Furries, Queer Subculture and the Myth of Being Ostracized

‘The myth of nerd oppression let every slightly socially awkward white boy who likes sci-fi lay his ressentiment at the feet of the nearest women and people of color’

– Willie Osterweil, What Was the Nerd? (http://reallifemag.com/what-was-the-nerd/)

The current political climate has seen drastic and sudden changes throughout Europe and North America. From Brexit, to the presidential election of Donald Trump, there is clearly a resurgence in far-right tendencies throughout society. In part, due to the crushing austerity measures and a lack of an answer from organised and disciplined socialist movements. Small glimmers of hope emerged from the growth in popularity of left-leaning candidates such as Bernie Sanders in the USA, JeanLuc Mélenchon in France and the most recent and most successful of these candidates, Jeremy Corbyn in the UK.

But what does this have to do with the furry fandom? There is a general regard in any fandom or subculture or other non-political interest that it remains just that, non-political. However, we have to be aware that EVERYTHING is political, even the furry fandom has to answer for that. From its emergence in white middle class suburbia in the 1990s, to the growing furry cons which attract tens of thousands of people. There is an underlying political feature within this. This has been seen with conventions where cities are now promoting and accepting them due to the economic prosperity they can bring:

‘”They’ve embraced us, and we’ve embraced them right back,” says Tom Loftus, with Visit Pittsburgh, the city’s convention and visitors’ bureau. He says the furries have had a positive impact on the city. “From an economic standpoint this year alone, it’s going to be $5.7 million in direct spending,” he says. And Anthrocon donates every year to a local animal-related charity or organization.’¹

In many ways, this is akin to pinkwashing within the LGBTQ+ movement. Where the commercial interests of banks and corporations is prioritized over the people and grassroots community and origins of the movement. Whilst the origins of the furry fandom are different, many of us have had to deal with the consequences of pinkwashing, even in furry spaces. Even the charity at furry conventions to animal welfare is still riddled with next to no dialogue in the fandom on animal rights (potentially another article) or the consequences of focusing on certain forms of animal welfare over others due to a fear of being perceived as being ‘political’. ²

The fandom stems from and attracts certain socio-economic groups and backgrounds. It seems immediate that the fandom is in many ways capitalistic, or at the very least it emerged and maintained itself through capitalist, specifically neo-liberal capitalist means. Therefore, to announce that politics should be avoided is at best a reactionary response to the growing necessity of political discussion and action in an ever-increasing world where class antagonisms grow deeper and deeper and too many people are dealing with the direct and blunt consequences of political and economic decision making. Discussions around the fandom and its future should be encouraged, after all, we have an almost 40,000 year old history, from the Lion-man of the Hohlenstein-Stadel, to the predominantly queer subculture that is the furry fandom now.

Within the furry fandom, there has been growing concerns of far-right and fascistic tendencies being not only tolerated, but being given voices within the media which has historically failed to showcase a diverse and well-sourced representation of the fandom. As the previous quotation shows us, there is a need to reinforce that our existence helps to uphold capitalist norms. For those of us who are most likely to be affected by these tendencies, this makes the fandom and the spaces around us feel less safe and more threatening than expected. But at the same time, this implies an originally safer space in the fandom via a guise of being non-political. When in reality, we ourselves have become more political and aware. The question however, is the ways in which the fandom, as

a predominantly queer subculture has facilitated the rise of political consciousness from across the spectrum alongside its own embracing of capitalist norms reminiscent of the Pink Pound of LGBTQ+ spaces.

From my own personal experiences in the UK. There is generally an issue more to do with right leaning and right-wing issues being the loudest, rather than a majority. But aside from that, most of the personal experiences come from the reliance of Pink Pound to facilitate spaces for furry meets in gay bars and clubs and the general insistence of being ‘non-political’, especially if there is a feminist connotation, whilst more conventional centre-right and right-wing topics are seen as just daily banter (although this is not unique to the furry fandom). The ways in which the fandom is a queer space also plays into the ways in which these spaces have evolved and emerged. Class and occupation are things that are noticeable, somewhat drastically. From working class youths escaping from the drudgery and potential abuse of hetero/cis normative nuclear families, to the well established middle class white cis man who wants to escape the world of tech work by constantly discussing technology and insisting others have a high knowledge on such things as well, or the capitalist enablers/embracers of the fandom. These are also the ones most likely to express and act upon fascistic tendencies, which if left untreated in a ‘non-political’ space like the furry fandom, can easily evolve into outright fascism. The UK furry subculture is however slightly different. It’s similar to the USA/Canada, but there’s definitely an added layer of tech superiority that does exist in

the US/Canadian furry subcultures, but it’s more obvious in the UK, at least from my own experiences. E.g. you’re terrible because you didn’t work hard getting a STEM degree with a nice job and that’s why you’re a horrible SJW, unlike me! But in that case, it’s because these furries rely on capitalism to make money and have fun at cons/meets and anyone who questions it or its social/cultural systems (racism, sexism, transphobia, etc.) is immediately ostracised as a ‘SJW!’ To say this is the case for all STEM qualified furries would be ludicrous. However, understanding why elitism like this can emerge is important to consider and how it impacts the safety of furries, especially young working class furries in non-STEM related activities or careers.

