An Estimate
2 years. That's what the man said.
Some background. I began my career as "Wichita's only furry comedian" (I have been literally announced as that without asking) a bit over a year ago in a small, out of the way art gallery, the Blank Page, run by two MCs who are both, sadly, younger than me. The open mic mostly brought out singer/songwriter people, but those two both did stand up, and were funny, especially when bouncing off each other. Last Halloween, when they pretended to be each other, oh my God.
But, anyway, about three months in, I did ... well, I think I already told you about that. Anyway, did, and still do, furry jokes. Unfortunately, Wichita's only comedy club, The Loony Bin, had its own open mic night the same night as the Blank Page's, so more recently, I've been going there. Good career move. I'm already entered in the Wichita's funniest competition by winning the April monthly open mic contest. But still felt a bit guilty, you know?
Well, turns out there was something up at the old open mic, and my two old comedy friends left the open mic before it folded up sometime last month. So recently, one of them showed up at The Loony Bin, and my T-Shirt became very important to the future of furry as we know it.
Cliffhanger!
Not been doing a lot of ljing recently. In case you haven't noticed. Mostly because I've moved into my own apartment, and have foregone Internet connectivity in exchange for, well, eating food, mostly.
You know how it is.
But even before that, well, it's Mitch's fault, really. He was all nice and stuff, so I decided, okay, I'll go join Crush!Yiff!Destroy!, I'll have fun over there a while. And so those poor, dumb saps got the broadside of my long rambling essays. They were a captive audience, though. It was either me blithering away or some Canadian furry giving us blow by blows of the apparently very happening British Columbian furry scene. Then Mitch decided to nuke the site from orbit around the time, sending many truly wonderful descriptions of Canadian anime conventions (and maybe a couple overly pretentious arguments) to the digital happy hunting grounds.
Oh, well.
I tried Vivisector for, like, five minutes, before realizing the split from CYD occurred when Vivisector's founders realized they don't like their humor sites funny, apparently. And I mean not like I don't find their humor funny, but like I don't find their humor, period. There have been more jokes cracked by condemned prisoners being executed (and some of them have been pretty good. More weight! That's hilarious! I bet the Inquisition was just cracking up!).
But, anyway, ... uh, yeah. Where was I?
I hate when I do this. Though not as much as the audience hates it, let me tell you. Whoo, boy.
Okay, so back on those CYD forums (may they rest in peace), there was a guy who was literally hawking a furry show to networks. Zoo U, I think he called it. Basically, guy finds out his father had another child with someone other than his mother. Turns out she was a real fox. *rimshot* So, to better connect with his new fox sister, guy (and his friend) decide to attend college on the planet of the furries. This apparently made it fairly far along the conceptual axis; actually pitched, complete with rough animatics, some of which may still be on YouTube.
The one that sold me was the second one; furry strip joint. It really made me laugh. It just marched right up to the furry thing, and didn't look back. I think it was hilarious. I, apparently, was the only one to get the joke. See, furry is, basically, divided into two groups. The majority, who posit that furry is not a sex thing, and yet produce a lot of furry porn, and the minority, who posit that furry is a sex thing, and yet maintain that there should not be a shred of sexuality in cartoon animals. Now, obviously, that is a gross generalization, but basically true.
Now, these two groups fail to see the humor in the situation for basically the same reason; furry is solely a fetish to them. A fetish that they are ashamed of. So, the first group denies it, while the second group rejects it. This gives them a skewed view of the "mainstream" perception of furry. In both groups, pure pornography and artistic eroticism are seen as the same thing. The first group are likely to describe a graphic depiction of anal intercourse between two wolves as "erotic," when it is pure smut; the second group is likely to see something along the lines of tailsrulz's nude vixens as porn, when in fact they are works of eroticism. A very odd sort of eroticism, to be sure, and truthfully "fetishistic." But not porn.
The problem with the mainstream is that group A is likely to present unwholesome images that would detract from a non-furry's enjoyment. Group B, meanwhile, is likely to present such wholesome images that a non-furry may find confusion as to what the whole fuss is about. We've all seen cartoon animals; there is nothing especially special about them at this point, unless you add something.
Two important points, here. One, this is not to say that an unprepared audience will not have a negative reaction to a merely "erotic" furry work; tastes vary, and furry is not for everyone. I have a generally negative reaction to the stylized (and often eroticized) look of Japanese cartooning; this does not mean I believe that anime is really a flawed artform(whatever I exaggeratedly say here or elsewhere), it simply means Japanese cartooning is not to my tastes. And two, the "added something" does not necessarily have to be sex; it could be any number of things. Whatever makes it pop. Sexuality is just really obvious.
