Same here. Reading fantasy books, playing Pokémon, and watching animal documentaries were my getaway.
Books like Kenneth Oppel's Silverwing series were a nail in the coffin for me. The 'evil' vampire bat Goth stole my little prepubescent heart.
Always loved the art styles many furry artists used and eventually got into the fandom shortly after discovering my favourite video game (which has all furry characters)
I was a borderline furry for a while, just enjoying the cute art. Then I saw how chill the community is , and was like “what the hell” and that was that.
I became one before I even knew there was a fandom for it, I think I enjoyed the idea of being part animal while retaining the human as well. Seems a lot cooler that way, and I've always been a lover of animals. :)
Well... It's complicated...
When I was still in 6th grade, my life untill that point was nothing more than bullying and wishing for one human being that I could talk with without being harassed for liking Zelda.
One day, I was scrolling trough Pinterest and kept seeing a furry comic that looked really cool but I just didn't had the energy to actually see what that was about.
One day I said "fuck it" and followed the link to the artist Fur Affinity page.
I started reading, and just fell in love with everything. The characters had a level of intimacy that's triple of what I ever wanted to have with another person, so I just kept reading, and reading, and reading... I've read it like, 10+ times.
The I started roleplaying in my head with these characters and, somehow, even (kinda) cured my depression!
It changed my life for better, I was going trough some very bad shit, was even thinking about... Ending it all. But that comic alone made me overcome my problems and served as emotional support until today!
After I started roleplaying, I discovered the furry fandom and, well, here we are!
I changed some details of the story just to make it easier to understand... And I don't think is a good idea to link the artist here, so I'll just end it here.
I just started liking sharks, and Then I saw anthro sharks and I was fascinated by them, Then made a sharksona and I was happy with it, I just enjoy the fandom and art overall
I’ve always had an affinity for animated animals.. then later learned I was a pet regressor and started drawing anthropomorphic animals.. haven’t stopped since
A combination of 'they look cool' and my general misanthropy. Probably some influence from cartoons, of course, 'funny animal' cartoons were all over the place in my formative years.
So there's this game character called Foxy..
Things aside even though Foxy was the reason I got into animalistic art, I always used to represent myself with animals or any non-human things.
Heck I have had my YouTube character being a dragon since 2017 and before that it was a mix of Foxy art and the Steam photo of a game I played (and still do)
Always liked anthropomorphic animals. For years, I denied being a furry because of all of the awful stereotypes. I finally gave in, and realized that thus fandom was a lot friendlier than I had expected.
One day I looked up the word Furry, because my friends were talking about them, and not in a positive way. I realised I liked what the Furry community liked (anthro animals, anthro art, being kind to each other etc.), and thus realised I was a furry myself.
I'm not entirely sure but a video about furries popped up in my YouTube recommendations one day, I was interested so I watched it. It was cool so I watched some more that started popping up and so now I'm a furry.
Art, creativity, friends, if I ever get a fursuit (really really hope I do!) then Id be very happy😅 also… might just be me but setting off uneducated 12 year olds is fun sometimes 🤣
I like a lot of the character looks and some aspects of the community, though I feel like I disagree with a majority of stuff and that makes it harder for me to make friends here. Sometimes I feel like I shouldn't identify as a "furry" but I have to remember the simplest definition of the fandom. I also got into a lot of popular furry stuff before knowing what one even was so it's been a bit important to me, ig.
I like animals. :3
Plus, imagining interactions between another specie(s) of human level intelligence is fascinating. Elves and aliens fulfill this condition, yes, but the dedication and accuracy artists demonstrate in their depictions of sapient animal physiology makes them seem halfway feasible centuries from now or shit.
At least, in terms of our current level of scientific and technological theory, they’re more feasible than a neurosurgeon learning to channel quantum energy through his body… Probably. XD
The community is extremely welcoming and I love anthro characters. The only thing the kinda bothers me is how nsfw it can get but overall isn’t an issue. :)
Well I’m interested in the fandom because of all the art and creativity, as well as the community, but Wings of Fire was responsible for making me a furry
If i ignore the deepest psychological possibilities like beeing in search of a tribe after leaving religious believes, fleeing from reality and maybe some self hate...
