What are Furries?
A “Furry” is an anthropomorphic animal. The dictionary defines anthropomorphic as “the attributing of human shape or characteristics to gods, objects, animals, etc.” So, a Furry is a character who is an animal, but has clear human characteristics. These characters are also called “Anthropomorphics”, “Anthros” and “Funny Animals”. Furries have fully animal hide: fur, feathers, scales, etc. If the character has human skin, even if not normal human-colored, it’s almost always not a furry. Furries may have human-style hair in addition to the animal hide. Furries may have fully or partial human body anatomy. A common example is a human-shaped torso and arms combined with an animal’s tail and (rear) legs. There must be a significant component of human anatomy to qualify as a Furry. A Furry will comfortably use the two-legged human stance, even with animal-style hind legs. Don’t confuse this with how many animals can stand up, briefly, on their hind legs. The form of the face and head is key
Oh no! Not that one again! In all seriousness, let’s try to answer this. A ‘furry’ is a person. What makes this person furry is that he or she is part of the furry fandom, which is the fandom of animal-human or human-animal fantasy. That includes fables, fairy tales, bellestritic novels, drama, theatre and generally everything. If you tend to prefer books on feline detectives rather than human detectives, or if you’d rather buy the t-shirt with the wolf picture instead of the one with the Van Gogh then that’s a furry thing. Furry fandom has many facettes and extremes. There’s people who simply like to read animal stories, there’s animal activists, dreamers and poets imagining live as an animal, the ones who’re fascinated by the idea of chimeras and human-animal blends. Some people are spiritually inclined and searching for their totem animal, or seem to have found it. There’s tons more, but the common thing is a love and fascination for animals, more often than not animals with human t
