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Guest
Guest
It's this whole 'Public Service Announcment' and such that annoys me. For some reason, when I see furries start to pile on any media item that looks bad for them, I start hearing 'You're So Vain' playing in my head.
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CSIs Find 'Fur And Loathing' In Las Vegas
- Thread starter CSI Files
- Start date
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Guest
Guest
Furry, but not really speaking as one
Before I say anything I want to stress that I’m not going to post in any other threads. I’ve just joined to voice my humble opinion on this topic.
I admit that I’m a fur myself, but I am not going to defend the fandom. Or at least that’s not my intention. I want to say something about minorities and media in general. (By the way, although this episode has already been broadcasted in America, I haven't seen it yet due to the fact that I’m from Germany.)
There are many important points that have to be considered when looking at this episode. If you look at them as a whole it becomes quite clear that all this discussion wouldn’t have been necessary.
1. CSI is about the darker and the stranger sites of humans, so it is no wonder they show very extreme practices. Okay, they’ve been to a furry convention to search for a suspect and they found one. But it’s just that one person, perhaps a few others, out of I-don’t-know-how-many. I don’t think they ever claimed that everybody in that convention engaged in those practices. You should never assume the people shown in CSI to represent a whole group. (Besides, the episode took place in Las Vegas, right? I think Vegas is known as a city of sins, so it’s no wonder that such stuff occurs there.)
Besides, I think the focus should rest on the fact that somebody died, not the way the dead and the suspect had sex.
2. TV is about entertainment. Everything, even the news, is meant to draw attention and entertain. You cannot take everything said and shown on TV for true. Never foolishly devour every scrap of information the TV tosses at you.
And more important TV is about selling something. Do you really believe they would show you something that won’t sell something else? If you think so I would say you’re living in a dream world.
3. It is true that the furry fandom receives bad press. But other fandoms do to. The Trekkies get bad press. The Star Wars fans get bad press. The RPGers get bad press. They don’t receive the same kind of bad press, perhaps they receive less, but they receive it nonetheless.
I have a question for the furries who already posted here: Why do you think we should be treated differently? It’s true that the kind of bad press we get is of an unpleasant nature. I’ve never heard something like that about Trekkies, but I heard a lot of far worse stuff about RPGers. Again I ask, why should we be treated differently? There is no reason. Or do you furries up there think you’re so important? D'you think you're so special? Believe me, you're not. You'er just as normal as anybody else out there. Okay, maybe not as normal, but not better or worse than anybody else. You do not deserve different treatment! Or do you think your tolerance makes you better than the others? Then show it! Don't blame the non-furs, but try to understand and tolerate them. Besides, tolerance is such an essential feature to humans it should not be rewarded. Or is it the openness many furries show? C'mon, not being to prudish to talk about certain topics is no reason to be treated better than others. Or perhaps it is that you freed your mind from society's cage? Well, other people did that before, and they did not want to be treated differently for what they had achieved. And why didn't they want to be treated differently? Because they actually had freed themselves from society's cage. Only when you're trapped inside society's patterns you think of someone as better or worse, and thus deserving different treatment. Although I'm not a religious person, I just have to say this: Pride is one of the seven deadly sins. And pride will have a fall.
4. But why does the furry fandom receive bad press of this kind? Why do so many people believe being a fur necessarily means being gay/lez/bi, a zoophile, a plushophile, a crossdresser or whatever else? I don’t know for sure, but I have an idea about it I want to present here. It’s a simple chain-reaction.
As far as I know, the majority of furries is very tolerant (Don’t ask me why, but it is so.)
--> Thus furries are more likely to tell other furries about some of the more extreme practices they engage in, because they don’t have to fear being repelled by the others for it.
--> Somehow this information seeps out into the public.
-->Since many people outside the furry fandom don’t dare coming out, the statistics say that there are more gays/lez/bis, zoophiles, plushophiles (Okay, maybe those only exist inside the furrydom), crossdressers or whatever else in the fandom than outside. If you had any means to count the people who haven’t outed themselves into the statistics you’d probably discover that the odds are evened. Not the overall percentage of weird people engaging in strange practices is higher in the fandom, but the percentage of people coming out. And those are the only people counting for the statistics. The statistic always lies. Or at least it never tells the whole truth.
(Okay, I admit, here I defended the fandom a little, but you could apply this to any other fandom or minority in which tolerance is important.)
