking power of the Internet.
Ten years ago, most of these people would never have heard of each OTHER, much less be able to make ME aware of them.
Now they’re organized, and I’ve heard of them, despite my total lack of interest in them, simply because others have noticed them and pointed out their extreme weirdness.
God bless the Internet.
I’m not a furry, but I can certainly see the appeal of a nice pair of ears and a sexy swishy tail.
Furries totally digust me - the fur suits give me indigestion. And the sexual ones barely rate above pedophiles IMHO.
No real opinion one way or the other (my entire pool of knowledge is based on an MTV special on them and somethingawful, btw). I think it’s strange, yeah, but since I’ve been on the internet I’ve heard of more bizarre sexual pracitices than “normal” ones.
Not really something I’m interested in, but to each his own. I don’t see what the big deal is, really.
The whole thing seems a bit odd to me, sure–but I’m into slash fandom (though we have our share of scary extremists as well.) Not about to start throwing stones, here, thanks. God knows it isn’t harming anyone, and the world is fucked up enough that anything that helps people get by is fine by me.
The kind of sheer bile that other people’s hobbies perfectly innocent hobbies can arouse in otherwise quite nice men and women never fails to amaze me. It’s similar to the hatred I see directed towards overweight women, usually by teenage males–what prompts the sheer viciousness of it all? Mockery I understand, but the fury, the anger? I don’t get that at all.
I read Something Awful and some of the other sites that find such amusement in mocking these kinds of things–the snotty little adolescent in me laughs, I admit. I wonder how much of that kind of thing is derived from the intense desire to point the finger somewhere else in a desperate attempt to avoid drawing attention to oneself–let’s face it, none of us on the Internet are quite sane according to many “normal” folk’s standards.