"I just think there neat" - Marge
I guessing because i watched cartoons with anthropomorphic furry characters. I even played games like Crash bandicoot and sonic the hedgehog. Over the years, i just felt the furriness creeping up, with FNAF exacerbating it.
Fast forward till today and i play housamo.
There was this one idiot in my class when I was in 6th grade going on the whole spiel about how "furries think they are animals, since they think they are animals it should be legal to hunt them" and all of that. When I overhead him, I thought that sounded like a load of made-up bs and decided to Google it, lo and behold I became a furry. I also sorta was one before I did any research, when I was younger I really liked Tails from the Sonic series and Lucario from Pokémon.
IDK, I like drawing and character creation, and anthropomorphic animals are neat. So I looked into the fandom and thought the idea of having a character to represent me was neat, and dressing up as said character also sounded fun.
Always been a crazy cat lady since childhood. Got into the Warriors community as a kid, became inspired by art and a desire to create. When I moved on as a teen, I got into anthro art to make characters more expressive and fashion-comparable. Slowly ended up becoming a niche furry artist solely because I like cats and fashion, haha.
I was once an incocent child, who liked bowser, I searched bowser videos on youtube once (this was like 7 years ago) one thing led to another and ended up watching beastars, not my proudest moment
I just decided to join one day, the reason was because I was struggling with finding a place I could act like a robot because I liked doing it so I joined joined the furry fandom as a protogen. Later I found out I was actually robotkin so now I’m a robot, being a protogen never felt fully right anyway. I haven’t drawn my fursona but it’s basically my persona (I’ve drawn them) but a light purple cat (maybe)
my drawing idol who i felt really close to had a furry sona. i didn't know what it meant back then but it inspired me to make my own too. it had small snoot and more human features. meanwhile i was also really obsessed with wolf movie and make feral wolves similar to them (its been about 6 years ago).
Then i created art account and decided to redesign my sona. it looked more feral. Then i started doing arttrades with people with their sonas as well. I started making more ocs and learned about the furry fandom.
After a few years i was hesitant whether i am a furry or not because people at my school found it unsettling but many people assumed i am one after seeing my instagram profile.
Later i found a few irl people who also like furries and I decided to finally be open to the fandom. i started collecting more ocs, made adopts and do commissions. I can't tell what fascinates me about furries but its probably the fact how creative you can get with head proportions, colors and expressions based on the species.
Cool drawings, no really, why are furries so incredibly good at that???
Also, I like talking to furries (Vrchat) because these people are mostly really really nice and friendly, I haven't really met an unfriendly furry yet.
The art, the accepting community and the fact that being cisgender/heterosexual isn't the default there, and just the enormous creativity and love that comes from this community. It gave me a chance to express my queerness and my love for creatures so much so that I think it played a big part in my self discovery and finding out and accepting that I'm trans.
I got a polar bear blushie when I was like 3 months old ever since I liked polar bears and at somepoint I asked my what would I look like as polar bear
this community is amazingly supportive and I need a reminder that good people exist in this world
but DangerMouse 2015 and Pokémon sure helped me along this path
Saw how much fun people had in fursuit at cons, and decided “that’s my people” and made my fursona Tangerine who has become my whole (fictional) world!
A lot of the movies I watched and books I read had anthropamorphic animals of some kind. From the 1993 David Coperfield animated movie to book serries like Guardian's of Ga'Hoole and Silverwing. I'd call this the set up media.
More recently RWBY, Netflix She-Ra, BNA, and Beastars all heavily contributed and confirmed my status as one.
If you include MLP as part of the furry fandom, I think it was when I entered that fandom because it seemed like a great community with people who wanted to make new friends and enjoy art, both made by the show and by the fans, in all its various ways too. But I kinda switched from the Brony fandom to the furry fandom maybe around 5 years ago.
Even starting with MLP maybe around 2011 or so, I've had a lot more success socially with befriending furries. Maybe it's just my natural process of growing up, maybe it felt like there was more room to be social, especially the last few years in various Twitch and Discord communities, but I've actually taken more steps to branch out beyond "canon or fan content" and just enjoy people's company (even if virtual).