Okay, so what in the heck does any of this have to do with a proposed TV show (and going back even farther, a T-shirt)? Simply put, most furries, of either group, miss the joke because they are only seeing their fetish object, and are reacting guiltily to it. To a non-furry, the furry art becomes a work of camp; a ridiculous object that takes itself seriously. Object is a good word; furry characters are literally just that. Objects. They are pen and ink and paint and pencil lead and other various art supplies; nothing more. They patently can not exist in reality. And yet, they pretend to be real, and to do the same things people do, up to and including impossibly lusting after each other in seedy, if unreal, strip joints. A furry strip joint is funny simply because it is so probably impossible.
And yet, though the furry fandom misses it most of the time and takes this stuff dead serious, it's very hard to find a good piece of furry artwork that isn't busily winking at the camera (as it were). For instance, all those furry vixen pin-ups? They are all, everyone, visual puns. A foxy lady! Groan. But there it is. It's so bad it's good. Much the same way, a furry strip joint works because they're animals; stripping means taking off clothes. But they're animals! They don't need to wear clothes! Groan. Once again, it's so bad it's good. Furry art makes a lot more sense when you realize it's all a big joke. Complaining that the dialogue isn't very funny during the furry strip scene is beside the point. I was too busy laughing at the over the top audacity of the entire premise to even hear it the first time I saw it.
So, back to my T-shirt. I wanted a furry themed T-shirt for my act. So, I bought one of this guy's T-shirts. You know, one with the ill-definedly gendered fox person in a candy-striper outfit. Because I wanted a furry themed T-shirt, but I wanted to be subtle about it. Had to order it online, of course. So, anyway, this guy sees this T-shirt, does a kind of double take (a fairly negative first glance, actually, but it was just a matter of taste) and says "Whoah, that's a furry T-shirt!" and then we get into a conversation about furry to pass the time until showtime.
Here's the thing I would've liked to ask Mr. TV show guy (if Mitch hadn't run for the hills, that is). Did he ever ask any, you know, real people about his furry show? (Okay, I know he asked some people in TV business about the show, but everybody knows TV people aren't really "real" either.) Because a couple years back I actually got into an argument with Unk Cockroach hisself, and I boldly stated that furry could not only be accepted by the mainstream, but would probably get the first person to do it described as brave.
Well, the word my comedy friend used was "fearless," so I guess I was wrong.
But, after seeing this T-shirt, he confidently predicted that we'd be seeing similar T-shirts at the mall within 2 years. Which, okay, isn't really saying much, 2 years to Hot Topic, whoo, but, you know what, it still looks a lot better than a 30 years supply of gay wolf porn, you know?
You know what my first response was, almost instantly. It was out of my mouth before I could stop it, and, God, I wish I could take it back, because there it was, in black and white and truer than true.
"Oh, the furries would never let that happen."
Some background. I began my career as "Wichita's only furry comedian" (I have been literally announced as that without asking) a bit over a year ago in a small, out of the way art gallery, the Blank Page, run by two MCs who are both, sadly, younger than me. The open mic mostly brought out singer/songwriter people, but those two both did stand up, and were funny, especially when bouncing off each other. Last Halloween, when they pretended to be each other, oh my God.
But, anyway, about three months in, I did ... well, I think I already told you about that. Anyway, did, and still do, furry jokes. Unfortunately, Wichita's only comedy club, The Loony Bin, had its own open mic night the same night as the Blank Page's, so more recently, I've been going there. Good career move. I'm already entered in the Wichita's funniest competition by winning the April monthly open mic contest. But still felt a bit guilty, you know?
Well, turns out there was something up at the old open mic, and my two old comedy friends left the open mic before it folded up sometime last month. So recently, one of them showed up at The Loony Bin, and my T-Shirt became very important to the future of furry as we know it.
Cliffhanger!
Not been doing a lot of ljing recently. In case you haven't noticed. Mostly because I've moved into my own apartment, and have foregone Internet connectivity in exchange for, well, eating food, mostly.
You know how it is.
But even before that, well, it's Mitch's fault, really. He was all nice and stuff, so I decided, okay, I'll go join Crush!Yiff!Destroy!, I'll have fun over there a while. And so those poor, dumb saps got the broadside of my long rambling essays. They were a captive audience, though. It was either me blithering away or some Canadian furry giving us blow by blows of the apparently very happening British Columbian furry scene. Then Mitch decided to nuke the site from orbit around the time, sending many truly wonderful descriptions of Canadian anime conventions (and maybe a couple overly pretentious arguments) to the digital happy hunting grounds.
Oh, well.
I tried Vivisector for, like, five minutes, before realizing the split from CYD occurred when Vivisector's founders realized they don't like their humor sites funny, apparently. And I mean not like I don't find their humor funny, but like I don't find their humor, period. There have been more jokes cracked by condemned prisoners being executed (and some of them have been pretty good. More weight! That's hilarious! I bet the Inquisition was just cracking up!).
But, anyway, ... uh, yeah. Where was I?
I hate when I do this. Though not as much as the audience hates it, let me tell you. Whoo, boy.
