Honestly, I’m not surprised that any organization of sports would go for this design. It’s not a great or original concept to begin with. It looks like a cereal box mascot.
If i had a penny every time Australia hired someone without knowing WHAT they were getting, i would have 2 pennies
3 pennies if you include this https://youtu.be/cWmSB7QN1UU?feature=shared
Perhaps someone can help me understand the difference between an anthropromorphic animal mascot (which as a tale as old as time) and a furry? When does one cease to be one and becomes another?
There are animal mascots all the time in sports. Why is that not weird, but it’s weird to have a sporty animal mascot for coins?
For me it tends to be realism vs exaggerated qualities? I think these look like furry characters because they have realistic body proportions, structure, and expressions despite the animal faces and features vs something like Mickey Mouse or Sonic the Hedgehog. This allows someone to more easily see in them the physical features humans find attractive, even a lot of subtle ones considering these characters aren’t sexualized in their official art. It’s not perfect and obviously there are people who have cartoonish fursona’s and there’s cartoonish furry porn out there, but it’s a basic observation
The gradient from “cute” to “horny” is difficult to describe, but clear to see.
to me, just some guy, “a furry” is a person with this particular set of desires or sympathies, and an animal mascot is a marketing function of a business. Entirely subjective, reflexive and subject to cross over.
was it made by a person with passion for the art, or a soulless corporation for the purpose of marketing and advertising? Usually, you can tell simply by the quality of the art which it is.
I have no idea but the eyes and the smile definitely give a different vibe than most mascots.
The musculature and hands are what do it for me.
“Nine Inch Nails” has entered the chat…
deleted by creator
“I…innocent soles…”
Well this is what happens when you let fish plan your campaigns.
I’m confused: I thought that awful smell was coming from feet… 🤷♀️
Oftopic, but lately I started to draw some furry ladys and its pretty fun try to make the fur feel smooth in the drawings.
So in recent weeks I’ve learned that furries are a lot more shunned than I thought, and it’s one of those things like Bronies where it’s not the subject of their obsession but the enthusiasm they have for the subject of their fandom.
I grew up with Disney and Warner Brothers classics, read the Albedo comic anthology and a few others, but don’t see myself as a furry enthusiast (contrast my enthusiasm for late 20th century are we the real monsters? science fiction). Furry porn and furry-themed sex fantasies aren’t particularly my scene, but this is true for the majority of furries as well.
But our society has gotten weird about furries and anthros, which I guess became evident when the US right-wing started spreading the litter-boxes in schools canard. Curiously, in the porn media community, animal genital shapes are a controversy, and mainstream media platforms that sell furry porn will not allow for anthros with canine or equine genitals. I think VISA specifically will not allow transactions for such works, which is stunning interventionism both in its overreach and specificity.
And then some social media sites have special rules for furry content, that even SFW furry content can only appear inside furry-inclusive perimeters… unless it’s classical like Warner or Hanna Barbara. Wikipedia refuses to acknowledge Freefall (1998-present) one of the long-running fairly-hard-science-fiction webcomics (that gets into space-travel culture and robot culture), specifically because it has an anthro as a main character, more precisely, a genetically engineered wolf, next to a robot and a non-human trader.
It’s not that furries are weird. It’s that society is weird about furries.
I had an idea that the paws salute should become the official salute of the new resistance (since furries have been marked as a target for fascist enemy within rhetoric), but then trying to do some basic web searches, I couldn’t find a proper conventional name for the pose, nor easy-to-find art of it, even though I’ve seen the gesture made by catgirls often enough to know it’s a thing, and one of the salutes I might consider when standing before the firing squad.
In the last few years, I went from being resignedly a man to being enby, having become disgusted with how dudes obsessed with manhood have conducted themselves in our society. Before, I didn’t care that much, and my own notions of what it was to be a man turned into adulting in the 2010s (take care of business; make sure rent and utilities are paid; don’t do violence, especially when nuclear weapons are involved). Now men look like Matt Walsh and Donald Trump.
I’m not a furry or otherkin (yet), but considering how the furry community is among the untermenschen, I’m half-inclined to develop a fursona for sake of solidarity.
And I still think the paws salute should be the sign of the resistance.
since furries have been marked as a target for fascist enemy within rhetoric
Likewise, fascists have been marked as a target for furry enemy within rhetoric, more or less since the first furries wearing Nazi shit showed up at a con.
