Furry Origin Stories

[RestlessDreamer]

I'm sure there's a thread around here that goes over the same topic, but I didn't happen to spy it on the forums.

Obviously if you're here, you're into the furry fandom (if not, then I'm not sure why you're here but more power to you). Whether you're just a fan of furry characters, have an adoration for anthropomorphic-focused films from your childhood, or get all hot and bothered over furries, well - here you are.

I'm curious though, what got you into the fandom in the first place? Do you recall the first time you could call yourself a furry or a particular moment from your childhood where you had a furry crush? Anything like that?

 

[Dafodeu]

I had a crush on Sonic when I was 7 years old. Loved the Cartoon.

 

[Ralphie]

I always liked anthro characters a lot more than human characters even as a kid. Didnt even know what a furry was until one day i found a youtuber calling himself furry, google searched and found out i was a furfag too.

Also this

 

[Muln]

I had a crush on this guy

 

[X_Joshi_X]

Interesting and long story.
Lets begin:

Maybe some of you know that youtuber "Kitty0706" aka Colin Wyckoff. He made great gmod-poop videos.

It all began in January, when he suddenly died unexpected after a two year long battle on leukemia.
He was 21.
After his dead, I found his GF on twitter and said my condolences to her.
We chatted a few times over twitter and then over skype.
We didnt know of what to talk about, so I asked her, what exactly furries are (She is one and I didnt had a clue what they are).
She explained it to me and it took me a few days to get clear what that is.
Then I found FA and I thought, its THE furry art website, so its gonna be a big forum and I joined.
At that point I wasnt even 100% sure what a furry is
I joined. I wrote an introduction and then everything started.
Now im 6/7 a furry
And I love it!

 

[Maelstrom Eyre]

I'm sure there's a thread around here that goes over the same topic, but I didn't happen to spy it on the forums.

Obviously if you're here, you're into the furry fandom (if not, then I'm not sure why you're here but more power to you). Whether you're just a fan of furry characters, have an adoration for anthropomorphic-focused films from your childhood, or get all hot and bothered over furries, well - here you are.

I'm curious though, what got you into the fandom in the first place? Do you recall the first time you could call yourself a furry or a particular moment from your childhood where you had a furry crush? Anything like that?

Most of my childhood was during the 80s and I never got as into the video game characters like Sonic or Pokémon - my inspirations were more along the lines of Saturday morning cartoons, Disney's Robin Hood, toys like the Sylvanian Families (poseable flocked animal figures in a variety of species, all anthro-style). Also, grew up getting the old Ranger Rick magazine for kids, which included a story about Rick the Raccoon and his friends. They were beautifully illustrated, the animals were living in a human world but still walked and talked. Rick wore his ranger hat and his friend the fox wore a scarf around her neck but I think most of the other animals went without clothing.

Aside from that, in my own imagination I was always inserting animal characters rather than humans. I always wanted to be some kind of animal for Halloween.

This all happened long, long before I was ever aware of such a thing as the furry fandom and as I got older, my parents and brother encouraged me to "grow up" and read stories and watch shows about "real" things. I did. They were boring to me. So, I continued to write and draw and imagine animal characters in place of those boring humans but I just never told family or friends.

In the mid-nineties I learned about the existence of Omaha the Cat Dancer and looked it up and was like "geez. . .what is THIS?" Later, I discovered Sabrina Online and ZigZag and was like "there are other grown-ups who like animal characters? I didn't get that involved in the furry community at that point, but did start following some of the art pages. It wasn't until 2009 when I logged into Second Life for the first time and became introduced to the furry community there that I really got involved on any level or identified myself as a furry, or created a character or fursona.

I've been told I couldn't be a furry before knowing the fandom existed. . .so I don't know what that means I was back in the 80s. . .

 

[Pinky]

One thing had to do with a certain fetish that's popular with furries, the other had to do with me watching a show called HTF in 2008. I was 12-13 at the time so I was around the age that people made OCs on Deviantart. And the OC I made soon became my fursona.

 

[Sylox]

I'd say it was a combination of playing Star Fox all of the time and watching the Lion King.

 

[GarthTheWereWolf]

I had unprotected sex with a werewolf, and have been stuck here ever since.

 

[BlitzCo]

I've always thought that anthromorhpic characters looked cool. Like many others, Star Fox had a heavy influence on me as well.
I've seen people wear Star Fox and "furry pride" shirts at gun & knife shows before, even though I had no idea what a "furry" was at those times.
remember, it was 2 days before Christmas Eve, I was sitting in my dad's office looking at YouTube on my iPhone, I came across this one guy who had a channel about his pet Fox. I looked in the comments and I though, "why would this guy rape animals if his avatar was a "furry"?" (I usually called furry characters hybrids before I knew what a furry was). I googled up what a furry was, and then I told myself "looks like I'm a furry then".

anybody who follows me on Instagram noticed that my photos went from "random crap" to furries and poltical stuff

 

[Muln]

I had unprotected sex with a werewolf, and have been stuck here ever since.

Honey Dear.. Don't say that. You don't know how many people will go through lengths just to be a werewolf.

 

[-Sliqq-]

Oddly enough, e621.

Hate on it if you wish, but if it wasn't for that I wouldn't be here or who I am today.

