[POLL]Has the fandom changed in worse or in better over the years?

[Vinfang]

Online environment is definitely worse, but the physical environment are better?

I attended a furmeet in Toronto last week. It was a pleasant experience. Plenty of new blood joined the fandom during lockdown. It was easy to make new friends. No creepy vibes from attendees.

 

[Connor J. Coyote]

Eh... I voted the same on this one. As I don't see much fluctuation in the overall environment, (in all honesty).... either for better, or for worse .... and so, I guess - there's no real change, from my perspective.

 

[Tahr_Yrre]

I'll be real with people: Dropping even the "Blatantly political and thus against FAF rules to bring up, why do people keep stirring that pot / swinging a bat at that bee's nest then acting like the harmed party when it invariably turns into a shitshow?" reasons for why the(edit: They argue the) fandom's got worse, a lot of people really have blinkers as to what the fandom was like even just a decade ago.

For starters, I'm far less aware of people in the fandom using cropped porn avatars on approximately PG-related forums and web communities. Because that was a thing for a while. Likewise asking non-Furry forums to change their rules specifically to allow Furry smut to be posted. To say nothing of how I can remember the time when the fandom could and would let anyone in the door as a matter of convenience, even when they were very explicitly known to be bad news, only you didn't even need to be a "popufur" to get away with it ("Yeah, they may groom minors. Buuuuuut, can we really kick them out?"). The fandom at least has some basic level of self-policing now where it'll drop people (occasionally even a popular person, as a certain fox dropped by tens of thousands on Twitter recently showed) for shit like "Openly expresses a belief that some people are sub-human and treats fans in private like horseshit" or "Was discovered to diddle kids".

Some of y'all just upset that you can't make the same jokes (or 'jokes', in a few directly admitted cases) you made 10+ years ago and still get raucous laughter.

I completely disagree, I would put some examples of this stuff happening nowadays and people being forgiven because they are popular or own furry sites, but I don't want to get banned.

 

[Tahr_Yrre]

Online environment is definitely worse, but the physical environment are better?

I attended a furmeet in Toronto last week. It was a pleasant experience. Plenty of new blood joined the fandom during lockdown. It was easy to make new friends. No creepy vibes from attendees.

There are no cons where I am from.
I attended a few furs-meets in cities but they wouldn't refrain from making sexual jokes or wearing partial/full fursuits, which would result in a lot of stares from bystanders and people in general.

 

[ConorHyena]

Everything was better in the old days.

Always.

 

[Sven Solitude]

I didn't vote, since I'm not around here long enough. Though, I was active in the fandom for a while 2 years ago. But otherwise mostly just lurking and enjoying art etc.
When I was active around the fandom back then, I thought it's not a good place after all. But now I'm happy to be around. So, what changed?
I changed. I struggled with my own problems, it was easier to get attracted by negative stuff. I changed as a person and my goal was to only allow positivity in my life, no matter how hard it might be. Again, I'm not voting, but if I would, I would vote "Same". There will always be good and bad things in the world. The question is often: am I more attracted to the good or bad stuff? Am I willing to welcome positivity in my life?

 

[O.D.D.]

Everything was better in the old days.

Always.

I don't see anyone here implying that but you

 

[Regret]

Hmm I don't know if it's just rose-tinted glasses. I remember a time in the fandom when people didn't want to kill me simply because I am born in a certain country. I also remember being able to talk about simple everyday things without getting them politicized.

Damn, that's fucking repugnant and I'm terribly sorry that you have been subjected to such xenophobic and racist rhetoric. The more I look back, the less and less it seems like it was rose-tinted glasses and more the reality of the times.

Generally, the chances of encountering a crazy extremist were lower a few years ago.

Totally. I mean there was always a few that were known, but they were little more than living memes and a nuiscance if you had the misfortune of crossing their paths.

