UPDATE: can’t help but to notice not ONE of you have answered the question you just keep telling me about furries. I want an answer to why so many people are role playing as aninals
Where are ppl doing that?
Where is this happening?
Are you not an animal? Be you vegetable or mineral?
People who have a fetish for domestication or infantilization usually have a desire to relinquish control in a controlled environment.
Appropriate answer: Escapism.
Lemmy answer: people want to fuck animals.
Are they? Im partial to elven or half elven druids.
Sometimes I roleplay as an adult human animal.
You mean as animals, instead of humans with animal features? I don’t know what specifically you’re talking about, but usually it springs from a desire to play with traits the animals are assumed to have. The less they’re playing at being a human with fur or echolocation or whatever, the more it’s about a desire to disconnect from human responsibilities and worries.
Some people who have been abused in a way that resembles how humans treat animals (assumption of stupidity, obedience required with the assumption you’re incapable of understanding why you need to do things, etc) will play at it when they’re free of it as a way to process the shitty way they were treated in a way they can control.
But it mostly seems to stem from a desire to not think about human concerns for a while, and just exist in your body as we assume animals do.
UPDATE: can’t help but to notice not ONE of you have answered the question you just keep telling me about furries. I want an answer to why so many people are role playing as aninals
I think you’ll need to be a little clearer about what you think the distinction is here. What is “animal roleplay” to you? Where are you seeing it being done?
Imma guess, like most things it seems, they always have been, we just see it more thanks to the internet.
This is an interesting point and makes me wonder: are there historical accounts of furries in history? I guess you could count things like werewolf stories, maybe, but that seems like a stretch…? I get the feeling I’m describing an existing field of study and hope there’s something to read about it?
Egyptians and native Americans dressed up as animals… Or maybe I’m very uneducated and this racist.
But does that count as “furry?” I guess? If so, then yeah, tons of furries throughout time. I don’t know enough about it. I guess I’m realizing I presume that furry is a sexual thing, which I think is probably incorrect? I don’t even know enough to be asking about it. I can recall plenty of examples of people looking back at historical figures and being like, “yep, definitely gay,” but I can’t recall any examples of, “yep, total furry.” That’s all I’m trying to say. I presume they must be out there.
Lots, this kind of thing goes back deep into pre-history. I mentioned in another comment in this thread that the oldest known sculpture is of a furry and the oldest known cave painted art is furry art. Lots of gods and creatures of myth are human/animal hybrids of various sorts, or straight up animal spirits.
Linking anthropomorphized animals to furry culture is quite a stretch. Even old tribal cultures where they might wear animal skins/skulls for rituals doesn’t even really have much in common with what people are doing in fur suits today.
Furries are a modern example of anthropomorphic animals in culture. It’s a convenient shorthand.
Someone in ancient times carving a piece of art that’s a bear-man has virtually nothing to do with this:
Trying to link the two is disingenuous.
OP has been singularly unclear about what exactly he means by “role playing as animals” in the first place, so I don’t see the problem here.
True. I feel like there must be a book out there. Because I’m secretly hoping for like…Socrates admitting he dressed as a hung fox or whatever (JUST AN EXAMPLE).
No. When i was growing up, never saw this ever and the internet was still around. This is something else
There are photos of my grandparents dressing up as animals for carnival back when they were living under communist rule so before the Internet. I found them when I was clearing out their house bc they moved to a retirement home. And I think if my ancestors had the ability to make photos of everything they were doing I bet someone already did the same thing before them. And since festivities like carnival also come with an easy atmosphere and quite some alcohol consumption I would not be suprised if they also did some roleplaying if they were already wearing the costumes why not.
The Internet now just brings these communities together and makes them more visible I’d say
Dunno how old you are, but we got internet when I was about ten years old and lemme tell you it’s always been there.
Fredryk phox disagrees
I’m a squirrel… no further questions
fair
Being savvy enough to be on the Internet must mean you have a helluva nut collection!
You buy special nuts from around the globe?
Sure, I “buy” them
Hmmm, so, you can Pirate the nuts? 😉
No further questions
If you’re not talking about furries, then you’re gonna need to use more words to ask your question. Who is role playing animals, under what circumstances. Are you talking about a game? Are you making political commentary? Street Theater? Help us help you.
OH, are they maybe talking about all of the inflatable animal costumes worn by protesters in the US? There’ve been a lot of pictures of that recently due to the No Kings protest over the weekend.
@OP If this is what you mean, it’s part of a protest movement. It’s a symbol, and it’s making a mockery of the narrative that the protesters are violent extremists. It was popularized by one individual in a frog costume standing up to riot-geared police, and it took off in a big way last weekend all over the country.
Possible. I’d hardly call that role playing, but I could see it.
OP should take the chance to clear that up for us.
…? you mean us furries? why are there so many furries? lol
if so, the human fascination with animals is ancient. over time we began attributing human traits to their behaviors and started connecting to them on personal and spiritual levels. then we started making art depicting those anthropomorphic animals on cave walls.
furries simply inhabit a persona (fursona) to express themselves behind the security of the confidence being that character gives them. a lot of us feel like our fursona is an ideal representation of ourselves. it helps us connect to our own personhood, strangely.
it’s also fun and can be sexy if ya want.
I think it is interesting that relatively recently it became possible for furries to wear suits that allow them to express themselves in this manner. How many people throughout human history wished to be able to do this, but couldn’t because the “technology” simply wasn’t there?
i agree heh. i’m glad i’m a furry during a good time to be one. also, with more tech we get more advanced suits and species like protogens can exist IRL. there’s a lot of suit makers too, so there’s tons of unique styles. it’s neat.
Um, no idea what you mean. 👉👈😅
The oldest known sculpture is of a furry, and the oldest known cave painted art is furry art. We’ve been imagining what it’s like to not be human for as long as we’ve been human. Nothing weird about it unless people want to make it weird.
it seems like a huuuuge stretch to call either of those “furry art”.
Given that OP has ended with a complete lack of clarity in what his question actually means, I see no further point in discussing details like this.
So a sculpture depicting a feline standing on it’s hind legs which they do when reaching up a tree is a furry to you?
Did you actually look at the image of the sculpture? It’s not reaching up. It’s just standing.
How about you all answer the question
Wild cats are known to stand for better perspectives when hunting, although rarely caught thats why that sculpture which by the way surely isn’t 40,000 is depicting the rare event. It’s not a furry lol
You have yet to present a particularly well-formed question for me to answer. You still haven’t even clarified your original post’s question, what exactly do you mean by people “role playing as animals?”
Probably because humanity has become so pathetic. /S
I don’t think humanity is pathetic. What makes you say that?
It’s true, humans fighting humans just to reclaim borders from some point in the history. A country cheers on autocratic behavior of their leader. The planet itself is dying because humanity consumes more resources to than it can restore. The universe would do us a favor if the heat death happens sooner than prognosed.
[gestures broadly at everything]
