Looking to a Furry Future
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What will inspire furrydom’s next generation? We talk old and new media that attracts and inspires newcomers to seek the fandom out, and discuss changes in the social landscape. How will the fandom look in five years?
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About The Author
levi
I am the coyote of the group! This means I am the handsome one, the intelligent one, the one who says all sorts of positive things about himself because he can even though he may be stretching the truth a little. When I'm not hosting or editing the show, you can find me writing the next great furry novel.
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Back in 2005, when I was 35 years old, I ghosted Further Confusion to meet up with a furry friend of mine who I hadn’t seen in several years. I was struck by how white, male, and most noticeable to me, young, the crowd was. It’s certainly not the case that I was made to feel unwelcome, but the generational gap made me feel out of place. To those of you who do attend cons, is the crowd on average getting older? The furry phenomenon certainly has grown over the last couple of decades, but are the older furs who were furrying out even before the advent of the internet still involved in the culture? My perception of the fandom is that, even as it grows, the median age of your typical con attendee is stuck somewhere in the very early 20’s. So what will the fandom look like in five years? Hopefully a little more grey in the muzzle, a little more grown up, and generally more diverse. I’m not particularly furry myself and won’t be stepping into a fursuit or a cuddle pile anytime soon (my interest is in the art, NSFW or otherwise) but I’m considering hauling my grey whiskers down to San Jose and visiting Further Confusion 2016 for a day to check out the dealers’ room. Maybe things have changed in 11 years? I guess I’ll find out…
This is one of those times that I think selective bias can be strong–different conventions will attract different ages, depending on factors such as the local community, how easy it is to get there (if it’s out of the way), and costs. In my experience, most of the conventions I go to do skew a little older than that (if not by much), but I also hang out with the older crowd, so it’s entirely possible that I only notice those I am looking for.
That said, the fandom itself stays young as it grows. I do not know if this is due to older furs “aging out” and finding different hobbies, or if it’s a matter of many young people joining in a hurry or what.