01JUN2018 / Patreon Article #1 / Thoughts on BLFC & Age in The Furry Fandom //

01JUN2018 / Patreon Article #1 / Thoughts on Emma & Age in The Furry Fandom //

While on one hand it would have been ideal for me to have been able to write up my thoughts regarding the events that unfolded at BLFC 2018 shortly after returning home as the experiences would have been fresh, I am glad that I had some time to reflect on the overall impact as well as view the subsequent activity regarding it on social media.

The Emma events at BLFC were unexpected and evolved into a whole situation from a simple second-hand occurrence Friday at the fursuit group photo. The first spark was when my friend and handler, at the time, alerted us that he’d seen a young girl in a ‘Wal-Mart fursuit head’ and tail and paws leaving the photoshoot, clearly upset and possibly crying from her body language. Subsequently, a triad of us came across a story on Instagram outlining in more detail the events leading up to her leaving, i.e; the individuals at the photoshoot who had bullied her and prompted her wanting to leave, and the hunt was on from there. My two friends and I brought the situation up to con operations in person, the latter of whom had no attention to the situation. Whether ‘conops’ had indeed contacted the family remains unknown, as we had stumbled upon Emma and her family who had returned Saturday afternoon in one of the ballroom areas. After updating them on the situation and contacting others, a personal photoshoot and interaction time was set up for Emma.

The scenario prompted me to think how the fandom generally has evolved – at least since my time in it – to be more inclusive in regards to different and more varied age groups. While the fandom at large seems to be trending toward a younger age set, i.e; teens and tweens, the edges of the curve seem to be increasing as well, including the ‘extreme’ young and old. The growth of teens appears to be in tandem with the slow migration away from websites such as FurAffinity, which used to be the more centralized pillar and sole host of furry content. But with the rise of social media, namely the spread of FaceBook pages and groups, and especially Amino, which is mostly infamous for catering toward the extreme younger age groups, younger and younger individuals are becoming not only exposed to, but now have a platform with which they can engage with the fandom and post their own, (to an extent,) content to larger and more specific audiences.

An unfortunate aside regarding the younger individuals joining the fandom is a combination of lack of maturity and experience. From my own experience and discourse with others, the toxicity from communities from Amino and FaceBook are widespread, notorious for petty drama, rampant artwork & content theft, character theft, impersonation, and outright lying under the pretense ‘any attention, even bad, is good attention.’ This in and of itself could be an entire article covering a wider variety of societal effects which I won’t cover here! But keeping the subject focused on the fandom, this activity seems to be a generalization of the age group, (teens,) simply acting out in the furry fandom itself. Other communities, (anime, TV shows, etc,) have similar issues, albeit in a different circle. Largely in part, the acting out of drama among the teens seems to be an attempt to garner attention and some ‘status’ that they see ‘household names’ of the fandom holding, be it a well-known fursuiter, artist, YouTuber, writer, etc, and while this next statement is a generalization, it appears that some younger furs feel the need to also garner the same attention to feel that they’ve ‘left their mark’ on the community or to be completely welcome within it. This again could be an entire other article, but simply to touch on it quickly, it’s almost the very nature of the fandom and how the community itself and ‘furry’ has formed – from a shared interest in similar themes, individuals forming fanbases for themselves and becoming fans of other individuals rather than a provided subject such as an anime, TV show, etc, that is already canon and largely set-in-stone. But I digress.

Teens aside, the increasing inclusivity of more varied age groups is what I find a welcoming change to the fandom. This seems to be a largely new phenomenon, made known to the fandom at large from the outpouring of activity regarding Anthro Northwest ‘ANW’ 2017. Self-proclaimed as a strictly family-friendly convention, the social media ripples included both support and an outpouring of pushback against the claim, citing the many mature aspects that have existed within the fandom for decades and continue to be huge draws and activity for the community. However, a notable difference in attendance at ANW was the large range of ages. The ratio of families with children contrasted with typical young adult attendees was higher than most large conventions, or simply, was vastly more visible than the larger conventions. In addition, older adults and ‘greymuzzles’ were also of higher visibility. This trend does seem to be in the upswing, as more families attended FWA and BLFC in particular, the most well-known in the latter at BLFC.

