You probably know about cosplay, but what about furries? CLEO gets in touch with the inner spirit animal...
You probably know about cosplay, but what about furries? CLEO gets in touch with the inner spirit animal...
Even if you don’t participate in cosplay, you probably have an idea of what it’s about. But if it comes down to it, are you able to tell the difference between cosplay and a Halloween costume? Cosplay is a performance art where people don costumes and accessories to represent fictional characters. Cosplayers assume the identity of the person they’re impersonating and even adopt their mannerisms. The role-playing aspect is what separates it from ordinary costuming – think of it as an elaborate, adult version of dress-up.
Since it originated in Japan, you may have only associated it with anime or manga characters. But that’s not always the case – cosplay characters can also be sourced from all kinds of movies, TV shows, books or video games, Japanese or otherwise. To some, cosplaying is a hobby. To others, it’s a lifestyle. One thing’s for sure, though – people love it because it’s a way for them to express themselves.
Furry fantasy
If you’ve seen pictures of people in furry animal suits, you may have linked it to some sort of cosplay. Known as the furry fandom, the subculture revolves around “fictional anthropomorphic animal characters”. In other words, they’re animal characters with human intelligence and characteristics. They talk, walk on two legs and even wear clothes. These furry enthusiasts are known as “furries”.
Is wearing an animal costume (also known as “fursuiting”) considered cosplaying? It’s a subject of intense debate online, but the general consensus is that while it’s still broadly cosplay, there are a number of significant differences. For one, cosplayers dress as human (or at least humanoid) characters. Furries, on the other hand, dress as non-human characters. It’s also been argued that while cosplayers base their costumes off existing characters from pop culture, furries base their fursuits off their inner animal spirits, which can be unique and original creations.
As with cosplayers, art plays a huge part. “We’re driven by imagination, and art lets people create the impossible and bring it to life. It’s a great visual guide to the community, and I’d almost say art and creativity are part of the backbone of what makes a furry,” says Sean Piche, site director of Fur Affinity, the furry subculture’s largest online community with more than 1.8 million registered accounts.
Known to the community as Dragoneer, the US-based 37-year-old artist says it’s variety that drew him to the subculture. “You can take 100 different [animal] species and draw them in 100 different ways, and no two will ever be alike.”
But unlike cosplayers, furries have “fursonas”. This can either be an alter ego or a direct representation of how they see themselves, and it usually consists of a made-up name, the animal species of choice and the unique body features.
Suiting up
It’s probably easier for furries to come up with a fursona than to get their hands on a fursuit. Unlike the animal onesies lazy costumers throw on, a fursuit is far more elaborate and typically consists of a head, body and paws.
Since furries feel strongly about individualising their fursonas, fursuits are usually made to order and a single fursuit can take hundreds of hours and cost several thousand dollars to make – a fair bit more if it includes animated features like “follow-me eyes”, a moving jawline and a wagging tail. A 2016 The Guardian article by Kim Wall reported that a master fursuit maker can easily be fully booked for an entire year.
Fursuits also follow seasonal trends. Neon colours can be all the rage one year, and grumpy-looking characters what’s hot the next. Regardless, each fursuit is unique in its own way. “Even if you have costumes of the same animal, there will always be standout features to make them completely unique from one another,” says Sean. “In fact, we’ve never heard of [two people] having the exact same fursuit.”
But why?
The real question, of course, is why anyone would be into dressing up like animals. A trawl through furry forum threads offers some insight.
For one, furries appreciate how, when channelling their “inner animal”, they aren’t segregated by race, class, age, size or any other social construct that has the power of dividing us. They love that they can accentuate their personality traits without having to worry about their looks getting in the way of how they’re treated by others, and that everyone is united as one happy animal family.
“In the furry fandom, it’s not about what you look like or where you come from, but who you are,” says Sean. “People like the freedom [of expressing what] their respective animals represent. Sometimes, it’s about how the animal looks. Sometimes, it’s about the animal’s natural traits.” So a furry that chooses the cheetah as their animal might like the idea of being fast and lithe, while one who chooses the wolf may relate to being loyal and strong. If you think about it, films and books featuring anthropomorphic animal characters have been around for a while now – Kimba the White Lion, a popular Japanese anime was released in 1965. Then there are household characters like Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny and Winnie the Pooh. More recently, there have also been Po from the Kung Fu Panda series and Judy and Nick from Zootopia.
But while we’re all fans of Mickey Mouse, it’s one thing to show support by wearing a Mickey tee and another to dress up and act like a talking mouse, right? To Sean, going to furry conventions, collecting furry comics and making custom fursuits are no different from the ways people express support for their favourite sports teams. “Some people love watching the game, some love collecting the memorabilia and some get dressed in the jerseys to root for their favourite team,” he says.
Yet despite being just another hobby, the furry subculture has a history of unsympathetic media coverage and is frequently the target of hate groups. What is it about the subculture that makes people uncomfortable?
Sexual stigma
One possible reason is that they’re commonly thought to be fetishists – that they’re sexually attracted to anthropomorphic animals and sexualise their own characters for bedroom pleasure. But here’s the thing: much as there are furries who enjoy a sexual aspect of the subculture, there are furries who don’t, and in no way use their characters to play out fantasies.
In the same The Guardian article by Kim Wall, Samuel Conway, a professional scientist and chairman of Anthrocon, the world’s largest anthropomorphic convention, was quoted as saying: “Furry fandom is not now – nor has it ever been – born of a sexual fetish.”
Scan through enough furry forum threads and you’ll have a sense that there is a good number of people who enjoy the furry lifestyle, but aren’t into furry sex. In another The Guardian article from this year, columnist Brian Switek says that the furry movement “is not a fetish… it’s more like someone asking what superhero you’d want to be and saying no, thanks, you’d rather be a hyena or fox or deer. It’s about identity”.
That’s not to say furries have no sex life: “People forget sex is prevalent in society. It’s a part of life. It’s featured in movies, advertisements, music, fashion and art. It’s everywhere,” says Sean. If sex is everywhere, why is the average non-furry put off by furry fantasies? If anything, the sexual aspect of the furry fandom could also offer some a safe and liberating way to explore their sexual identity. A 2014 Salon report suggested that people who are uncomfortable in their own skin may find an outlet for their sexual repression in their fursonas.
Furries on the map
While the furry subculture isn’t exactly widespread, there are more furries than you might think. “Worldwide, it’s hard to put an exact estimate on just how many there are, but I think it’d be safe to say there are at least a few million out there,” says Sean. Aside from Anthrocon, there are a whole host of other international furry conventions that take place every year, and one (Furry Lah!) even took place here last year.
That’s right, we’ve got a furry group in Singapore. Founded in 2004, Singapore Furs has over 100 members and their own website (sgfurs.com). We reached out to them for an interview but they declined to comment as “the community as a whole isn’t comfortable engaging with the media.” Their discomfort is understandable given the bad press furries have received, but perhaps the seclusion isn’t doing them any favours if they wish to be understood better.
As Sean puts it: “At its core, the fandom is about friendship, art and people coming together with common interests.” And if that’s what furries are truly about, us non-furries could learn to admire the unique culture for what it is. After all, we all grew up watching and reading about talking animals, and in this day and age, when there are fandoms for just about everything, is this really out of the ordinary?
“In the furry fandom, it’s not about what you look like or where you come from, but who you are.”
Images Getty Images, 123RF.com Text Adora Wong.
