On that note, becoming a furry is one of the things I see as a detriment towards the individual's personality. You integrate yourself into a group that primarily handles sexual matters alongside a culture that you would have to follow, unless you like shunning. You can argue the fact that some groups do encourage more positive growth in a person than negative, and yes that does happen. The furry group, however, promotes more negative growth than it does positive.
Thing is, this stuff is relative. Compared to joining Latin Scholar club? I can see an argument here. But way too specific to function as a stress relief for a wider demographics. And not very accessible overall.
Playing MTG? It's Ok, but have problems of its own. Plus, it's a primordial lootbox game. Plus, cardboard cutouts can cost more than an art comission. Some of them needed in groups of 4.
Church of Scientology? Furries, no discussion. At least in furries you would get a funy dog picture for every 100$ invested. And more cohesive worldbuilding in fanfiction.
And all this ranking makes sense only if there's a conscious decision, aka "Today, after throughly considering all present options, I've decided to become a furry. Now I will go to GlobalFur office to fill papers and get a membership card". I belive, most of the time it's not like this. Process of joining is sequential. Not much one can do, espechially a troubled individual. In the end, furry shit might just resonate with someone on a subconscious level. There's not many options here, unless wearing an itchy shirt and other methods of self-flagelation are considered.
As for sexual themes, main problem is that the younger side of the fandom may contact it. There's no easy solution to it, as long as children are allowed on the internet. The ones to discuss basics of sex ed with children are their parents. Parents also should become more in touch with how internet works. My parents told me about not going to the bad parts of the city, not going anywhere with strangers, etc. Same should be applied to the internet, at the very least. Internet advisory guides for children and parents should be made and promoted untill that stuff becomes common knowlege. I'm pretty sure that some board of education officials are supposed to do exactly that, as in investigate the situation and develop guidelines. And even still it boils down to mutual trust between parents and children.
There is a distinct childness present in nearly every furry group imaginable, with petty issues being bloated to massive problems.
I'd say sounds like modern day internet. Furry dramas are just exotic to a non-furry.
Further, whilst the group encourages creative freedom, it ironically removes any freedom a person might have when creating art. Since it's furry, every piece of art should have some kind of animal in it. You can only draw so many pastel-colored wolves before its unoriginal. And pray tell, even if you did create something wholly original, what prevents others from stealing it, posting said steal and claiming *you* stole the concept?
That's an issue of when an individual in question would learn when and how to say "bitch, please". An overall usefull skill, in my opinion. Fundamentially, same shit happens everywhere in society. Additionally, let me press F in remembrance of all the stolen memes.
Further, the idea of 'being accepted by the community as you are' is abhorrent. Yes, morally and ethically this idea sounds solid. In practice, however, this leads to all sorts of unsavourable individuals seeking asylum in the group. I believe I don't need to present evidence of that in this forum, but another group that attempted the same was the bronies. Look how that panned out.
Yes, that's a problem. But this acceptance is what makes a troubled individual join. Not much we can do.
Additionally, furries are not a group(shit would've been much easier, if they were), but an amount of groups that are interconnected with an amount of other groups from the same pool, somewhat united by the appreciation of anthropomorphic and unreal animals. What I am trying to say is, furry fandom can be drasticly different in different parts of it. And in which exact part separate individual will land is a question of a coin toss. Multidimensional coin, but still very random.
I don't believe the fandom creates less-than-ideal individuals, rather the group atmosphere amplifies the already present problems in a person. Further, the reputation of the group will have some effect upon the members of such groups. How would a person think about being apart of the same group that have active pedophiles/zoophiles that have been exposed and arrested? You can argue this for every group, that a single individual's action (or that of a small cliche of said group) does not represent the whole of the group. Then again, I haven't heard of a creative group that habours multiple persons capable of decapitating a puppy's corpse then fucking it's head.
It tends to stick with you.
Yes, I somewhat agree with you. It's more people with pre-existing tendencies tend to enter fandom, then fandom molding wierdos out of normies. Again, nothing can be done, and only god knows, how these tendencies play out in different conditions.
As for stigma by association, ask politicans, espechially the higher-positioned segment. I tell you this: I'll trust a furry before I'll trust a politican. If politicans wouldn't had dedicated PR teams and were as carefree as furries, hoo boy, we would've been living in a perpetual reality-shit-show, even worse and more hillarious than the one we're currently in.
