This post will cover a topic not often taken seriously today: “Furries”. Yes, they are the butt of many jokes on the Internet, and most people would laugh off any consideration of their problems. However, think of this: would we have taken trans issues seriously 20-30 years ago? Probably not. Today even someone like Diabetus, who is a professional bully for all intents and purposes, can eventually recognize that it is wrong to mock transsexuals. (By the way, I am still working on the response to Diabetus, which is turning out to be very long. I’m aiming for early next week.)

How exactly do I define “furry”? There are many definitions used today, but one sufficient for this video is “someone who identifies as or is attracted to anthropomorphic animals”. Note that this is not necessarily a sexual attraction.

Here is the Retsupurae video in question (TRIGGER WARNING: more hate than usual):

Both Slowbeef and Diabetus show uncharacteristic amounts of anger at this person simply for how the LPer speaks. Diabetus, who is usually more calm, slammed his hand on his desk near the end. At 1:30 the conversation turns to PlayTennis14’s avatar:

Diabetus: “I should take this moment to point out that this guy’s Youtube profile picture is some sort of pink lion cat lady thing. So, you know, put two and two together.”

Slowbeef: “So he’s socially well adjusted, I take it.”

Diabetus: “Absolutely, 100%. If you think pretending to fuck animals is being socially well adjusted.”

Near the end, things get much worse. At 3:42, Diabetus refers to the LPer “a horrible, broken human being”. Slowbeef at 3:55: “How did that voice not get the shit beaten out of him in highschool?”

Another thing that makes this video stand out is that it explicitly mentions the channel name of the person being mocked. This was not typical of earlier Retsupurae videos. It’s easy to see why - this video led to extreme bullying of Playtennis14 by Retsupurae’s subscribers. Their harassment has continued over the past 3 years, as can be seen in these recent comments.

Let’s take a step back to understand what’s going on here. What is the purpose of shaming? It is intended to “correct” behavior seen as deviant. Our social institutions condition us to respond to this “deviant” behavior with extreme disgust, which explains Retsupurae’s reaction. Slowbeef would have prefered it if he was beaten up in highschool to the point where he didn’t feel safe expressing his identity. Homosexuality and transsexuality were both treated this way in the past (and still are treated as deviant by the uneducated, but we can thank our university system for enlightening many of us). When it comes to “furries”, people are inclined to say “well THAT’S going too far, YOUR identity and preferences cross the line”. Simply put, ALL forms of normativity are oppressive. When it comes to gender, sexuality, orientation, etc., no matter how one identifies one’s self, it is perfectly fine. If we say one form of identity or attraction is wrong because it “grosses us out”, what can we say to homophobes, or transphobes?

We must oppose all oppressive social norms - not just pick and chose the ones that inconvenience us the most and maintain the others.