# Furries Furries are members of the Furry Fandom, a subculture built around anthropomorphic animal characters expressed through fanart, fiction, roleplay and fursuit costumes. The fandom crystallized out of 1980s science fiction and comic conventions and grew into a global online community anchored by sites like Fur Affinity and large in-person gatherings like Anthrocon and Midwest FurFest. ## Overview Furries are fans of anthropomorphic animals, meaning animal characters drawn with human personalities, body shapes and clothes. The label covers a wide range of interests inside a single subculture, from artists and writers to people who commission or wear full plush costumes called fursuits[1]. Many members build a personal animal alter-ego, a fursona, and use it as their social identity in the fandom[6]. The fandom is not a monolith. Urban Dictionary breaks the community into overlapping groups such as fursuiters, roleplayers, writers, and fetish-oriented "furverts," alongside self-identified scalies for reptile fans and avians for bird fans[6]. That internal diversity is part of why Furries get misread by outsiders, since a costumed parade at a con and a private art commission are treated as the same thing by casual observers[1]. At scale, Furries look like any other convention-driven hobby. Midwest FurFest, held in Rosemont, Illinois, grew from 388 attendees in 2000 to more than 17,000 by its recent editions and has raised over $900,000 for animal-related charities[2]. Anthrocon runs its own tiered membership and ticketing system for what is one of the flagship annual gatherings[4]. Around those events sits a huge online creative economy anchored by furry-specific art and news sites[3]. ## How It Spread The online era supercharged the fandom. Fur Affinity, launched on January 16th, 2005 by a user known as Alkora, was pitched as an alternative to DeviantArt and the then-active SheezyArt, and became the central hub for furry art, writing and music, surviving a month-long outage in July 2008[3]. Its success spun off its own convention, FA: United, first held in August 2007 in Newark, New Jersey with 310 attendees and 25 fursuiters in the parade[3]. Reference infrastructure grew alongside the art sites. WikiFur, a MediaWiki-based encyclopedia dedicated to furry culture, moved to the wikifur.com domain in 2009 and by 2016 had over 19,000 English articles plus large Russian and Italian editions[3]. On the news side, Flayrah relaunched as an independent furry news magazine in January 2010 and won the Ursa Major Award for Best Anthropomorphic Magazine in 2011 and 2013, the same annual awards ceremony that also honors furry film, comics and literature[5]. In parallel, Furries became a running feud on early 4chan. Furry porn threads clustered around a tradition called Furry Fridays that dated to 2005, and starting around December 2006 anons pushed back by flooding /b/ with photos of the F40PH Amtrak locomotive, a bit that fans of the counter-meme remembered fondly years later[7]. The friction pushed some furry posters toward 7chan, launched September 25th, 2005, which kept a dedicated /fur/ board under its Porn section with looser rules than 4chan allowed[3]. The fandom also drew hostile mainstream press, most infamously a 2001 Vanity Fair piece that soured Furries on outside journalists and led to strict no-media policies at conventions like Waterbury's FurFright[1]. ## How to Use Getting involved as a Furry usually starts with picking a fursona, meaning a personal animal character with a chosen species, color scheme and personality, then commissioning or drawing art of it[6]. From there people typically join art platforms, roleplay in virtual worlds like Second Life or the furry-specific Furcadia, and eventually attend a convention such as Anthrocon or Midwest FurFest[6][2]. Fursuits are optional and not required to identify as a Furry, a point Urban Dictionary flags because many outsiders assume every Furry owns a costume[6]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Furries? Furries are members of the Furry Fandom, a subculture built around anthropomorphic animal characters expressed through art, writing, roleplay and fursuit costumes[3]. ### Where did Furries come from? The modern fandom grew out of 1980s science fiction and comic conventions, with Steve Gallacci's 1984 series Albedo Anthropomorphics cited as a key spark[3]. ### What does Furries mean? The word literally means resembling fur, but in this context it refers to fans of anthropomorphic animal characters and, by extension, the community around them[3]. ### How do you use Furries? People join by creating a personal animal character called a fursona, then engaging through art, writing, online communities or conventions[6]. ### Is Furries still popular? Yes. Midwest FurFest 2026 is scheduled for December 3 to 6 in Rosemont, Illinois, and the convention hit more than 17,000 attendees in recent years[2]. ### What is a fursuit? A fursuit is a full-body animal costume similar to theme park mascot suits, often custom-made for a specific character[1]. ### What is Fur Affinity? Fur Affinity is the fandom's central art site, launched on January 16th, 2005 by a user named Alkora as an alternative to DeviantArt and SheezyArt[3]. ### Why did 4chan post trains at Furries? Starting around December 2006, /b/ users flooded furry threads with F40PH Amtrak locomotive images to push back against the weekly Furry Fridays posting tradition[7]. ### What are the Ursa Major Awards? The Ursa Major Awards are the furry fandom's equivalent of the Hugo Awards, administered by the Anthropomorphic Literature and Arts Association for works featuring intelligent or talking animals[5]. ### What is Anthrocon? Anthrocon is one of the major annual furry conventions and sells tiered membership tickets through its official site[4]. ### Why do Furries dislike the press? A 2001 Vanity Fair article that Furries felt misrepresented the fandom as being defined by bestiality and social awkwardness led to strict no-media policies at many gatherings[1]. ## References 1. [https://web.archive.org/web/20110810060927/http://www.hartfordadvocate.com/news/ht-hell-hath-no-furries-20110409,0,4204659.story]() 2. [https://www.furfest.org/]() 3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/subcultures/furries]() 4. [https://www.anthrocon.org/]() 5. [https://ursamajorawards.org/UMA_2013.htm]() 6. [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Furries]() 7. [https://injoke.blogspot.com/2008/10/f40ph-fridays.html]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/furries Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library