I disagree about fursuits. Right now they are all the same style, recolor of toony-like style fursuits. I could look at 10 different canines fursuits and the only differences I would notice are the fur's color and the height of the people wearing it...

Fair point. I was mainly referring to the overall build quality and the heavier use of electronic components for various effects, but I do see where you are coming from.

Besides, nowadays it feels like people get a fursuit only to get more attention rather than to have more fun at cons.

I kind of always felt and thought that was one of the reasons regardless. Maybe its happening more now I just haven't noticed.

 

[ssaannttoo]

I've been looking through some of the submissions here and it got me thinking. I've only started being active in the fandom a year ago, when I joined FAF. From that time to now I've not seen much change, but I have gotten more involved. Though im happy with where its at, (Doesn't mean we cant improve) However I don't think the fandom alone needs to improve, but humans as a whole with just being kind to one another ya know? Things unique to the fandom that I would want improved are probably all on the sexual side. The cancel culture is something that I think is important but often times goes out of bounds because people come to conclusions without much though *Shrugs*

I think just like everything in life there is much improvement to be done, and the only way we can do that is by working together. ITs a fandom after all, not just YOU or ME. its all of us, and the only way to make it better is to work together! >w<

 

[Attaman]

I completely disagree, I would put some examples of this stuff happening nowadays and people being forgiven because they are popular or own furry sites, but I don't want to get banned.

That doesn’t actually counter or contradict my point though. My point was that if you went back even just ten years ago, being popular in the fandom basically let you get away with anything short of murder so long as you said “Sowwy” afterwards. Nowadays… people still do (and unfortunately it’s been exposed as hella prevalent outside the fandom in other communities too), but there’s actually a line and occasionally shit does actually stick.

That said I have a hunch this is a case less of “People were held accountable then, unlike now” and more “What was considered something to be held accountable for has changed and I don’t like that some things are no longer acceptable / other things have become so.”

Which, like? In some regards mood: For an outside Furry example, I’m still fairly livid that “smut involving explicit minors” has basically become “Well if you don’t like it Don’t look for it ” in a lot of visual art and fanfiction / writing communities. Absolutely terrible (and another reason I put a vote down for Furry getting better: It tends to be one of the few communities where general consensus remains “Actually that’s kinda fucky”).

But on the other, it’d be a hell of a bigger mood if nine times out of ten the changes to the Furry fandom that people loudly proclaim to hate weren’t things like “I can’t use slurs in jokes anymore”. Or “Stop drawing enby characters.”

 

[Kinguyakki]

I had to vote for "worse," just because I think the openness and acceptance that originally drew people to the fandom has gotten to the point where people with some pretty serious issues see it as a place where they can be "protected." They use the fandom as a place to express some pretty vile fantasies involving minors, animals, physical or sexual violence that they may or may not actually do in real life.
I've seen people compare being in the fandom to their entire identity and talk about "coming out" to their family and friends about being a furry, like it's a sexual identity that they are uncertain or ashamed of.
What used to be a place for fun creativity and imagination has turned into a popularity contest and money-making with very little substance. Lots of people who can't separate "silly fun" from "obnoxious, destructive immaturity and drama." The bad reputation furries have is often well-deserved, we (as a fandom) earned it.

Not saying it's terrible all over. There are some awesome people in the community and I've found a niche that I enjoy, so I'll stay there.

 

[KimberVaile]

I had to vote for "worse," just because I think the openness and acceptance that originally drew people to the fandom has gotten to the point where people with some pretty serious issues see it as a place where they can be "protected." They use the fandom as a place to express some pretty vile fantasies involving minors, animals, physical or sexual violence that they may or may not actually do in real life.

The shielding for repugnant furries was always there I think, but it's ironic, that the one placed where Twitter could have made a difference and out weird fucks like Kero and the like just ended with a bunch of delusion furries acting like what he and the people involved in his group weren't at all wrong.
The fact that "Growly" a convicted sex offender was allowed to roam furry conventions for so long says so much of how rotten this Fandom's actual morals are. There are so many twisted individuals in the fandom that just get a pass because hurr durr popular.