5. And why do so many people talk badly about furries or any other minorities and blame them for things only done by minorities within those minorities? The answer is so simple yet so complex: Because society would break down without it. If people wouldn’t blame others, if people couldn’t talk badly of others, if people could not badmouth others or discriminate them, they would be forced to see their own faults and mistakes. And if people kept looking at their own faults they would only pity themselves. And what happens if people keep on pitying themselves? They stop working effectively. If people stopped working effectively society as well as economy would brake down.
Scapegoats and discriminated minorities are vital to society. I quote from a card from a famous TCG: “It is not sad. It is right. Every society must have its outcasts.“
6. And why are people so shocked by the things suggested in these rumours? Why are they so disgusted by it? Because society says that it is not right, and because it’s different from what they do. And people don’t like differences. Things that are different are hard to understand. And you fear what you can’t understand. The Romans did not understand the early Christians either, and feared them for it. They even thought we were eating newborn children and drinking blood in our ceremonies, only because they misinterpreted Jesus words. You see the wrong judgment? You just can’t judge somebody only by rumours and superstitions. The only way to judge someone is walking his path for some time. That goes for whole groups of people as well as individuals.
And again, I'm not only talking to the non-furs. You furries have been "normal" people for a long time. You should be able to understand why they judge us like this, but you only blame them for it. You're judging them for judging you. Remember what Jesus said in the Sermon of the Mount? "Don't judge, so you won't be judged." (Please don't blame me if I didn't quote it correctly. We haven't got an English bible in which I could look it up.) You know, one of the foundations of my own persuasion is that everything you do returns thrice to you. Everyone you jugde will judge you by your judgment. (Okay, you non-furs can as well take this advice to your heart.) So, you furs, you should know how it is to be a normal person siddenly confronted with something weird (I remember my own reaction when I first encountered the fandom.), so don't just jump down their throats, try to use your knowledge of them to judge properly, if you really have to judge. Anyways, it would be better to just accept it.
7. Can somebody tell me why people should even care what happens behind closed doors inside any fandom or minority? As long as nobody gets hurt there’s no reason to worry oneself with such stuff. (Just forget the dead in the CSI-episode for a moment, okay? That would be an exception, since somebody got hurt. =^.~=) As long as nobody in a fursuit walks up to you and asks something like: “Hey, wanna [censored] a little foxy?” there’s no need for you to care about the way furries make love. I suppose people outside the fandom would deem it just as strange that a gentle bite in the neck is a sign of love among feline furs. Or that licking the others face is about the same as kissing him. But is this really disgusting? Not to me and neither to the furs I know. If it is to you, just look away and be glad you need not do it. =^.^=
I think this is the right time to mention how the furry fandom is described in the CSI Episode guide: Fur and Loathing : It is described as “a weird group that believes in acting on animal instinct." Most of us do NOT believe in this. I admit though that there probably are furs around who do that. I myself am member of a more extreme part of the fandom. I’m a Were-Fur. (“Were” as in Werewolf) We believe that there is an animal soul inside us, but we don’t believe in acting on its instincts. We want to learn from it, but we know we have to restrain it. And what’s so bad about wanting to learn from animals and nature? In my eyes nothing. Ever since there is science, it copied and imitated nature, and nobody complained. Our way of learning from nature is not even dangerous. Take me for example. I’ve got a panther inside me. You might think that I adopted the fierce and quick nature a panther displays while hunting. At least that was my own fear when I discovered I’m a Werefur. But the opposite happened. I’ve become far calmer. I’m normally just a silent observer, hard to upset, taking in all information, and not making any judgments before having sufficient information. I’ve become a cool-minded thinker, but a passionate lover. And a little cuddling cat. =^.^= There’s nothing dangerous about that, I think.
Just for those interested, there are people believing that they in fact are wolves or dogs. They are always in medication, because it’s a severe mental disorder called, believe it or not, lycanthropy.
As Loganberry already stated, we feel very close to our respective animals. You could call them totemic spirits, or guardian animals. But for Gaia’s sake, that does not mean were in love with them. If a strong connection to animals meant being a zoophile you would denounce all the native Americans as zoophiles. The Indians of America, whether from northern or southern America (I’m talking ‘bout the whole continents, northern as well as southern, not just the USA) have animistic religions. And I don’t think they’ve all been zoophiles, for then they probably would have been extincted long before the colonists set foot onto America. =^.^=
*looks down in shame* I drifted into defending the fandom here, I think. But I’ll cover the other side too.