 

[ThePumu]

The Internet is quite large. Never know what you might find by clicking on an ad

 

[LazerMaster5]

When I was a kid, I liked characters from Sanic, and I also really liked Web Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox. However, those are not the ultimate factor of why I am here. The answer is Star Fox 64 3D, which introduced me to a whole solar system full of barrel rolls. I checked out the other games, and I eventually joined StarFox-Online, the site with all the Star Fox fans. Up to that point, I guess I was kinda of a furry in denial. My obsession with Star Fox helped me find out what a furry actually was, as stereotypes can be grossly misleading. Anyway, once I joined the community, I was tired of living in denial, and I decided to dive in. This was last year, early summer. It was fun, and I joined all the major Steam groups. More recently, I decided to dig deeper down into the fandom, as every furry site and server is completely different. I came here, as SF-O is a fairly slow forum, and I craved socialization. Here I am, motherfuckers. Fun fact: I requested my best friend to draw my fursona for me back in December,and he said yes, but he has yet to get meaningful progress on it. He is a busy kid, after all.

 

[SkyboundTerror]

I knew about the fandom for years before I joined in because of my fascination with werewolves and cryptozoology - all it took was one unlucky Google search. I was extremely disinterested, and that was that until my love for reptiles resurfaced, which spawned a dragon obsession. I had NO idea that dragons were running rampant in the fandom, and that led to some funny assumptions about me.

Many people on various sites mistook me for a scalie because of my choice of avatars; I had many awkward moments and run-ins with freaky furs who wanted to roleplay about god knows what. I was still ignorant on the whole matter until I was practically forced to go to a furry convention as a means to meet up with an internet friend. At that time, I felt like my particular set of tastes were a minority at the furcon (and they were).

I'm not a huge fan of anthros and while I always liked cartoons and animals, I never considered myself part of the fandom upon discovery. I still feel incredibly detached from it, to be honest, but the people are cool enough and it's the people that make it appealing. Well, the sane ones, anyway.

 

[Brazen]

Porn

 

[PastryOfApathy]

I needed money and knew furfags were hideously irresponsible with their paychecks. Then I remembered I liked drawing and stuck around because I have brain problems.

 

[Nataku]

I've always been 'furry' even before I knew what that was and that there was a community(s) of others who are too. When I was a little kid, my imaginary friends were dragons and talking animals, not humans. My favorite shows to watch as a kid? Gargoyles, Biker Mice from Mars, Street Sharks, SWAT Cats etc. As I grew older my parents tried to get me to start watching 'shows for older people' that were kids shows with human characters, or live actions. Yeah none of those were interesting. Books? Always liked the ones that had non-human characters in them more.

I drew pictures of animals that eventually grew into drawing pictures of animals that stood on their hind legs more like humans. Eventually I found furries online, and rejoiced, for I was not the only one who thought animals were cooler than humans.

 

[Xela-Dasi]

I found pounced and told myself : "wtf is that shit". at first I I thought it was a pet dating site or something. Then I found out about furries and looked on youtube and stuff. Then joined the infamous sofurry

 

[Renarde]

Someone put ears and a tail on me. I liked it. Maybe too much. So that's the tl;dr version.

 

[Mintys]

I liked pretending to be an animal when I was little, when I joined neo I noticed people had animals/characters that represented them so I made one myself. Later on a friend mentioned that they had drawn my fursona... Now ten years later I still haven't grown out of that idea.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Embarrassing to say, but I started out as a wolfaboo. It was horrifying, and then came the sparkle dog/fox stage. Holy shit it's horrendous. Eventually I calmed the fuck down, strayed away from all canines, did some experimenting with fursonas and did research on the fandom, practiced drawing for ages, and now I am the bat loving and wolverine enthusiast I am today.
Ayy.

 

[FenrirDarkWolf]

Mine's a bit different then others, as it seems.
Two years before I joined FaF, I was big on Ace Attorney online. While I was on there, a furry joined and asked the people if there were any others there. And me, having seen furry porn before and liking it, told him I was. And, eventually I found FA and... bam! Here I am.

 

[Suid]

The farthest I could trace was this small Wendy's toy notebook promoting Scooby doo.

All there was was some 'i'm learning to write' garble at the last page, two doodles of what i remember being a five-tailed fox derivitive and an undistinctive mammal. They even had their own names, of which I don't remember.
I guess I was inclined to it even then.

 

[Dr. Franken-Fox]

Looking back I think my very first 'hint' of fur-faggotry was when I was five years old and I got into this series of educational software programs called 'Reader Rabbit'. From what I remember it revolved around completing puzzles relating to language and spelling but I found myself more preoccupied with the anthropomorphic characters on display than the actual puzzles themselves.

From then on it was a gradually growing obsession, enforced by videogames such as Sonic the Hedgehog as well as the Crash Bandicoot series which I remember being obsessed with to the point that I actually wished I could become one of the bandicoots myself! Along with that I also used to draw a lot of animal characters including an anthropomorphic squirrel named Sparky who I grew really attached to, in fact my current fursona is partly named after him.

I never actually learned of the fandom until years later, when I stumbled across fan art for sonic characters online and upon browsing DeviantArt I started seeing other anthros that people had created, and as a horny teenager I also got into some of the fetish-y stuff which I admittedly still revisit from time to time but only when I'm in a certain mood. Back on topic though the more familiarised I became with the fandom the more in line with the thinking behind it I realised I was, I've always loved dressing up and I also follow many of their ideals since like many furries I'm fundamentally liberal down to my core and I don't judge people based on factors like race, gender, class or appearance but rather on their personal qualities. This year, after watching some con footage, reading up on other people's experiences in the community and looking at existing fursonas I decided not to ignore this side of myself anymore, so I finally gave in and joined these forums!