Yes Twitter, go after the guy who made a crass joke 10 years ago, but that literal sex offender? Yeah. He's a great guy. Excellent fit for the community.
Amazing moral priorities.

 

[ConorHyena]

I don't see anyone here implying that but you

I'm being a sarcastic git.

 

[DieselPowered]

The fandom's never been particularly good, home to society's rejects as it stereotypically is.

All sorts of damaged people come here, as do the bastards who can't make it anywhere else.
The naive ones tend to get preyed on, those that don't like their lives will shit on others just to make themselves feel better, and there's always been the veneer of what you project as opposed to who you really are. As if that fluffy animal thing you've designed is supposed to be better than the person underneath. It's always caused problems, it always will.

The constant games of "i'm better than you because x" don't help either. Too many furs shit on each other over petty bullshit and it just seems like a superiority contest half the time. We bring it on ourselves, and nothing's really changed over the years.

 

[Tahr_Yrre]

That doesn’t actually counter or contradict my point though. My point was that if you went back even just ten years ago, being popular in the fandom basically let you get away with anything short of murder so long as you said “Sowwy” afterwards. Nowadays… people still do (and unfortunately it’s been exposed as hella prevalent outside the fandom in other communities too), but there’s actually a line and occasionally shit does actually stick.

That said I have a hunch this is a case less of “People were held accountable then, unlike now” and more “What was considered something to be held accountable for has changed and I don’t like that some things are no longer acceptable / other things have become so.”

Which, like? In some regards mood: For an outside Furry example, I’m still fairly livid that “smut involving explicit minors” has basically become “Well if you don’t like it Don’t look for it ” in a lot of visual art and fanfiction / writing communities. Absolutely terrible (and another reason I put a vote down for Furry getting better: It tends to be one of the few communities where general consensus remains “Actually that’s kinda fucky”).

But on the other, it’d be a hell of a bigger mood if nine times out of ten the changes to the Furry fandom that people loudly proclaim to hate weren’t things like “I can’t use slurs in jokes anymore”. Or “Stop drawing enby characters.”

Then I misunderstood what you were trying to say, sorry.

 

[SolDirix]

I think it may be improving, but then again so is everything else now that we are coming out of the pandemic. Furmeets and conventions are slowly opening up again, and I've met a lot of chill furs in VRChat and other places online.

I know furry drama has always been an issue, and I don't think it will go away any time soon, but at the end of the day it's all about who you decide to hang with. I've never had a lot of issues with drama, because I'm always very particular about who I hang with and screen people before deciding to commit to a friendship. I look for red flags like constant complaining, superiority complexes, and clingy, abusive, or toxic behavior.

I've met plenty of people who show those traits, and I try to cut them out of my life as soon as I notice. I don't need that in my life.

 

[O.D.D.]

The shielding for repugnant furries was always there I think, but it's ironic, that the one placed where Twitter could have made a difference and out weird fucks like Kero and the like just ended with a bunch of delusion furries acting like what he and the people involved in his group weren't at all wrong.
The fact that "Growly" a convicted sex offender was allowed to roam furry conventions for so long says so much of how rotten this Fandom's actual morals are. There are so many twisted individuals in the fandom that just get a pass because hurr durr popular.

Yes Twitter, go after the guy who made a crass joke 10 years ago, but that literal sex offender? Yeah. He's a great guy. Excellent fit for the community.
Amazing moral priorities.

The doors of the fandom being wide open for decades has led to a LOT of unsavory folks walking right in and establishing their own networks within the fandom. This is before you get into the weirdness of the various cliques and how some of them will shield for bad people, while going after bad people OUTSIDE of their clique (who do the same shit as the bad people inside their clique, at times).

And then there's the various stripes of "people will totally take my important message more seriously if I use the furry fandom as my soapbox" types who just suck ALL the fun out of absolutely everything they touch.

