{"sf1_id":1485348,"sf2_id":"dePRoYna","title":"After Animalia; or where do we go from here? - an essay on the artistic merits and return of creative investments in furry","author":"Mrachko","words":2719,"posted_at":"2019-09-04T01:35:48.000Z","tags":["After","After animalia","Animalia","Artistic","Fiction","Furry","High art","Philosophize","Philosophy","Post-furry","Postfurry","Sexual","art","essay","fun","literature","non-fiction","non-sexual","nonfiction"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1485348-after-animalia-or-where-do-we-go-from-here-an-essay-on-the-artistic-merits-and-return-of-creative-investments-in-furry","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/dePRoYna","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/d2/69/d269f290-8eaf-4474-a570-75b4b8ae0423","description":"Have you ever had a half-baked idea, barely formed, with only a slight feeling in your gut that it might be good?  \nHave you ever gotten drunk and decided that this idea should finally be manifested in one way or another?  \nThis is how After Animalia came to be.","content":"**After Animalia; or where do we go from here?**\n\nPrologue: Glimpses of light through the mud and dirt; or why should we do things?\n\nWhat does furry mean? A standard question one may ask when they are confronted by the term for the first time without much or any context. And depending who they ask, the answer varies, but the consensus is simple:\n\nFurry is a subculture which concerns itself with the depiction of anthropomorphic animals be they in visual, literary, musical or theatrical form. Simple. Concise. \u0026nbsp;\n\nThe next usual question one may ask is:\n\n“Is X a furry?”\n\nAnd by X we mean any or all characters in any media which are animals with human characteristics. Sometimes the answer is “Yes” and sometimes the answer is “No”, again depending on who they ask.\n\nThe word most associated with furry is “anthropomorphic”, i.e. human form.\n\nA typical furry character posses a human form mixed in with a specific animal and usually the intelligence of a human equivalent to that age.\n\nBut historically the word “anthropomorphic” has been used to ascribe any sort of human characteristic to inhuman objects.\n\nWould a cat able to quote German poems be furry?\n\nWould a human acting like a dog be furry?\n\nWould a parrot imitating human speech be furry?\n\nDepending who you ask, the answer varies\n\n“So furry is subjective?”\n\nAn adequate follow-up question. The definition of furry is an elephant test: “I know it when I see it.”\n\nThe furry culture is a culture with a lot of common ground on first glance, but when you dig deeper ideas start to shatter.\n\nIn this work I would like to find, if possible, an adequate definition for what furry is, what it can be used for and what it can aspire to be in the realms of art and philosophy. Why would I want to do this? For two reasons mostly:\n\n1.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; I believe that the potential of what can be done in this community has barely been scratched\n\n2.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; An essential part of the furry community, with which no one person will disagree, is having fun; and asking big questions has been a favorite pastime to humanity\n\nI do not promise an answer, but I do promise to try and piece together \u0026nbsp;some form of a coherent statement from the vast and kaleidoscopic puzzle that is this community.\n\nPart One: The forest of innocence and wisdom; or where does the beginning lie exactly?\n\nBefore we truly talk about furry, let’s venture to its prehistory.\n\nThroughout the existence of mankind, animals have always had a place in religion.\n\nTotemic, animal spirits and gods with animal characteristics are standards of many myths and legends in all the corners of the world, all of which serve some divine purpose in shaping the world and fate of humans, with the animal aspect adding a certain layer of symbolism.\n\nWith time, it can be observed that more and more cultures have discarded their animal gods and have started to worship beings with a more human form.\n\nHere we see more of an emphasis on animals in folklore rather than religion, the symbolism of an animal changing from an aspect of the creation and world building myth to that of an ordinary human.\n\nNo longer is the wolf the end of all things and the devourer of the planet, but rather gluttony or stupidity personified.\n\nThe owl ceases to be the all knowing and becomes the wise guide.\n\nEagles do not rule the sky, but sore in it with courage and passion.\n\nFairy tales and folk stories around campfires depicting animals as heroes and villains without much nuance have been used to teach simple lessons about humility, sharp wit and following rules.\n\nAnd these stories have been passed down from generation to generation being retold and remolded to fit the zeitgeist, immortalizing these symbols in our heads as the go-to archetypes whenever a conundrum appears in our everyday lives.\n\nAs children, we enjoyed these stories. As adults, we retell them.\n\nAnd with the advent of technology, newer stories with the critters from so long ago arise, changing the scenario, lesson and maybe adding or stripping key characteristics in these archetypes. Either way they exist and will continue to exist as long as humanity needs stories, bringing both wisdom and excitement with them.\n\nBut as times goes on, the character of the animal changes as needed by society and the individual. A new animal appears in the collective conscious, molding its archetype for more defined character traits. It is no longer a personification through an animal. It is the character, whose form happens to be that of an animal. From here on out, we see the first ur-furry. The animal before it became a furry.