8. I’ve got a hypothetical assumption for you. Imagine all furries would be having sex dressed in fursuits, and everybody knew. What do you think would happen? I guess that the furries would be the absolute outcasts of society. Most furries would surely prefer secrecy, but the ones who stand for their lifestyle or the ones otherwise known to be furries would probably be deprived and perhaps even hindered in career. You know, all that crap of not getting the job because of whom or what you are. That stuff already happened to other minorities. Just think of the Afro-Americans. Of course we get a little angry if somebody claims we're all like that, and thus endangers our social life.
I said outcasts are necessary, but only to a certain level. There’s that point where an outcast becomes an exile. He’s not banished from his homeland, but he’s banished from normal life. I know someone who encountered this level of hatred and discrimination, though he’s not been stranger than you or me. During all his time at school he was beaten up regularly. And why? Just because he’s been different.
This message goes to everybody, not only the non-furs: Be tolerant! A little more tolerance now and then does wonders. Yes, you furs up there, I’m also talking to you. You blame the others for judging you on superstitions and rumours. You blame them for badmouthing you. Maybe you’re not badmouthing THEM, but you did not really try to understand their point of view, did you? Don’t look at yourself with your eyes; look at yourself with the eyes of someone else. The people outside the furry fandom have other likes and dislikes, and according to them they form their opinion. Don’t look into the mirror and try to guess what others are thinking about you. Look at them and trough their eyes to understand what they think of you. Yeah, right, I'm saying that you furries should be more tolerant. Be tolerant of the others opinion. You cannot restrain somebodies mind. You can try to make them shut up, but they either won't listen, will listen and shut up but keep on thinking what they thought before. You cannot force anybody's mind, so you'd only influence those who already disbelieved those rumours. And it's good that you can't force somebodies mind. Imagine where we would be if you could! So, please don't try it. If you stop trying that, everybody will feel better.
9. This one is especially for the furries. Why are you making such a big deal out of it? You might say that I myself am making a big deal out of it with this post, but I’m only writing to clarify that there is no need for all this trouble. With reacting like this you only fuel the fire. Beaten dogs bark loudest. You know that most of us don’t do stuff like this, so why are you so vehemently defending yourself? Do you think you need to? Do you have a guilty conscience? Through all this protest you’re only giving the impression that you really need to defend yourself, which leads to the thought that you might have done the stuff in question. I don’t say you actually did, but some people might think that.
Have you never experienced mobbing in school? Defend yourself, and they’ll keep on teasing you. Search for help from outside, and they’ll tease you worse or beat you up. Ignore them and they’ll eventually leave you alone.
Next time we receive that sort of bad press, remember that there are three things you can do:
a) Just ignore them. It’s only a matter of time until they forget it.
b) Laugh at their nescience. Do it everywhere the topic comes up. Once they notice you’re just laughing at such stupid rumours, they’ll realize that they are just that: rumours. Nothing more.
c) But the best thing you can do is: Change things BEFORE such rumours develop! If you don’t like what people might be thinking of you, tell them the truth about you RIGHT AWAY. Don’t wait until it’s too late. Don’t hide from society and reality, but face it. In Gaia’s halls, you’re mammals, perhaps birds or dragons, but you’re definitely not crabs. But still you’re hiding inside your shell and grumble at what the world thinks about you. If the world never sees you they’ll of course think badly of you. Bad rumours pass around faster than good ones. They spread wider. And they are stickier to the mind. How are the others supposed to know the truth about us if you’re withholding all the information about yourself? If you don’t have several sources to compare it’s easy to believe everything the one source you have says.
Don’t blame the others for believing misinformation. Blame yourself for not telling them the truth before. I don’t know about you, but I told my friends that I am a furry and explained what it meant. They just accepted it, and nobody’s treating me differently now. Not a single one of them would belive that stuff on somethingawful.com or what-do-I-know-where. I admit that I lost some friends through revealing other (non-furry) things about me, but they had never been real friends.
The only way to keep lies from sticking to peoples minds is telling them the truth beforehand. Don’t expect them to search for information on their own. They don’t know that the information given is wrong, so they don’t see any reason to search for more. And before they fall victim to misinformation they probably don’t even know we’re out there, so how should they get any correct information about us? It’s not the people’s responsibility to search information about us, but our responsibility to inform people about us.