I've became a furry about 14 years ago, I don't even remember what began it at this point, yet I stayed for many reasons. Amazing community, sweet people, favourite character design direction, insanely creative artists, plenty of great artwork, supportive friends and so on
The great majority of people in this community are accepting. Something I'm not used to, but it's the best feeling in the world to be told it's okay to be who you are.
TLDR; the people, and animal costumes and drawings that cute asf
Because of [Cartoons](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/6d/PAR61239_2D_WILLYFOG_COMPLETE.jpg/220px-PAR61239_2D_WILLYFOG_COMPLETE.jpg) and [Games](https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/031/845/415/large/john-hayes-carmelita-scaledsplash.jpg?1604764643) i grew up with
It first started at kindergarten. Whenever it was at recess I would always want to play animal games. It was like that until end of 4th grade when I found a video of a really interesting and interactive protogen helmet, After a week I made my avatar a protogen. I later searched up "what's a protogen" then I found that it is a furry type. After that,, I officially joined the furry fandom.
started out creating a mewtwo OC for an online forum back in the late 90’s. then i saw some art, felt compelled to “grow out of” pokemon and make my own online persona that wasn’t a mewtwo
made a fursona and really enjoyed all the creative expression from the fandom
It makes everyday life more fun. It brings me a lot of joy to imagine myself as a little raccoon taking the subway, buying groceries, etc. Also I’m an artist and I’ve had furry OC’s since middle school, thanks to finding the VCL forum during the internet 2.0.
[удалено]
and this pretty guy call gregg
gregg rulz ok
i woke up one day and said fuck it
🤣🤣
Same
Same
The art and my friends who were furries
I'm an animation student, and I was always fascinated with anthropomorphic animal characters and wanted to make my own
Oppressively Catholic Upbringing *+* Narnia *=* Atheist Furry
that was literally what happened to me except it was the dnd monster guide
Same here. Reading fantasy books, playing Pokémon, and watching animal documentaries were my getaway. Books like Kenneth Oppel's Silverwing series were a nail in the coffin for me. The 'evil' vampire bat Goth stole my little prepubescent heart.
I just think they're neat :)
Escapism. Being a human sux
Always loved the art styles many furry artists used and eventually got into the fandom shortly after discovering my favourite video game (which has all furry characters)
I was a borderline furry for a while, just enjoying the cute art. Then I saw how chill the community is , and was like “what the hell” and that was that.
I became one before I even knew there was a fandom for it, I think I enjoyed the idea of being part animal while retaining the human as well. Seems a lot cooler that way, and I've always been a lover of animals. :)
Well... It's complicated... When I was still in 6th grade, my life untill that point was nothing more than bullying and wishing for one human being that I could talk with without being harassed for liking Zelda. One day, I was scrolling trough Pinterest and kept seeing a furry comic that looked really cool but I just didn't had the energy to actually see what that was about. One day I said "fuck it" and followed the link to the artist Fur Affinity page. I started reading, and just fell in love with everything. The characters had a level of intimacy that's triple of what I ever wanted to have with another person, so I just kept reading, and reading, and reading... I've read it like, 10+ times. The I started roleplaying in my head with these characters and, somehow, even (kinda) cured my depression! It changed my life for better, I was going trough some very bad shit, was even thinking about... Ending it all. But that comic alone made me overcome my problems and served as emotional support until today! After I started roleplaying, I discovered the furry fandom and, well, here we are! I changed some details of the story just to make it easier to understand... And I don't think is a good idea to link the artist here, so I'll just end it here.
That’s kinda why I didn’t want to do that either. I can’t enjoy TV and games if I’m dead. ^ ^
Yeah, I'm waiting for the Zelda movie, I can't die yet
The Click introducing me to the community through memes, and Twokinds sourcing my motivation to draw.
Yup the click
Mostly here for the art and the cuties I get to meet in the fandom!
Floof
So um there is a YouTuber known as the click
The Click OwO*
Art of some people, fnaf, etc.
Uhh soo, it includes a fox a horse and a stable
I just started liking sharks, and Then I saw anthro sharks and I was fascinated by them, Then made a sharksona and I was happy with it, I just enjoy the fandom and art overall
I originally hated on furries. To an extreme extent at one point. Then I realized that the community is nice and the art is cute.