\n\nThe funny animals. Animals with much more defined human characteristics. They wear clothes. They walk on two legs. They eat on the table. They fall in love. \u0026nbsp;\n\nHumanity viewed through a distorted lens.\n\nCharacters who slowly become symbols in themselves to much more grander concepts than that an individual may possess.\n\nThey are not the human aspect of comedy. They are comedy. And they can be considered the start of what’s to come.\n\nPart Two: Ceiling-gazing; or why do we give dreams form?\n\nThe animal in myths is the inception.\n\nThe animal in fairy tales is the toddler years.\n\nThe animal in cartoons is the childhood.\n\nThese three sentences can apply to both the development of artistic depictions of the animal and that of the individual infatuated by the animal form.\n\nSo what comes next?\n\n\u0026nbsp;Adolescence.\n\nThe current state of furry.\n\nAnd the age most people get into furry.\n\nThe age of sexualization.\n\nA lone teenager, sitting in his room, burning with the urges any teenager has faced. Seeking relief of the flesh, choosing something they are familiar with. Why not an animal with a human form?\n\nThere is something perverse and yet comforting. So why not?\n\nSex and sexualization is, after all, part of the human experience, so it is often depicted in works of art.\n\nFurry, I would say, is the most expansive sphere in regards to its mediums which depicts sexual acts without being specifically sexualized as a whole.\n\nSome argue that the point of furry is sex and the fetishization of the animal form. Others argue differently.\n\nIn either case, all parties can confirm that sex does play an important part in furry. Is it because of the age one enters it and it leaves an imprint? Or is it because sex is standardized and a teenager finds it fairly easily?\n\nThere really is no right answer here.\n\nBut it does offer an exceptional amount of wish fulfillment – imaginary, yet attractive, partners, offering something out of the ordinary, without having to deal with the meddling aspects courtship.\n\nTruly sex makes the world turn.\n\nBut with time, we slowly change our course, not only seeking to fulfill our primal urges but to expand our horizons one way or another.\n\nThe years pass and we slowly enter adulthood and with it the animal should gain new qualities to represent this time in our life.\n\nPart three: Stunted development; or why should we grow up?\n\nThe young adult is now faced with many questions regarding their place in the world and the place of the world in the universe. The human has grown. The animal hasn’t.\n\nThe animal stays in its previous form – that of the sexual object and wish fulfillment. It will not change. It refuses to change.\n\nTwo options remain:\n\n1.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; The adult forsakes the furry\n\n2.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; The adult stays with the furry and maybe tries to make slight changes\n\nFurry is an ill-defined art form, an umbrella term for vague concepts with the theme of sex being an ever present constant. Why is that?\n\nSupposedly a psychological argument could be made most likely. Something along the lines of most people get into furry in their teenage years and most of them were most likely outcast in one way or another; offered a certain safe space on anonymous sites, their fantasies are not shunned but rather encouraged, indulging their sexual desires as much as they can; there is no need to change, if everything seems fine – there is acceptance by the peers online; what more should there be?\n\nSo? What’s the problem? There is nothing wrong with sex?\n\nNo, there isn’t. But there can be more.\n\nFurry is art in its core. Low art perhaps, but never the less, it is art. And art can grow. And should grow.\n\nSex is just one aspect of the human condition, which can be represented by the animal and I truly believe that furry should take the next step and aspire to be more than the fetishization of the animal.\n\nSex can always be aspect, but the artistic expression does not need to revolve around sex. Sex can just be another aspect to help cement a grander idea.\n\nThe animal can look up to the sky and ask: What should I be next?\n\nPart four: Erotic nihilism; or how to confuse cynicism with abyss-gazing?\n\nA certain trend can be found in any contemporary work, striving to be serious and I believe that a point should be made before going any further.\n\nDark and brooding is an easy go to when claiming that you’ve made a serious piece of art. But rarely are those pieces truly worth the while when it comes to artistic merit.\n\nThe animal kills. The animal is killed. The animal rapes. The animal is raped. The animal suffers.\n\nMore so than not, the worlds depicted in pieces like these have nothing to them besides misery, shock and a fetishistic fascination with the grotesque. No actual point to make. No actual contrast to the darkness. A cynical and almost childish belief in a land where only evil rules, without offering any meaningful questions or answers regarding evil.\n\nEvil is the quintessential element. It is inescapable. There are shades of evil for sure, but they offer nothing in the grander scheme of things.\n\nI am not advocating for purely hopeful and optimistic works, but I am advocating for works of substance with a bit more to them than a bloody power trip and radical sexual depravity.