 

[pilgrimfromoblivion]

As a non-furry/degenerate who likes yiff, I think the fandom has become worse. The fetishism and porn was always there, even dating as far back as the late 90s and early 2000s, compared to now, it's just easier to see. I voted worse because in my opinion, the fandom has become a lot more jaded and cynical. At least when furries were drawing crazy yiff back in the day, they were at least doing it with a smile and had small tight-knit communities. Now the fandom is a lot more self-aware and a bit unfriendly. It's like everyone became British? I'm not sure how to word it properly.

 

[TyraWadman]

As a non-furry/degenerate who likes yiff, I think the fandom has become worse. The fetishism and porn was always there, even dating as far back as the late 90s and early 2000s, compared to now, it's just easier to see. I voted worse because in my opinion, the fandom has become a lot more jaded and cynical. At least when furries were drawing crazy yiff back in the day, they were at least doing it with a smile and had small tight-knit communities. Now the fandom is a lot more self-aware and a bit unfriendly. It's like everyone became British? I'm not sure how to word it properly.

I believe there's the saying of, 'things haven't actually changed, you've just become more aware of it' or something similar to that.
Shit's always been there. Some just didn't smell it right away. X)
Or planted it there themselves...

 

[pilgrimfromoblivion]

I believe there's the saying of, 'things haven't actually changed, you've just become more aware of it' or something similar to that.
Shit's always been there. Some just didn't smell it right away. X)
Or planted it there themselves...

Yeah, this. The crazy stuff didn't just magically appear, but once the internet became easily available and open to everyone, EVERYONE gets a platform. Now the denizens of the internet get to witness people like Kero the Wolf, who thinks animals are just asking for it. The only nice thing about it is that it provides a chance for all walks of life, and that platform also gets to double as a stand for a firing squad.

 

[Filter]

Better in some ways, and worse in others. I miss the old furry fandom like I miss the old YouTube. Nowadays, everything seems monetized or a competition for followers and likes. We used to draw these characters for fun, comment frequently on each other's art, and just have a good time with it. The scene feels more corporate and maybe a little less creative than it was. This may turn around eventually. I don't think the future is bleak. in fact, I think the best is yet to come. At present, however, the fandom is dealing with the same dark side of social media that other communities are dealing with. When those issues have been addressed, I think there may be a return to form, but I don't expect that to happen overnight.

Other positives: The genre isn't as obscure as it once was, the fursuits look better, and we can play furry characters in VR (even with full body-tracking). In fact, I think we're on our way to a digitally-enhanced reality of advanced furry AR and VR avatars, kind of like Ready Player One... but with more animal people.

 

[Stray Cat Terry]

Result first: I voted IDK.

Whole fandom-wise, honestly I don't know

FAF-wise, as a newbie with like 2~3 years since the account creation without any involvement till that point, and as I haven't been as active as my initial period here, I couldn't notice too much change. (Minus many people I spotted back then were mostly either gone busy or something, or were banned for some reasons)

But what I discovered during my participation on FAF, is that there are more requests/commissions/adopts etc than any others these days(eg: discussions, forum games). To be precise, the former seems to be the same(if not being slightly increased) while the latter is gradually decreasing.

This makes me less likely to visit FAF, as all I see is the art dealing stuff...(which I already see plenty opportunities on other places than FA&F)

Is it worse? It may depend. Personally, it may be considered worse in terms of FAF's purpose unless this is FATF:Furry Art Trading Forums, not FAF. (Don't get me wrong though, I'm an artist too)

But other than that.. well... perhaps artists and commissioners would prefer how it's going? That may give some plus, rendering the overall state being so-so, I guess.

Trivia:
I suppose I set my aim well--to interact neutrally to anyone I encounter, and give everyone moderate amount of care upon encountering. Those who I manage to get closer in relationship here, I tend to move that to other platforms(eg: going to Discord together). Those who ain't, I simply keep treating them the same, in a safe distance(maybe).