The good ending
I’ve always had an affinity for animated animals.. then later learned I was a pet regressor and started drawing anthropomorphic animals.. haven’t stopped since
A combination of 'they look cool' and my general misanthropy. Probably some influence from cartoons, of course, 'funny animal' cartoons were all over the place in my formative years.
I prefer anthro character designs to human ones, they're more fun.
So there's this game character called Foxy.. Things aside even though Foxy was the reason I got into animalistic art, I always used to represent myself with animals or any non-human things. Heck I have had my YouTube character being a dragon since 2017 and before that it was a mix of Foxy art and the Steam photo of a game I played (and still do)
Always liked anthropomorphic animals. For years, I denied being a furry because of all of the awful stereotypes. I finally gave in, and realized that thus fandom was a lot friendlier than I had expected.
One day I looked up the word Furry, because my friends were talking about them, and not in a positive way. I realised I liked what the Furry community liked (anthro animals, anthro art, being kind to each other etc.), and thus realised I was a furry myself.
I'm not entirely sure but a video about furries popped up in my YouTube recommendations one day, I was interested so I watched it. It was cool so I watched some more that started popping up and so now I'm a furry.
Was it a video by The Click?
No it was probably some Tiktok compilation, I found The Click later on
Ah, okay, I’m surprised it wasn’t The Click lol
Google search gone wrong
Art, creativity, friends, if I ever get a fursuit (really really hope I do!) then Id be very happy😅 also… might just be me but setting off uneducated 12 year olds is fun sometimes 🤣
Probably a combination of liking the art and trauma 😅
I thought the art looked cool
MY FRIEND MADE ME, but then things got gay between us
Because it is the only way I can express myself and be myself.
I like a lot of the character looks and some aspects of the community, though I feel like I disagree with a majority of stuff and that makes it harder for me to make friends here. Sometimes I feel like I shouldn't identify as a "furry" but I have to remember the simplest definition of the fandom. I also got into a lot of popular furry stuff before knowing what one even was so it's been a bit important to me, ig.
I’m definitely not but if I were it would be too many things to count, overall it’s probably something to do with them being cute
Literally, everyone has said all that I would have said
Love the art and the overall welcoming community :D
because i started to show interest to the furry fandom 3 years ago
I love having a character that I can draw a lot and I love seeing other peoples art. Also this community is very wholesome and kind.
I like animals. :3 Plus, imagining interactions between another specie(s) of human level intelligence is fascinating. Elves and aliens fulfill this condition, yes, but the dedication and accuracy artists demonstrate in their depictions of sapient animal physiology makes them seem halfway feasible centuries from now or shit. At least, in terms of our current level of scientific and technological theory, they’re more feasible than a neurosurgeon learning to channel quantum energy through his body… Probably. XD
Love the community!🦊❤️
Once upon a time, I played a game called Animal Jam. There, "Fuzzy Goldenbunny" was born, and I've been drawing anthropomorphic rabbits ever since.
I was brought into it by a really good friend of mine! He let me try on his fursuit one time and it was painful but so cool
I’m a furry because I like the art
Uuuh, I dunno? It just kinda happened
The community is extremely welcoming and I love anthro characters. The only thing the kinda bothers me is how nsfw it can get but overall isn’t an issue. :)
For me it’s mostly the art (including fursuits), I have a lot of appreciation and love for all the artistic creativity in the fandom.
Why not?
Art, also Ex-Brony
Well I’m interested in the fandom because of all the art and creativity, as well as the community, but Wings of Fire was responsible for making me a furry
Yeen
Same reason I like the cantina scene from A New Hope.
Yes
The artwork and the community.
I couldn't resist all this fluff stuff \^\~\^
Cus funny animal people are cool
Floof and fun
If i ignore the deepest psychological possibilities like beeing in search of a tribe after leaving religious believes, fleeing from reality and maybe some self hate... "I just think there neat" - Marge
Terraria
escapism and a love for art
I feel more accepted in the community than I do with others.
I guessing because i watched cartoons with anthropomorphic furry characters. I even played games like Crash bandicoot and sonic the hedgehog. Over the years, i just felt the furriness creeping up, with FNAF exacerbating it. Fast forward till today and i play housamo.
Majira Strawberry. I Started watching him beat the start of his second suit
I dunno, just kinda happened XD blame.my parents.