What I found so interesting regarding the Emma situation, in particular, was not only the outpouring of support from the fandom at large, but also the swiftness in which it occurred. In part, I shouldn’t be surprised, as social media and the internet makes the spread of news basically instantaneous. But, at the same time, one would assume that basic humanity would prompt anyone with an iota of heart to stand up and defend a child who has been bullied at a moment’s notice. It was very inspirational to witness the community at large participate in the situation and help rectify it, when it was seemingly less than a year ago that the ‘extreme young’ of the community were not only welcome, but simply a part of the fandom enough for the families to participate and actually spend the money and resources on taking their children to a convention. It does make me wonder, would the same situation occur to an older community member, such as a greymuzzle, if the outpouring of support would be as strong, or if there would be a sort of cynicism and almost suspicion toward an older individual, and if their motives at a fandom convention, which have traditionally been more geared toward younger and younger adults, would be called into question or even accusations.

One of the reasons I consider this contrast toward an older member of the community is something that I found particularly strikingly…endearing at BLFC. During the Friday night dances, while on stage, I noticed an older gentleman standing off to the side on the dance floor. He wasn’t dancing much, simply nodding his head in time with some songs. No badges of note – only a registration badge and a couple smaller character badges, the details of which I couldn’t make out in the low flickering lights and my fursuit eyes. The thing that struck me the most about this lone man was the fact that he spent so long there and had a small, wonderful smile the entire time as he listened to the music and watched the fursuiters dance on stage. He was, for sure, the odd man out. He wasn’t in standard ‘furry gear’ or themed clothing, no fursuit parts. He wasn’t dancing his heart out or passing around boxed wine and taking a turn chugging it, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he was the oldest furry by far in the whole room. But just the fact that he was there and participating and /enjoying/ the convention made me really, genuinely happy to see. While I fully intend on continuing to fursuit and dance up until my deathbed, that single man standing there with the happiness bright on his face really inspired me that I wanted to be in that position when I’m his age – hopefully in a fursuit, dancing on stage, too – but still enjoying what the fandom has to offer and being a part of it, no matter how old I get. It made me very happy to see that older members of the community are still participating and that I hope become just as welcome as the extreme younger members, in the fandom and into its future.

While some do disagree – and to each, their own – with the inclusion of the extreme young and old in the fandom, it’s wildly important to the fandom’s content and direction. Of course, there are the clichés that older members bring more wisdom, their experience, and legacies into the fandom, and that the younger members bring new energy, ideas, (sometimes,) and continue on and grow from, (hopefully,) what they learn in the fandom at large. But as I touched on earlier, it’s the very nature of the fandom to be self-growing and self-fulfilling. The fandom itself was built on individuals sharing an interest and their talents based around that – basically pillars of individuality. It’s hypocritical of members of a fandom based off of shared interests of varying individuality to shun other members simply due to their age. This hypocrisy is based not only off of the foundations of the fandom at its core, but also due to the fact that the age of the fandom is ebbing and flowing. While young adults are the vast majority currently, we could see trends where they become the minority and teens become the majority. It would hardly surprise me should greymuzzles find themselves more shut out from the young adult portion of the fandom, the older members themselves hailing that they were the initial foundation of the fandom in the early 90s. And so on and so forth.