Good thing I'm never disturbed by not being able to interact and get closer with individuals, as that's very likely in virtual space like FAF, especially with those overwhelming art trade stuffs(which I have no reason to react to them most of the time).


Edit: The 'severity' of art trade ratio is somehow reduced at the moment.

 

[Jackpot Raccuki]

In full honesty I don’t think much has changed.
Same shit. Same good stuff. Maybe more worse though.

Only reason I’d say worse is based on personal experience, I’ve seen more people just be more toxic that I wouldn’t be surprised if the fandom went down the toxic rabbit hole and became a toxic place.
A lot of the communities are still toxic, but the entire fandom has yet to reach that point.

This place isn’t bad but I still just feel like even this place is slowly pushing me away. But that might just be me being dumb.

Otherwise nothing has really changed much in a major way, but I’d still say for sake of poll worse in general.
It definitely still has some good, but you’ll find more bad than good now and before I’d say you can still find good stuff if you look for it, now you have to actively weed through the bad.

 

[Attaman]

Considering how many people are talking about online fandom stuff, I have to wonder how much of the complaints relate less to the fandom specifically and more changes that have been made to online spaces in general.

For one very big example: Of all the various social media sites, Tumblr is (somehow) the one that still lets you best cultivate what exactly you wish to see. Major social media, at least. Twitter keeps trying to roll out "Posts sorted by popularity, not chronologically" (with just earlier this summer them trying to stealthily remove chronological posting outright and triple down on recommended tweets / hashtags), Facebook is a bit infamous for how it tries to hammer you with ads not just based on your activity but people you know's activity (meaning the best way to control your Facebook experience is to not associate with anyone else on that website at all)... Tumblr still does the recommended post shit and whatnot, but by literal default things are chronological and the only way your feed can be filled with nothing but ads is if you either follow nobody or everyone you follow has been inactive for years.

"Tumblr is one of the least intrusive social media sites" is a hell of a thing to say, and encapsulates pretty handily one aspect of how the internet's changed in the last decade or so.

Then there's the general collapse of forum communities, increasing use / awareness of use of things like Ko-fi and Patreon and GoFundMe and whatnot for people to stay afloat (as well as further transparency meaning a lot more ease with which for people to pick apart people's online finances), resurgence of chat groups wherein you don't particularly know most of the people in them (relating in no small part back to changes to social media and the collapse of forums)...

This is yet another reason I say the Fandom has generally got better, as I feel like most of the general complaints that can be leveled towards the Fandom aren't so much Furry's fault as changes to online stuff in general.

 

[Connor J. Coyote]

The shielding for repugnant furries was always there I think, but it's ironic, that the one placed where Twitter could have made a difference and out weird fucks like Kero and the like just ended with a bunch of delusion furries acting like what he and the people involved in his group weren't at all wrong.
The fact that "Growly" a convicted sex offender was allowed to roam furry conventions for so long says so much of how rotten this Fandom's actual morals are. There are so many twisted individuals in the fandom that just get a pass because hurr durr popular.

Yes Twitter, go after the guy who made a crass joke 10 years ago, but that literal sex offender? Yeah. He's a great guy. Excellent fit for the community.
Amazing moral priorities.

@KimberVaile Well, (it could be argued) that people do make mistakes sometimes, also..... and that - sometimes - people do deserve a second chance, whenever there's still some chance of redeeming qualities to be found and realized, within certain individuals.

And thus - shaking one's middle finger in the air and saying - (rather judgementally so, one could argue) that someone "isn't worthy of breathing the air on the earth", (so to speak) - given their past mistakes, can be seen as just *a bit* too harsh, by some of us.

There are indeed so-called "dangers" out there - in the community, (many believe)..... and there are also - those out there, that made simple mistakes in their lives and deserve a chance to amend their ways.

Just sayin'. ☺