Why has this developed in a space like the furry fandom? The Geek Social Fallacies can help explain and understand some of these tendencies or at least, the role the fandom plays in facilitating fascistic tendencies. The first Geek Social Fallacy and the most important is that ‘Ostracisers are Evil’, nobody wants to actively call out oppressive behavior in the fandom. Most of us have been bullied and harassed as young people and even now, none of us want to be those doing the bullying:

‘Many geeks have had horrible, humiliating, and formative experiences with ostracism, and the notion of being on the other side of the transaction is repugnant to them…As a result, nearly every geek social group of significant size has at least one member that 80% of the members hate, and the remaining 20% merely tolerate. If GSF1 exists in sufficient concentration — and it usually does — it is impossible to expel a person who actively detracts from every social event. GSF1 protocol permits you not to invite someone you don’t like to a given event, but if someone spills the beans and our hypothetical Cat Piss Man invites himself, there is no recourse. You must put up with him, or you will be an Evil Ostracizer and might as well go out for the football team.’³

This reflects on how a lot of furries get engaged with a community were the majority were ostracized in their youth. But what happens is that because the community is obsessed with positivity and ‘no drama!’ that it begins to reassert the ideals of the status quo under this disguise of ‘anti-SJW’ ‘non-PC’ mindset which is actually the mindset of the majority of capitalist society for hundreds of years. It’s trying to be contrarian when you’re actually just your average Tory voter. However, this notion of being bullied, especially from those most likely to have fascistic tendencies in the fandom, the cis white man, is potentially used more to fuel a justification for their viewpoints and allows these views to flourish in a fandom, which compared to general geek culture, has been important for us in developing and understanding our gender identities and sexual orientations due to the tolerance towards it. Osterweil brings this up and the culture of nerd oppression being a manufactured product from the 1980s and the Reagan years following the previous decades of significant political upheaval, arguing that ‘The films celebrated as 1980s camp colluded in the Reaganite project: Hollywood worked hard to project a stable white suburban America whose travails were largely due to bureaucratic interference.’⁴

Whilst the furry fandom has another layer of difficulty due to its presence as a queer subculture, as a safe space and supposedly known for tolerance we must understand that those with fascistic tendencies may have been bullied and ostracized, but so were we. Even in the 80s world of the nerd being a hero, anything that deviates outside of the capitalist and patriarchal norms of cis/hetero normativity, are doomed to be below

even the nerds who rise in a fandom of tolerance, much to the dismay of many who rely on the fandom for safety and a sense of worth.

In a way, the growth of the subculture and its diversity is seen as a threat to those who have established themselves with this false sense of ‘bullied white outcast loner’ which was more a product enforced by marketing in the 1980s to try and avoid the issues of marginalised people. Since they ‘got over it!’ when really, they never got over any structural and systematic discrimination and oppression and whilst we, have no choice but to make ourselves political in furry spaces.

Whilst not used here, I would recommend ‘Popular Culture and Revolutionary Theory: Understanding Punk Rock’ (https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-6/punk.htm) by Neil Eriksen. Despite the text discussing punk rock in the 1970s and 80s, it has been a useful starting point for me in writing this and thinking of how ideology and culture shape and play a role within the fandom. Hopefully this and other pieces here will bring about more discussions on the ways in which our spaces are constructed and the context of the rise of certain oppressive behaviors within the fandom. Despite the academic tone of this essay, we live in a changing world and looking beyond our usual conceptions of the fandom can bring about some surprising things which I would encourage everyone, even those who may have struggled reading this article to consider more.

1 http://www.npr.org/2015/07/12/422311437/the-furries-have-landed-and-pittsburgh-is-giving-them-a-bear-hug

2 ‘Of animals used and killed by humans in the United States, over 99.6% are farmed animals, about 0.2% are animals used in laboratories, 0.07% are used for clothing, and 0.03% are killed in companion animal shelters. However, about 66% of donations to animal charities in the United States go to companion animal shelters, 32% go to groups with mixed or other activities, and just 0.8% of donations go specifically to farmed animal organizations, while 0.7% go to laboratory animal organizations.’ (source: https://animalcharityevaluators.org/donationadvice/why-farmed-animals/)

3 http://plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html

4 http://reallifemag.com/what-was-the-nerd/