Not only do I find that the increasing range of social media is widening the age ranges of the fandom, it is largely in part due to the majority young adults actually becoming older. One simply has to take a step back and observe. These young adults are getting older, getting married, having families of their own. So as the fandom is aging, it is also growing younger simply due to more families emerging, (the parents want to go to a convention…bring the children along. Or one spouse is interested in the fandom, gets their partner involved, etc.) And as the children grow older into the young adult portion, their parents become the older individuals and eventually the greymuzzles. Another aspect comes in the form of younger children discovering the fandom younger and younger, and their parents attending the conventions with them or getting involved, if only for their child’s security, (having to attend with minor children, not wanting their children to travel alone, wanting to keep tabs on them online via FaceBook, etc.) An example of this to cite would be the ‘Moms of Furries,’ a Twitter account and theme that is gaining ground since early 2018. While this dual aging phenomenon is a bit immature in its current state, it will become more widespread over the years as the community itself matures, creating a balance among the maturing younger adults and the addition of teens and tweens, as I discussed earlier, joining the fandom.

However, while it is impossible to make concrete predictions on the direction the age of the fandom will take in the future, and while we are witnessing the inclusivity of a wider range of ages in the fandom, young adults making up the majority of the fandom will likely not change anytime soon, if at all. Surely it will ebb and flow over time, and the bell curve will surely level out as more of the extreme young and old become participants, but young adults have a unique foothold to maintain their continued high numbers. Simply put, the majority are at a very flexible point in their lives. Many do not have families yet, are either early on or settled in to a job, and are garnering enough disposable income to devote both the time and money to travel to conventions. And while conventions are the most visible, centralized gathering points of the fandom to gather in person, one cannot deny that the community lives online. These young adults are also the main drivers to devote time to online sub-communities and groups, purchasing commissions, participate in online events and discussions, and driving the online content economy which ultimately commands trends – whether sudden or gradual – in the larger community as they spread across social media and into more niche subsets.

And the maturing of the young adult majority within the fandom, too, is part in driving the inclusivity of extreme age ranges. While teens and tweens may be more likely to shun young children and greymuzzles, they are silenced when the overwhelming majority of the slowly yet surely young adult portion shows its deafening support for members of all ages – Emma at BLFC being a prime example of this. While there was some visible pushback on social media in the form of pure vile and jealously, (primarily in the form of offhanded Tweets and FaceBook posts outlining poisonous thoughts such as ‘this is how entitlement begins’ from petty individuals who cringe at the thought of a community standing up to rectify the unwarranted bullying by a display of support, well-wishes, and gifts such as badges and fursuits,) the strength and pointed intensity of wanting a younger member of the community to be welcomed, and justice for her in the form of the offenders eventually having their badges pulled, shows the maturity and caring of what can undeniably be the majority of the fandom.

More evidence in the maturing of the fandom comes in the form that, at large, the identity of the offenders is still unknown apart from ‘two rat fursuiters.’ While BLFC Conops identified them with the help of Emma herself and their registration badges were indeed pulled, their names were not released to the public, and those who did, in fact, know the fursuiters, did not post their names for all to see. While one could play devil’s advocate regarding the ‘callout nature’ of the furry fandom, the aging and wisdom is evident in the fact that this did not occur in the Emma situation, and the participants as a whole decided against revealing the identities of the offenders, and thus giving them more attention. This is a prime example of starving the offenders of the ‘fame,’ (rather, infamy,) of their actions, and shows a distinct focus on the positive aspects of the situation, i.e; Emma, rather than the negative in the form of the bullies. This is in stark contrast to many crimes of the past, where criminals were paraded through the streets, or more recently, their names plastered via news networks on televisions across the world. While the attraction of taking out a community’s anger or revenge on the criminal is surely understandable, again we go back to ‘any attention, even bad, is good attention,’ and these individuals become famous in their own right, unfortunately. Instead, these offenders were starved of any of that attention and thus ‘fame,’ which is a huge step in the right direction.

This evolution within the fandom is welcoming and exciting, and should be a proud time for all members of the furry community. BLFC will not be the last time we see such an event unfolding for justice for a harassed member, particularly a younger member, but this was the most visible to date. We ought all be welcoming to members of all ages – and as this situation shows, the majority is and the fandom at large is moving in that direction. And it is also vitally important that older members be welcomed as well, as the majority young adult portion ages and will eventually find themselves outside of the majority age range and would, too, wish to be welcomed with open arms…or paws, or talons, or wings, or claws.