Okay, so back on those CYD forums (may they rest in peace), there was a guy who was literally hawking a furry show to networks. Zoo U, I think he called it. Basically, guy finds out his father had another child with someone other than his mother. Turns out she was a real fox. *rimshot* So, to better connect with his new fox sister, guy (and his friend) decide to attend college on the planet of the furries. This apparently made it fairly far along the conceptual axis; actually pitched, complete with rough animatics, some of which may still be on YouTube.
The one that sold me was the second one; furry strip joint. It really made me laugh. It just marched right up to the furry thing, and didn't look back. I think it was hilarious. I, apparently, was the only one to get the joke. See, furry is, basically, divided into two groups. The majority, who posit that furry is not a sex thing, and yet produce a lot of furry porn, and the minority, who posit that furry is a sex thing, and yet maintain that there should not be a shred of sexuality in cartoon animals. Now, obviously, that is a gross generalization, but basically true.
Now, these two groups fail to see the humor in the situation for basically the same reason; furry is solely a fetish to them. A fetish that they are ashamed of. So, the first group denies it, while the second group rejects it. This gives them a skewed view of the "mainstream" perception of furry. In both groups, pure pornography and artistic eroticism are seen as the same thing. The first group are likely to describe a graphic depiction of anal intercourse between two wolves as "erotic," when it is pure smut; the second group is likely to see something along the lines of tailsrulz's nude vixens as porn, when in fact they are works of eroticism. A very odd sort of eroticism, to be sure, and truthfully "fetishistic." But not porn.
The problem with the mainstream is that group A is likely to present unwholesome images that would detract from a non-furry's enjoyment. Group B, meanwhile, is likely to present such wholesome images that a non-furry may find confusion as to what the whole fuss is about. We've all seen cartoon animals; there is nothing especially special about them at this point, unless you add something.
Two important points, here. One, this is not to say that an unprepared audience will not have a negative reaction to a merely "erotic" furry work; tastes vary, and furry is not for everyone. I have a generally negative reaction to the stylized (and often eroticized) look of Japanese cartooning; this does not mean I believe that anime is really a flawed artform(whatever I exaggeratedly say here or elsewhere), it simply means Japanese cartooning is not to my tastes. And two, the "added something" does not necessarily have to be sex; it could be any number of things. Whatever makes it pop. Sexuality is just really obvious.
Okay, so what in the heck does any of this have to do with a proposed TV show (and going back even farther, a T-shirt)? Simply put, most furries, of either group, miss the joke because they are only seeing their fetish object, and are reacting guiltily to it. To a non-furry, the furry art becomes a work of camp; a ridiculous object that takes itself seriously. Object is a good word; furry characters are literally just that. Objects. They are pen and ink and paint and pencil lead and other various art supplies; nothing more. They patently can not exist in reality. And yet, they pretend to be real, and to do the same things people do, up to and including impossibly lusting after each other in seedy, if unreal, strip joints. A furry strip joint is funny simply because it is so probably impossible.
And yet, though the furry fandom misses it most of the time and takes this stuff dead serious, it's very hard to find a good piece of furry artwork that isn't busily winking at the camera (as it were). For instance, all those furry vixen pin-ups? They are all, everyone, visual puns. A foxy lady! Groan. But there it is. It's so bad it's good. Much the same way, a furry strip joint works because they're animals; stripping means taking off clothes. But they're animals! They don't need to wear clothes! Groan. Once again, it's so bad it's good. Furry art makes a lot more sense when you realize it's all a big joke. Complaining that the dialogue isn't very funny during the furry strip scene is beside the point. I was too busy laughing at the over the top audacity of the entire premise to even hear it the first time I saw it.
So, back to my T-shirt. I wanted a furry themed T-shirt for my act. So, I bought one of this guy's T-shirts. You know, one with the ill-definedly gendered fox person in a candy-striper outfit. Because I wanted a furry themed T-shirt, but I wanted to be subtle about it. Had to order it online, of course. So, anyway, this guy sees this T-shirt, does a kind of double take (a fairly negative first glance, actually, but it was just a matter of taste) and says "Whoah, that's a furry T-shirt!" and then we get into a conversation about furry to pass the time until showtime.
Here's the thing I would've liked to ask Mr. TV show guy (if Mitch hadn't run for the hills, that is). Did he ever ask any, you know, real people about his furry show? (Okay, I know he asked some people in TV business about the show, but everybody knows TV people aren't really "real" either.) Because a couple years back I actually got into an argument with Unk Cockroach hisself, and I boldly stated that furry could not only be accepted by the mainstream, but would probably get the first person to do it described as brave.
Well, the word my comedy friend used was "fearless," so I guess I was wrong.
But, after seeing this T-shirt, he confidently predicted that we'd be seeing similar T-shirts at the mall within 2 years. Which, okay, isn't really saying much, 2 years to Hot Topic, whoo, but, you know what, it still looks a lot better than a 30 years supply of gay wolf porn, you know?
You know what my first response was, almost instantly. It was out of my mouth before I could stop it, and, God, I wish I could take it back, because there it was, in black and white and truer than true.
"Oh, the furries would never let that happen."