It’s good you got out of your hole now, but you could have done so earlier. Take my advice, spread my word: Never hide your heart and soul! Tell people what you really are right away. Believe me; if they turn away because of such a simple thing you don’t really want to know them. And if they just accept you like you are they are definitely worth knowing. =^.~= Really tolerant people are so hard to find.
Always remember, if somebody knows the truth, the lie will bounce of his mind.
So, these are my points and I want to stress again that it’s unnecessary to make such a big deal out of a little bad press. If people want to believe everything the TV says, just let them. Bad press is like a fen; the more you struggle and fight, the deeper you get stuck.
By the way, this rumour even explains some terms wrongly, I think. Here “skritching” is described as “rubbing their faces up and down each other’s fur” . But as far as I know “skritching” or “scritching” is no such thing. It’s merely putting your fingers through the others fur and rubbing, scratching and massaging the skin beneath it.
I want to thank anybody who had the endurance and interest to read until now for listening to my humble opinion. =^.~=
P.S. Though the furrydom hasn’t been ‘round very long, anthropomorphics are much older than you may think. You don’t believe me? I’ll give you a few examples:
The old Egyptian pantheon: Most of their gods had animal’s heads
The centaurs and the minotaur from Greek mythology: Well, I bet ya know them.
The fables of Phaedrus and Aesop: Yes, fables are anthropomorphic too. Speaking is something human, ain’t it?
P.P.S. Hey, you furs, I forgot; there's another thing you can do about bad press: Accept your role as society's scapegoat and take it with your head held high.
Before I say anything I want to stress that I’m not going to post in any other threads. I’ve just joined to voice my humble opinion on this topic.
I admit that I’m a fur myself, but I am not going to defend the fandom. Or at least that’s not my intention. I want to say something about minorities and media in general. (By the way, although this episode has already been broadcasted in America, I haven't seen it yet due to the fact that I’m from Germany.)
There are many important points that have to be considered when looking at this episode. If you look at them as a whole it becomes quite clear that all this discussion wouldn’t have been necessary.
1. CSI is about the darker and the stranger sites of humans, so it is no wonder they show very extreme practices. Okay, they’ve been to a furry convention to search for a suspect and they found one. But it’s just that one person, perhaps a few others, out of I-don’t-know-how-many. I don’t think they ever claimed that everybody in that convention engaged in those practices. You should never assume the people shown in CSI to represent a whole group. (Besides, the episode took place in Las Vegas, right? I think Vegas is known as a city of sins, so it’s no wonder that such stuff occurs there.)
Besides, I think the focus should rest on the fact that somebody died, not the way the dead and the suspect had sex.
2. TV is about entertainment. Everything, even the news, is meant to draw attention and entertain. You cannot take everything said and shown on TV for true. Never foolishly devour every scrap of information the TV tosses at you.
And more important TV is about selling something. Do you really believe they would show you something that won’t sell something else? If you think so I would say you’re living in a dream world.
3. It is true that the furry fandom receives bad press. But other fandoms do to. The Trekkies get bad press. The Star Wars fans get bad press. The RPGers get bad press. They don’t receive the same kind of bad press, perhaps they receive less, but they receive it nonetheless.
I have a question for the furries who already posted here: Why do you think we should be treated differently? It’s true that the kind of bad press we get is of an unpleasant nature. I’ve never heard something like that about Trekkies, but I heard a lot of far worse stuff about RPGers. Again I ask, why should we be treated differently? There is no reason. Or do you furries up there think you’re so important? D'you think you're so special? Believe me, you're not. You'er just as normal as anybody else out there. Okay, maybe not as normal, but not better or worse than anybody else. You do not deserve different treatment! Or do you think your tolerance makes you better than the others? Then show it! Don't blame the non-furs, but try to understand and tolerate them. Besides, tolerance is such an essential feature to humans it should not be rewarded. Or is it the openness many furries show? C'mon, not being to prudish to talk about certain topics is no reason to be treated better than others. Or perhaps it is that you freed your mind from society's cage? Well, other people did that before, and they did not want to be treated differently for what they had achieved. And why didn't they want to be treated differently? Because they actually had freed themselves from society's cage. Only when you're trapped inside society's patterns you think of someone as better or worse, and thus deserving different treatment. Although I'm not a religious person, I just have to say this: Pride is one of the seven deadly sins. And pride will have a fall.