\n\nPart five: Postfurry; or how is aesthetica guised as technica?\n\nFurry is hard to define.\n\nPostfurry is harder.\n\nA splinter of the indefinable concept which in itself is indefinable.\n\nBut as with furry, postfurry has some loose rules such as using a postmodernist toolkit as well as using aspects and themes found in science fiction. Sounds fancy when it put in those words.\n\nOne might think that this is the point of this essay, the point of me rambling for almost 1800 words.\n\nSadly, postfurry differs from furry only in its aesthetics, using the techniques it has acquired to only change the setting of the animal and not its purpose.\n\nAlthough postfurry prides itself in its alternative concepts, it’s no more sublime than anything put out by the standard furry community. Nothing more than a new paintjob.\n\nSo why did I name this piece with allusions to this branch of furry. Simple. It has the right idea, but the wrong execution.\n\nUsing ideas and tropes beyond those found in pulp art is one of the things I strive to convince anyone to do who might be reading this.\n\nAs a whole there isn’t much to be said about postfurry.\n\nBut some irony should be noted here.\n\nIt uses tropes found in science fiction. And like the first ever science fiction stories, they offer little change to what has been pre-established. Cowboys in space. Animals in latex.\n\nKeeping that in mind another reference to sci-fi can be made. As with the golden age of science fiction, maybe the golden age of furry is just around the corner.\n\nPart six: Philosophizing; or what is there to art?\n\nThe animal is unbound. Chainless it roams to new fields, seeking out its new task.\n\n“What do I need to be?”\n\nIt saw the peeks of Helicon and began climbing.\n\nFurry is art. If I’ve managed to hammer in something, I’m pretty sure that is it.\n\nArt is the expression of oneself - thoughts, ideas, emotions and so on.\n\nWhat can we do with that?\n\nAt this point, anything really. But the goal, as I’ve stated before, is to aim high. And as is natural for high art, we should aim to more clearly express the human condition through the animal. What would be the point in doing something if there was never any improvement?\n\nEscapism is an essential human need, yes. But the truest form of art has a certain spice to its escapism.\n\nDiversification of themes and messages, struggling with big concepts and asking unanswerable questions are just some of the things that an artist should strive to do as they create.\n\nThe animal itself is escapism, but don’t let its essence be its entire being.\n\nPart seven: Chronodaimon; or how to spend a night with the muses?\n\nThe animal gazes from atop of the mountain, seeing all that the world has to offer. The sights, smells and sounds of an ever-turning planet fill its skull, intoxicating it completely. A magnificent metamorphosis occurs and there stands the artist, ready to capture it all.\n\nAll we think, all we see, all we say, all we do.\n\nWhat can furry be after it sheds its skin once more?\n\nA reflection of the times.\n\nA peek within the soul.\n\nA speculation of the future.\n\nAll that and much more, as any other work of art can.\n\nBut if that’s true, than what need is there for the animal?\n\nThe animal is an aesthetic for sure, but the aesthetic can always be incorporated into the work as something more. It only needs a reason to be. A return to the folk tales as symbolic characters is the easiest tool that can be used.\n\nBut besides the visual representation, the animal adds a certain lair of detachment. It is not human, not truly, allowing the artist to do more with it, which might otherwise seem un-human. It does not think purely like a human. It does not act purely like a human. It does not feel purely like a human. A crooked mirror is still a mirror and once the novelty has gone, it still reflects.\n\nPart eight: Beastly apocrypha; or what to do next?\n\nAnd so the animal rose up and on its back rode the artist.\n\nWhat is there to do? Create, explore, observe, analyze. The postfurry, the next step of the animal, should be the thinking-man’s furry, not ruled by base instincts, but by complex emotions and intricate thoughts.\n\nAs the dawn shines upon us for a new day, so should our goals be renewed. \u0026nbsp;In the age of trash art, where one thing is so easily discarded for another, hold tight to what you love and raise it above the rest. Strive for greatness as it is your duty, or perish beneath the sands, forgotten.\n\nIt’s only a matter of time before the animal takes its new form. \u0026nbsp;The clock ticks.\n\nEpilogue: Liquid dreams and solid miracles; or why even bother?\n\nWhy bother indeed?\n\nIf one is happy and content, why even try to make any changes?\n\nTruthfully? I’ve never met an artist who was happy or content.\n\nI am fully aware that this is not an extensive essay, only touching slightly upon some topics.\n\nI am also fully aware that some of the things I’ve mentioned have already been done. But those are really just individual situations and not actual shifts in the entire subculture.\n\nI am aware that it does not possess a fully coherent structure or statement.\n\nThis essay was not a call to arms.\n\nThis essay was not a full dissection of furry.\n\nThis essay was not a manifesto.\n\nYou may not agree with what I’ve said, how I’ve said it or why I’ve said it. But I hope you found this essay at least slightly interesting, whether or not you agree with any statements I’ve made.\n\nBut regardless of anything, I’m sure that you can agree, that at the very least, this essay is postfurry in nature.\n\nThis is After Animalia."}