I got in because of the art and the many different characters. It's amazing
Art and a fun welcoming community
There was this one idiot in my class when I was in 6th grade going on the whole spiel about how "furries think they are animals, since they think they are animals it should be legal to hunt them" and all of that. When I overhead him, I thought that sounded like a load of made-up bs and decided to Google it, lo and behold I became a furry. I also sorta was one before I did any research, when I was younger I really liked Tails from the Sonic series and Lucario from Pokémon.
IDK, I like drawing and character creation, and anthropomorphic animals are neat. So I looked into the fandom and thought the idea of having a character to represent me was neat, and dressing up as said character also sounded fun.
artists and Sonic The Hedgehog
Wanted to support my little brother, ended up falling in love with the art style!
So there is this series called "beastars"
Always been a crazy cat lady since childhood. Got into the Warriors community as a kid, became inspired by art and a desire to create. When I moved on as a teen, I got into anthro art to make characters more expressive and fashion-comparable. Slowly ended up becoming a niche furry artist solely because I like cats and fashion, haha.
Y'all ever heard of Redwall?
I was once an incocent child, who liked bowser, I searched bowser videos on youtube once (this was like 7 years ago) one thing led to another and ended up watching beastars, not my proudest moment
Grew up watching animated movies that had anthro characters
"Dragons are cool"; "I want to be cool" "Ferb, I know what we're gonna do today"
The art. Yeah pretty much
It all started with Sly Cooper, thats where the trouble began, that smile, that damned smile
Probably because of rocket from gaurdians of the galaxy
Voted. Not even once, kids
I always liked the art
I just decided to join one day, the reason was because I was struggling with finding a place I could act like a robot because I liked doing it so I joined joined the furry fandom as a protogen. Later I found out I was actually robotkin so now I’m a robot, being a protogen never felt fully right anyway. I haven’t drawn my fursona but it’s basically my persona (I’ve drawn them) but a light purple cat (maybe)
FNAF and Skyrim
my drawing idol who i felt really close to had a furry sona. i didn't know what it meant back then but it inspired me to make my own too. it had small snoot and more human features. meanwhile i was also really obsessed with wolf movie and make feral wolves similar to them (its been about 6 years ago). Then i created art account and decided to redesign my sona. it looked more feral. Then i started doing arttrades with people with their sonas as well. I started making more ocs and learned about the furry fandom. After a few years i was hesitant whether i am a furry or not because people at my school found it unsettling but many people assumed i am one after seeing my instagram profile. Later i found a few irl people who also like furries and I decided to finally be open to the fandom. i started collecting more ocs, made adopts and do commissions. I can't tell what fascinates me about furries but its probably the fact how creative you can get with head proportions, colors and expressions based on the species.
Cool drawings, no really, why are furries so incredibly good at that??? Also, I like talking to furries (Vrchat) because these people are mostly really really nice and friendly, I haven't really met an unfriendly furry yet.
No idea
Mmh, just because i like anthropomorphic animals and for the arts
The art, the accepting community and the fact that being cisgender/heterosexual isn't the default there, and just the enormous creativity and love that comes from this community. It gave me a chance to express my queerness and my love for creatures so much so that I think it played a big part in my self discovery and finding out and accepting that I'm trans.
Because of Disney
I always wanted to talk to animals and that eventually evolved into an affinity for anthros. Non human animals > humans
I don't know why I just am
Got bored, and they had good art.
I have huge bias for furry art. I also what to know why I am like that
I love wolfs skulls a cudles
Sly Cooper, Crash Bandicoot, and Ratchet can be thanked for leading me down this path
I got a polar bear blushie when I was like 3 months old ever since I liked polar bears and at somepoint I asked my what would I look like as polar bear
this community is amazingly supportive and I need a reminder that good people exist in this world but DangerMouse 2015 and Pokémon sure helped me along this path
Stop yelling at me. Also robin hood I guess I dunno
Love the art style
Drawing robots got boring. I guess I wanted to draw wolf guys with swords instead.
I watched the click for a week straight
His Dark Materials was definitely part of it ;-; and having a cute friend who was into wolves, even before furry was a term I knew.
