BBC Article about Furries

[The Chained Wolf]

The BBC website has published an article entitled "Who are the furries?" for which I was interviewed for (under the name "Ian Wolf"). What does everyone think of it?

[Rick Canaan]

Quite an excellently done article, I think!

Thanks for sharing this, Chained!

[Slate]

I concur with the Boss Hoss. Though I think they put a just a little too much emphasis on the fursuiting, it was nice to see a furry media spotlight that didn't basically say, "Furries are people dressed in animal suits and have intercourse."

From the comments, it seems there are still those who don't much care for it, but there will always be differing opinions. However, this is probably the best outside source about furries I've seen.

[Rys]

It's so nice to see journalists who don't behave as if they've got money riding on how much worse they can make our reputation.

[Psion]

Nice to see the sociologists and psychologists pay attention to us. I'm interested in seeing what they have to think about us in relation to other nerd groups.

[Iscin]

Firstly I'd like to say this is a nice article and that news is one of two things the BBC does consistently well with some exceptions (Fox American correspondents? Seriously?) with the other being taking money from the British public for mostly sub-par programming.
Secondly before anyone starts please do NOT start with the "furry pride" thing and "We're all persecuted boo hoo T_T"
Why? Because it's a load of lies propagated by oversensitive furries of both the children and man-child variety -.=.-
How many of you heard (or even made) a joke about goths during Halloween? I know I did! They are a subculture just like furries but would you call them persucuted? Probably not. They are the butt of the occasional rare joke among the hegemon culture and THAT. IS. IT.
Awhile back I was talking with an irl friend who is a 4channer, we would joke a little about NOTHING surprising a furry or 4channer and we shared similar interests in video games and during one of our conversations I brought up some fo the perceived persecution of furries. You know what he said to me? That it was mostly just from other furries, I had not realised that up until then! What was the last thing that happened like that? A random female furry blurted out some crap on a TV show and the entire fandom turned on her! And personally I ahve known PLENTY of furries who have become cynical of the drama and the crude and have become furry trollers. There is a VERY VERY small number of people out there who are genuinely a problem for furries and they are mainly just a handful of trolls on teh interwebs: BIG. DEAL. I. THINK. NOT.
You know what most people think of furries? Nothing. They either don't know what they are, barely know of them or maybe just MAYBE know one or two rumours and will laugh at you. There are exceptions to this rule but furries are just like any other subculture: Largely ignored by others and maybe the occasional fall guy for a rare joke.

-Counter rant over-
-Wrote this after coming home from work KNACKERED!-

-Iscin, a furry who does NOT have "furry pride", he is part of a subculture, NOT a political movement.

[SliceOfDog]

Nice article. Very balanced, and even though it might focus too much on fursuiting, you can't expect a reporter who'd never heard of a subculture before to completely get all the niches. It's a huge step up from any article I've seen before.

Also,

surprising a furry or 4channer and we shared similar interests

It could be a Disney movie ^^

[Iscin]

It could be a Disney movie ^^

OH GOD NOOO! I'M MELLTINGGG!!! D=

[Psion]

Also,
It could be a Disney movie ^^

"Kill It With Fire" the movie. Soon to be followed by "Kill It With Fire" on ice and "Kill It With Fire" the musical. And let's not forget the toy and book tie-ins.
All kidding aside, I agree with some of your points Iscin. Some, but not all.
- A lie still can have a grain of truth. Granted, I agree with you on the child and man-child comment; many of our "colleagues" do make me cringe with their complete lack of maturity. But as with all things, I wouldn't discount it entirely out of hand.
- The Tyra Banks issue (I assume that's the one you're talking about) is a rather complex one with me. On one hand, I find it frightening and embarrassing that we can crash our own servers without an outside entity screwing around where he isn't supposed to. It's unnerving to see how fast we can be whipped into a mindless mob.
On the other, Tyra Banks IS essentially Jerry Springer/Euro Trash/Enquirer/insert trash media here, not just "a TV show." That and there is a cycle of negative attention; some idiot feeds the monster, the monster wakes up and trashes the village, then the monster wears itself out and crawls back into its cave to sleep until the next idiot wakes it up. We DO do it to ourselves as you stated. But were we overreacting by turning on her? Can't entirely say, wasn't a part of the drama storm, didn't even know about it until the storm had largely passed and journals about the incident sprang up like weeds after a fresh rain.
But on the same token, if you can't slay the monster then the only thing you have left to discourage that behavior and hopefully break the cycle. And that means making sure the idiot gets punished. It probably is immature how we did it; but by branding Chewiefox as an outcast and otherwise persona non gratis, we probably performed our first real mature act as a community. We recognize the cycle and are trying to break it.

[pommie]

I like the BBC. They do great documentries, and here they have a good article too. It's not pro-furry, it's not against it either. It's a nicely neutral, 'here are the facts' article that lets the reader make their own opinion.

[The Chained Wolf]

I just spotted that the article is on the Ursa Major Awards Recommended Anthropomorphics List. Fancy that!