4. But why does the furry fandom receive bad press of this kind? Why do so many people believe being a fur necessarily means being gay/lez/bi, a zoophile, a plushophile, a crossdresser or whatever else? I don’t know for sure, but I have an idea about it I want to present here. It’s a simple chain-reaction.
As far as I know, the majority of furries is very tolerant (Don’t ask me why, but it is so.)
--> Thus furries are more likely to tell other furries about some of the more extreme practices they engage in, because they don’t have to fear being repelled by the others for it.
--> Somehow this information seeps out into the public.
-->Since many people outside the furry fandom don’t dare coming out, the statistics say that there are more gays/lez/bis, zoophiles, plushophiles (Okay, maybe those only exist inside the furrydom), crossdressers or whatever else in the fandom than outside. If you had any means to count the people who haven’t outed themselves into the statistics you’d probably discover that the odds are evened. Not the overall percentage of weird people engaging in strange practices is higher in the fandom, but the percentage of people coming out. And those are the only people counting for the statistics. The statistic always lies. Or at least it never tells the whole truth.
(Okay, I admit, here I defended the fandom a little, but you could apply this to any other fandom or minority in which tolerance is important.)
5. And why do so many people talk badly about furries or any other minorities and blame them for things only done by minorities within those minorities? The answer is so simple yet so complex: Because society would break down without it. If people wouldn’t blame others, if people couldn’t talk badly of others, if people could not badmouth others or discriminate them, they would be forced to see their own faults and mistakes. And if people kept looking at their own faults they would only pity themselves. And what happens if people keep on pitying themselves? They stop working effectively. If people stopped working effectively society as well as economy would brake down.
Scapegoats and discriminated minorities are vital to society. I quote from a card from a famous TCG: “It is not sad. It is right. Every society must have its outcasts.“
6. And why are people so shocked by the things suggested in these rumours? Why are they so disgusted by it? Because society says that it is not right, and because it’s different from what they do. And people don’t like differences. Things that are different are hard to understand. And you fear what you can’t understand. The Romans did not understand the early Christians either, and feared them for it. They even thought we were eating newborn children and drinking blood in our ceremonies, only because they misinterpreted Jesus words. You see the wrong judgment? You just can’t judge somebody only by rumours and superstitions. The only way to judge someone is walking his path for some time. That goes for whole groups of people as well as individuals.
And again, I'm not only talking to the non-furs. You furries have been "normal" people for a long time. You should be able to understand why they judge us like this, but you only blame them for it. You're judging them for judging you. Remember what Jesus said in the Sermon of the Mount? "Don't judge, so you won't be judged." (Please don't blame me if I didn't quote it correctly. We haven't got an English bible in which I could look it up.) You know, one of the foundations of my own persuasion is that everything you do returns thrice to you. Everyone you jugde will judge you by your judgment. (Okay, you non-furs can as well take this advice to your heart.) So, you furs, you should know how it is to be a normal person siddenly confronted with something weird (I remember my own reaction when I first encountered the fandom.), so don't just jump down their throats, try to use your knowledge of them to judge properly, if you really have to judge. Anyways, it would be better to just accept it.
7. Can somebody tell me why people should even care what happens behind closed doors inside any fandom or minority? As long as nobody gets hurt there’s no reason to worry oneself with such stuff. (Just forget the dead in the CSI-episode for a moment, okay? That would be an exception, since somebody got hurt. =^.~=) As long as nobody in a fursuit walks up to you and asks something like: “Hey, wanna [censored] a little foxy?” there’s no need for you to care about the way furries make love. I suppose people outside the fandom would deem it just as strange that a gentle bite in the neck is a sign of love among feline furs. Or that licking the others face is about the same as kissing him. But is this really disgusting? Not to me and neither to the furs I know. If it is to you, just look away and be glad you need not do it. =^.^=
I think this is the right time to mention how the furry fandom is described in the CSI Episode guide: Fur and Loathing : It is described as “a weird group that believes in acting on animal instinct." Most of us do NOT believe in this. I admit though that there probably are furs around who do that. I myself am member of a more extreme part of the fandom. I’m a Were-Fur. (“Were” as in Werewolf) We believe that there is an animal soul inside us, but we don’t believe in acting on its instincts. We want to learn from it, but we know we have to restrain it. And what’s so bad about wanting to learn from animals and nature? In my eyes nothing. Ever since there is science, it copied and imitated nature, and nobody complained. Our way of learning from nature is not even dangerous. Take me for example. I’ve got a panther inside me. You might think that I adopted the fierce and quick nature a panther displays while hunting. At least that was my own fear when I discovered I’m a Werefur. But the opposite happened. I’ve become far calmer. I’m normally just a silent observer, hard to upset, taking in all information, and not making any judgments before having sufficient information. I’ve become a cool-minded thinker, but a passionate lover. And a little cuddling cat. =^.^= There’s nothing dangerous about that, I think.
