Furries & Omegaverse: Why Are They So Popular?

In this episode, we dive deep into the world of furries, examining statistics, incidents, and stereotypes surrounding the furry community. We discuss a chlorine gas leak at a furry convention, the financial aspect of fursuits, and societal perceptions of furries. We also explore the growing trend of Omegaverse fiction, its appeal, and its comparison to the furry fandom. The discussion delves into anthropological aspects, psychological perspectives, and the intersection with other subcultures. The episode addresses parental concerns, societal norms, and the evolving nature of digital communities.

Speaker: [00:00:00] You're too late. Our spread has already begun. The planet will fall, just like every other before it. I understand, you were a human once. But you were once called

Speaker 2: DON'T YOU SAY THAT NAME! DON'T YOU SAY IT! I'm Strong Fang now! First in my name! My power knows no bounds! I can even almost blow myself! Watch.

Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. Today, we are going to do a deep dive into furries because recently I came across some, some furries statistics on furries that dramatically changed my conception of the phenomenon.

Speaker 8: The Chicago Tribune, 19 people were hospitalized at a furry convention in Illinois after what's being called an intentional leak of chlorine gas. What's a furry convention? Did I get that wrong? Oh gosh. Okay. Officials were called when I spoke. [00:01:00] Strong overflorines. What? Spread them.

Speaker 12: I think they had to evacuate the building and everything. Set the hotel guests, along with convention attendees, into the cold night. Many still dressed in their furry, furry costumes. We have a lot of costumers out here with big, fluffy costumes that'll keep people warm. So at this point, we're not at all worried.

Speaker 10: So we've been pulling people into a, like, a cuddle to like warm this baby. Thank you. And giving her our jackets and blankets. Yes. We just told Mika what the convention was about. She's Costumes kept everybody warm was the good news. The hotel was contaminated. Where you going? Hey! Guests came back and died at 4 a.

Speaker 12: m. Please still come back. The matter is a criminal case. Could you check? Could you check on me? Because he's just okay. She's over there somewhere.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. We talked about them before in like super early episodes, but I'm really glad to be coming back to it, especially after how much fun we [00:02:00] had doing the weird subcultures episode focused on which is steal people's fear. Check out that episode because now there's a new fear that pronatalists are stealing people's penises in Africa.

And, and some people might be like, why would I engage in sort of what they may see as weird fetish territory, right? Like, why is it important to understand this stuff as our society increasingly descends into more. You could say moral degeneracy and there are a number of reasons probably the biggest is if you have kids

Stuff like this is going to have a very different role in their life than it had in your life because what furries fundamentally represent for a lot of people is the idea that they can portray a different and pseudonymous personality and build relationships around the pseudonymous personality The problem being is that fursuits cost 10, [00:03:00] 000.

Well, like, you know, I'd say like, what does it say here? Between two and 10, 000. So furries are funnily pretty loaded. The ones who like get super into it. And this is

Simone Collins: something that came up at last year's natal con that when we were talking about, well, what segments of the population are otherwise socially isolated, but really incompetent.

Aside from autists, cause everyone had realized that the conference was disproportionately autistic and that pronatalist groups should probably target high competence, high, high wealth people and a very prominent person on Twitter who I'm not going to name because it was, you know, we want to respect Chatham House rules pointed out that furries are just like typically really put together competent people with a lot of money to your point.

Those costumes are not cheap.

Malcolm Collins: Well, actually, this brings a thing where the stereotype of the furry differentiates pretty heavily when you're talking about, like, the every furry, Simone.

Which is to say that the stereotype of the [00:04:00] furry is that they are incredibly socially bad, like, stupid people. They are incompetent.

They are like the

Simone Collins: Furcon people.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So the Furcon people, and this is important to understand is this is a stereotype that will develop around any community that doesn't have high barriers to entry. Because individuals who are expelled from all other communities begin to spend an increasing amount of time with that community, which creates this stereotype.

So whether it is. Furries or train collectors or people who go to dog shows or any of that, you're going to begin to develop this stereotype. Whereas the stereotype of put together are typically communities that have like a, a cost barrier to entry, like some amount of money barrier to entry which furries do to some extent or their communities that have some other barrier to entry.

Like one of the things that always pointed out is neuroscientists. Are unusually attractive like people who get when I was in getting like neuroscience degrees It was one of the most like attractive on average [00:05:00] degrees at the school And this was because it was harder to get into than other degrees the people in it were more put together because it was harder to get into than the other programs and that was a program I went to that's why I mentioned it.

And I I think that that defies a lot of the stereotypes there So I think what you might be seeing with your friend here who's saying this is some sub But Culture of furries that likely has a barrier to entry that he is familiar with and not maybe the general furry community. But because furries, there's definitely mega cringe throughout the furry community.

Oh, for sure.

Simone Collins: Yes, that's

Malcolm Collins: true. I'd point out is, well, I mean, let's

Simone Collins: also point out though. There is also make a cringe throughout the autistic community. So there's some kind of striation going on,

Malcolm Collins: right? So the pseudonymous identity is going to become increasingly inexpensive to access for the next generation because of a VR online spaces and the amount of people who have their primary social network.

In an online environment. And you as a [00:06:00] parent can say, well, my kids shouldn't have that. And I'm like, yeah, but did you still do the COVID lockdown? Did you still, you know, like the, the world today has made it systemically difficult for many kids to build friendships outside of offline environments and the friendships they're going to build was in online environments are often going to be better matched to their interests.

Because they get to choose sub interest communities from any group in the world, instead of the people who happen to be in their church group or their school. And so if you do not understand these communities,

Speaker 2: This This cannot be where it

Speaker: all started. Anyone would admit she's pretty hot. It's a totally normal reaction. That doesn't make me a furry.

Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh

Rola was the beginning, but she's not the source. [00:07:00] She merely awakene