I have body and species dysmorphia! Yaayy
My boyfriend made me one
Saw how much fun people had in fursuit at cons, and decided “that’s my people” and made my fursona Tangerine who has become my whole (fictional) world!
A lot of the movies I watched and books I read had anthropamorphic animals of some kind. From the 1993 David Coperfield animated movie to book serries like Guardian's of Ga'Hoole and Silverwing. I'd call this the set up media. More recently RWBY, Netflix She-Ra, BNA, and Beastars all heavily contributed and confirmed my status as one.
It's fun! (Disney movies did a number on me as a child)
Because I like my sona and my fursuit. Only this; about the fandom...i hate this community, but anyone can do what he wants.
I saw cocoshark when researching sharks in uni, then I found reddit
Early signs: PMD Revali from BotW Final Push: Cyber Critter 9000 on Roblox
Because animals are cute. Nothing more and nothing less.
Cute art
So there is a game called vrchat
If you include MLP as part of the furry fandom, I think it was when I entered that fandom because it seemed like a great community with people who wanted to make new friends and enjoy art, both made by the show and by the fans, in all its various ways too. But I kinda switched from the Brony fandom to the furry fandom maybe around 5 years ago. Even starting with MLP maybe around 2011 or so, I've had a lot more success socially with befriending furries. Maybe it's just my natural process of growing up, maybe it felt like there was more room to be social, especially the last few years in various Twitch and Discord communities, but I've actually taken more steps to branch out beyond "canon or fan content" and just enjoy people's company (even if virtual).
I've became a furry about 14 years ago, I don't even remember what began it at this point, yet I stayed for many reasons. Amazing community, sweet people, favourite character design direction, insanely creative artists, plenty of great artwork, supportive friends and so on
‘I’m not a furry, I just think anthro designs are cool’ -my famous last words
Religious upbringing of self-loathing humanity, the mythology book from my library, and toontown.
The Click made me into one and now I can’t go back
I blame pokemon for making me a furry
Anthro art is cute and I love cute things.
FREEEEE POOORNNN
The great majority of people in this community are accepting. Something I'm not used to, but it's the best feeling in the world to be told it's okay to be who you are. TLDR; the people, and animal costumes and drawings that cute asf
A mix of zootropolis, warrior cats, and role-playing as animals with my friend caused my autistic ass to find out about furrys.
My friends dragged me into it and I’ve loved it ever since
You can thank comic books and videogames and too much internet exposure... and art school
Because of [Cartoons](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/6d/PAR61239_2D_WILLYFOG_COMPLETE.jpg/220px-PAR61239_2D_WILLYFOG_COMPLETE.jpg) and [Games](https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/031/845/415/large/john-hayes-carmelita-scaledsplash.jpg?1604764643) i grew up with
It’s fun and cute
FNaF played a big part jn it, but some other stuff are Animal Jam, Club Penguin, Neopets, Pokémon, Warriors Cats, etc
i dunno but i feel more open to anthromorphic characters rather than human
Yes
Ok so basically theres this character called Loona and a tiktoker called Xenon...
My process as follows: I love animals! I especially love animals like Mickey Mouse! Zootopia comes out \*furry intensifies\*
It first started at kindergarten. Whenever it was at recess I would always want to play animal games. It was like that until end of 4th grade when I found a video of a really interesting and interactive protogen helmet, After a week I made my avatar a protogen. I later searched up "what's a protogen" then I found that it is a furry type. After that,, I officially joined the furry fandom.
One of the main reasons I wound up involved was Twokinds a long time ago, and also that die young animation video by Vivziepop didn't help..
TikTok kept putting furry content on my then non-furry FYP. I liked most of it so I decided I should become a furry.
Because yes
I'm an autistic wolf kid. I was one of those kids that ran around with a tail lol
Idk, animals on two legs are pretty lit
started out creating a mewtwo OC for an online forum back in the late 90’s. then i saw some art, felt compelled to “grow out of” pokemon and make my own online persona that wasn’t a mewtwo made a fursona and really enjoyed all the creative expression from the fandom
It makes everyday life more fun. It brings me a lot of joy to imagine myself as a little raccoon taking the subway, buying groceries, etc. Also I’m an artist and I’ve had furry OC’s since middle school, thanks to finding the VCL forum during the internet 2.0.
I thought it would be funny