Just for those interested, there are people believing that they in fact are wolves or dogs. They are always in medication, because it’s a severe mental disorder called, believe it or not, lycanthropy.
As Loganberry already stated, we feel very close to our respective animals. You could call them totemic spirits, or guardian animals. But for Gaia’s sake, that does not mean were in love with them. If a strong connection to animals meant being a zoophile you would denounce all the native Americans as zoophiles. The Indians of America, whether from northern or southern America (I’m talking ‘bout the whole continents, northern as well as southern, not just the USA) have animistic religions. And I don’t think they’ve all been zoophiles, for then they probably would have been extincted long before the colonists set foot onto America. =^.^=
*looks down in shame* I drifted into defending the fandom here, I think. But I’ll cover the other side too.
8. I’ve got a hypothetical assumption for you. Imagine all furries would be having sex dressed in fursuits, and everybody knew. What do you think would happen? I guess that the furries would be the absolute outcasts of society. Most furries would surely prefer secrecy, but the ones who stand for their lifestyle or the ones otherwise known to be furries would probably be deprived and perhaps even hindered in career. You know, all that crap of not getting the job because of whom or what you are. That stuff already happened to other minorities. Just think of the Afro-Americans. Of course we get a little angry if somebody claims we're all like that, and thus endangers our social life.
I said outcasts are necessary, but only to a certain level. There’s that point where an outcast becomes an exile. He’s not banished from his homeland, but he’s banished from normal life. I know someone who encountered this level of hatred and discrimination, though he’s not been stranger than you or me. During all his time at school he was beaten up regularly. And why? Just because he’s been different.
This message goes to everybody, not only the non-furs: Be tolerant! A little more tolerance now and then does wonders. Yes, you furs up there, I’m also talking to you. You blame the others for judging you on superstitions and rumours. You blame them for badmouthing you. Maybe you’re not badmouthing THEM, but you did not really try to understand their point of view, did you? Don’t look at yourself with your eyes; look at yourself with the eyes of someone else. The people outside the furry fandom have other likes and dislikes, and according to them they form their opinion. Don’t look into the mirror and try to guess what others are thinking about you. Look at them and trough their eyes to understand what they think of you. Yeah, right, I'm saying that you furries should be more tolerant. Be tolerant of the others opinion. You cannot restrain somebodies mind. You can try to make them shut up, but they either won't listen, will listen and shut up but keep on thinking what they thought before. You cannot force anybody's mind, so you'd only influence those who already disbelieved those rumours. And it's good that you can't force somebodies mind. Imagine where we would be if you could! So, please don't try it. If you stop trying that, everybody will feel better.
9. This one is especially for the furries. Why are you making such a big deal out of it? You might say that I myself am making a big deal out of it with this post, but I’m only writing to clarify that there is no need for all this trouble. With reacting like this you only fuel the fire. Beaten dogs bark loudest. You know that most of us don’t do stuff like this, so why are you so vehemently defending yourself? Do you think you need to? Do you have a guilty conscience? Through all this protest you’re only giving the impression that you really need to defend yourself, which leads to the thought that you might have done the stuff in question. I don’t say you actually did, but some people might think that.
Have you never experienced mobbing in school? Defend yourself, and they’ll keep on teasing you. Search for help from outside, and they’ll tease you worse or beat you up. Ignore them and they’ll eventually leave you alone.
Next time we receive that sort of bad press, remember that there are three things you can do:
a) Just ignore them. It’s only a matter of time until they forget it.
b) Laugh at their nescience. Do it everywhere the topic comes up. Once they notice you’re just laughing at such stupid rumours, they’ll realize that they are just that: rumours. Nothing more.
c) But the best thing you can do is: Change things BEFORE such rumours develop! If you don’t like what people might be thinking of you, tell them the truth about you RIGHT AWAY. Don’t wait until it’s too late. Don’t hide from society and reality, but face it. In Gaia’s halls, you’re mammals, perhaps birds or dragons, but you’re definitely not crabs. But still you’re hiding inside your shell and grumble at what the world thinks about you. If the world never sees you they’ll of course think badly of you. Bad rumours pass around faster than good ones. They spread wider. And they are stickier to the mind. How are the others supposed to know the truth about us if you’re withholding all the information about yourself? If you don’t have several sources to compare it’s easy to believe everything the one source you have says.
