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If you want to know more about what Furry is all about and what we mean when we say Embrace The Fringe, then read on!
the fringe is where it all starts
Everything you're here to see used to be considered weird.
Comic books were investigated by the government. Science fiction was for nerds. Cartoons and anime were either for children or decidedly not.All of that stuff (and more) now brings over 130,000 people to San Diego willing to stand in long lines in mid-July to participate.Furry is sort of sitting where those things used to sit. A little weird, a little out there, and nobody quite knows what to do with it.
What you think is cool was once fringe.
And what's fringe right now is the future of cool.
It's actually not that weird at all. It is simply a genre at the intersection of community and culture.
Furry is a Community
Furry has grown into a huge worldwide creator-first economy with measurable impact on society
When Sofawolf started in 1999, we were the only full-service publisher in the fandom. There are now Furry publishers in countries around the world, publishing award winning books and graphic novels.The population who consider themselves part of the Furry community has nearly tripled since 2018. There are more than 140 conventions worldwide, generating hundreds of millions of dollars in economic activity.Today you'll find makers working in linocut and risograph printing, fiber arts, pottery, woodworking, and countless other crafts. Beyond that are authors, artists, DJs, dancers, performers, musicians, and creators of every kind. If there's an art form or creative craft, chances are somebody in the Furry community is doing it—and doing it exceptionally well.
The only thing tying it all together is that there's an animal in there somewhere.
Anthrocon (a Furry convention in Pennsylvania in early July) is one of the biggest business weekends downtown Pittsburgh gets all year. And it’s not just Furries; thousands of locals come into downtown on Saturday to watch the Fursuit Parade and stay all day.Businesses love us. It's a crowd that shows up to have a good time (for many Furries a convention IS their yearly vacation) and goes home without leaving a mess.Meanwhile the cons themselves partner with charities every year and donate hundreds of thousands of dollars doing it.
furry is a culture
Community can exist without culture; but culture is what turns community into found family
Furry grew its own culture, organically, over decades, and we believe it rests on three pillars:
Freedom of Identity
The Furry experience starts with one question: what would your life be like if you were someone, or something, else?For some that's a Fursona. For others that can become a Fursuit (or quite often many different ones). For Therians that can be a belief that you embody the soul of an animal. Others imagine themselves as synthetic beings where technology becomes just another canvas for self-expression.It's imagination, and it's play, and it's serious, and it's all of that and more.It's also why furry ended up so far out in front on questions of gender and identity. Furries feel free to explore their identities and be accepted doing so.
Acceptance & Support
We embrace difference and we build found family.Sure, we're not perfect at it. Any time you get a hundred thousand people together you get problems, and we've got ours.But as a general rule this is a crowd that understands neurodivergence, that's years ahead on accessibility and safe spaces, and that starts from the assumption that different people need different things in order to thrive.We also support each other. If a Furry runs into a tight spot there are countless individuals eager to help them get out of it. The broad professional expertise of Furries means there is almost always an expert standing by.
Creative Expression
We're fans of ourselves and we're fans of each other.Beginners get supported. People share techniques, honest critique, and a lot of patience, because everybody here remembers being bad at it first. And it doesn't stop there.The boundaries of creativity are always expanding to include new technologies and new mediums. Furries are at the forefront of Virtual Reality world building and technology.We are suspicious of anything that looks like outside influence, censorship, corruption, value-extraction, or threats to the livelihoods of creators.
Any shared interest can build a community. It takes something more to build a culture.
furry is a genre
Before there could be a Culture or a Community there needed to be a shared interest around which to form.In terms of storytelling, the most basic requirement is to have one or more characters crucial to the plot who are non-human animals, hybrids, or animal-like entites, possess free will, and have their own agency.Past that, it can be anything: SF&F, mystery, romance, horror, sports, urban fantasy, contemporary or historical fiction. It appears in every form of media: writing, audio, digital, graphic novels, playable novels, virtual reality, animation, music, plays, and puppetry.These characters are more than a visual style, though. They are a storytelling devices that allows creators to explore themes of identity, belonging, prejudice, empathy, and the human condition from a different perspective. You may recognize some of these mainstream examples.Zootopia - An all-animal world with realistic complexities around culture, commerce, social status and climate needs. Also deeply concerned with freedom of identity.Judy struggles to rise above the role that is expected of her, while Nick is beat down by the world and accepts his.
“If the world’s only gonna see a fox as shifty and untrustworthy, there’s no point in trying to be anything else.”
Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts - A human alone and aboveground in a world full of dangerous Mutes, Kipo almost immediately makes friends with just about everyone she meets.She refuses to take things on face value and sticks to her belief that everyone is worth another chance.
"You don’t deserve my help. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from Kipo, it’s that I should help you anyway."
Ratatouille - Remy also chooses to pursue an identity that is in direct opposition to his place in the world. But he does so out of an intense desire to create and explore and bring joy into the world in the form of food.He pursues that creative desire and with the help of his family, both real and found, he manages to convince critic Anton Ego to reconsider his outlook on the world.
So Embrace the Fringe
Right now there is enormous pressure to "fix" the country so that everybody thinks the same, acts the same, and above all learn to avoid standing out or asking questions.That's the future getting strangled, quietly, before anybody gets to start thinking that maybe things could be better.Comic-Con, as big as it has become, is still the antidote to that way of thinking. Over 130,000 people come here to spend their days celebrating and engaging with the weird and the wonderful.Nobody needs to fix that.So... Embrace the fringe. Protect the weird. Go be curious about something you don't understand yet.I'll leave you with these final words from Anton Ego.
"The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends."
Okay, so where can i find furry stuff?
We're Sofawolf Press. We've been publishing Furry fiction for over 25 years. We've produced and released over 120 titles, several of which have been major award nominees, and one of which won a Hugo award.But it's not just about us. We've brought along a selection of titles from some of the other publishers that have grown up in the Furry fandom just like we did. We also have titles from non-Furry small presses and creator self-publishers that we feel exemplify Furry media.If you haven't been by the booth at Comic-Con yet, we are #1236. Stop in let us know what you are curious about and we'll help you find it.If you want to find us online, here is the contact information for us and all our Comic-Con partner publishers.
Sofawolf Press
Want to hear more about all this?
We're in the process of building a thing. A great thing.If you want to follow along while we build it, sign up Sofawolf's Newsletter Off Leash: Building the Furry Media Future.
ONE last THING
Why did we choose street art?Keith Haring became known for his white chalk drawings in the empty ad panels of NYC subways. He had a bold, unique energetic style that people loved and supported, even as some considered it vandalism.He also believed that art and expression belonged to everybody and hated the gatekeeping around it, which is about as Furry a position as you can take.