Don’t blame the others for believing misinformation. Blame yourself for not telling them the truth before. I don’t know about you, but I told my friends that I am a furry and explained what it meant. They just accepted it, and nobody’s treating me differently now. Not a single one of them would belive that stuff on somethingawful.com or what-do-I-know-where. I admit that I lost some friends through revealing other (non-furry) things about me, but they had never been real friends.
The only way to keep lies from sticking to peoples minds is telling them the truth beforehand. Don’t expect them to search for information on their own. They don’t know that the information given is wrong, so they don’t see any reason to search for more. And before they fall victim to misinformation they probably don’t even know we’re out there, so how should they get any correct information about us? It’s not the people’s responsibility to search information about us, but our responsibility to inform people about us.
It’s good you got out of your hole now, but you could have done so earlier. Take my advice, spread my word: Never hide your heart and soul! Tell people what you really are right away. Believe me; if they turn away because of such a simple thing you don’t really want to know them. And if they just accept you like you are they are definitely worth knowing. =^.~= Really tolerant people are so hard to find.
Always remember, if somebody knows the truth, the lie will bounce of his mind.
So, these are my points and I want to stress again that it’s unnecessary to make such a big deal out of a little bad press. If people want to believe everything the TV says, just let them. Bad press is like a fen; the more you struggle and fight, the deeper you get stuck.
By the way, this rumour even explains some terms wrongly, I think. Here “skritching” is described as “rubbing their faces up and down each other’s fur” . But as far as I know “skritching” or “scritching” is no such thing. It’s merely putting your fingers through the others fur and rubbing, scratching and massaging the skin beneath it.
I want to thank anybody who had the endurance and interest to read until now for listening to my humble opinion. =^.~=
P.S. Though the furrydom hasn’t been ‘round very long, anthropomorphics are much older than you may think. You don’t believe me? I’ll give you a few examples:
The old Egyptian pantheon: Most of their gods had animal’s heads
The centaurs and the minotaur from Greek mythology: Well, I bet ya know them.
The fables of Phaedrus and Aesop: Yes, fables are anthropomorphic too. Speaking is something human, ain’t it?
P.P.S. Hey, you furs, I forgot; there's another thing you can do about bad press: Accept your role as society's scapegoat and take it with your head held high.
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Guest
Guest
The second I heard about this episode I Google-d this forum. The last thing the furry community needs is MORE bad press. Between talk shows, MTV, and Vanity Fair things are bad enough! But CSI is watched by thousands of Americans (some of my friends and family, at that) and all it does is make them more uncomfortable about the furry fandom. To set the record straight- people do NOT have sex in costume at cons. I've NEVER heard of it. You know, it's EXACTLY the same as the Inquisition, if you ask me... People categorizing people, for example, in Spain Basque women were rounded up and burned at the stake under charges that they committed beastiality- only because they were Basque, and the religious beliefs at the time were that women were evil. Here, CBS is publshing a tv-show that's telling Average Joe that all furries are disgusting perverts who have sex in costume. I have a friend who's a furre fan, but tells me he'd never wear his tail/ears anymore because people would accuse him of all sorts of perversions.
END THE HATE.
END THE HATE.
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Guest
Guest
Well, I've been a fur for a little while. I'll drop in...
Ok, Furry is about anthropomorhpic animals. Anybody who likes these in any way is part of the fandom.
Furs (Furry Lifestylers) often dress up and act like these animals in one way or another. Of course, that means a few would like some kind of kinky sex (like seen in Fur and Loathing). But thats a very small number. Most furs don't enjoy this sex, and some (like me) can't stand it at all.
If you saw this episode and thought all furs are like that, you didn't really think, did you?
Ok, Furry is about anthropomorhpic animals. Anybody who likes these in any way is part of the fandom.
Furs (Furry Lifestylers) often dress up and act like these animals in one way or another. Of course, that means a few would like some kind of kinky sex (like seen in Fur and Loathing). But thats a very small number. Most furs don't enjoy this sex, and some (like me) can't stand it at all.
If you saw this episode and thought all furs are like that, you didn't really think, did you?