The problem is, I only ever see furries when they’re doing weird kink shit. I go to regional burns, and this last one had a small furry audience, not all from the same group. One day I was exploring on my bike and saw one of them doing a shadowbox strip tease. Later, another one (again, from a different group) wander into our camp wearing a diaper and holding a baby bottle. I know that the burn culture can be a little more sex forward, but I only seem to encounter furries at burns, and furries at burns only ever seem to be doing kink stuff.
Well, you’re only seeing a small subset of the culture. Most furries don’t do fursuits or cons or any of that stuff. Most are invisible, just like a brony or a Harry Potter fan or a comic nerd or whatever. It’s just an interest or hobby that you wouldn’t know about unless you knew the person.
I know someone who is into the general aesthetic of SFW “furry” stuff but is a bit weird about it because one of two things happens if she shares some content she likes:
- People turn away because they think she’s into that stuff sexually
- People get way too into engaging with her because they think she’s into that stuff sexually.
Feels like there needs to be some better nuance between “I like furry style SFW art” and “I’m all into furry in the the way people guess”. Not that there’s anything wrong with the latter, but it’s certainly something you should have to explicitly opt into rather than an assumption based on liking or doing a drawing or like wearing an animal ear headband or non-plug tail or something similarly innocuous.
I read somewhere that someone’s attitude to furries is a great litmus test for how tolerant that person actually is (assuming that person isn’t a furry, of course). I’ve always found myself mildly confused by furries (and I used to be somewhat weirded out because I mainly knew of furries because a friend bought a house from drawing furry porn). Hearing the litmus test thing helped me to chill out a bunch and recognise that seeing lots of furries in and adjacent to my community was a sign of a healthy social ecosystem, so to speak
God I need to get better at drawing
I don’t understand them. I doubt I ever will. But I know I do not hate them. They’re doing nothing wrong, hurting no one, leave em be. Simple.
Yes, furries seem to be the new group everyone is ready to hate no matter the political inclination. Gays are accepted more and more, trans people are far from safe, but at least have allies, furries seem to be the easiest target now. I need to learn the paws salute.
Please don’t compare your love for cartoon animals to being lgbt
Tell me you don’t know queer subcultures without telling me you don’t know queer subcultures. Would you like to complain about drag shows while you’re at it? I hear it is very in vogue at the moment.
Why? If someone’s identity as a furry is as much a part of them as your identity as gay, or for that matter, Marcus’ identity as black, isn’t it similar enough a violation that society deems you can’t be that and be a full equal?
This, to me, is the problem. Mystique shouldn’t have to hide her mutant status even though she could.
Disney adult ass reply
What? The reference is pre-Disney.
I’m the one who thinks the scream-extractor is a good symbol for capitalism. Also Buy N Large.
And besides which, do you have a problem with adults who are big into Disney?
While furries aren’t a marginalized group, 99% of furry hate is a proxy for queerphobia and ableism, the criticisms are almost 1:1 with the shit those same people say about queer and autistic folk.
Tbf, furries are ⅔ LGBT.
There’s research on that. Thanks, Canadian goverment.
Edit: ITT: Someone spends 10 fucking hours responding to every single reply thats even remotely empathetic towards furries. This is so sad.
That can be true at the same time as “being a furry doesn’t make you an at risk minority”
I see a huge potential for them to become an at risk minority. Why shouldn’t I defend a group that I think is innocent and under threat? I don’t want them to be next. Bullying of groups of people who do no harm, just want to express themselves in their own way, makes me sick.
Because being a furry is a hobby, engaging in a hobby doesn’t make you a minority.
No matter what happens, you can always stop looking at cartoon animals on the internet, can’t really stop being gay or trans.
This reads to me a lot like “I don’t care what they do in their bedroom, but why do they have to be that way in public?”
Are we gatekeeping being rejected now?
Let’s not tolerate narrowing the spectrum of ways people can enjoy their lives. That’s what totalitarian regimes do. They prohibit this and prohibit that, and in the end, you are only allowed to watch the approved movies, listen to the approved music and wear the approved clothes. You can stop expressing yourself, you can stop engaging in your hobbies, you can stop living the way you want to live, you can survive. But it sucks all happiness from your life.
Wow, bigoted much?
Sorry, furries are weird and will continue to be weird. Not the people who watch furry porn or cosplay furries, but those that actually think their furries and act that lifestyle, or the new buzzword, “identify” as such. It is cringe and indicative of mental health issues.
Yeah! You know what else is weird? You. For picking out a tiny subset of an already tiny community and picking on it like it is at all the norm. I can rip out a million tiny subgroups of groups and say “group” is and always will be weird because of “insert small subgroup here”.
It’s like people who say “I don’t like abortion because it shouldn’t be used as a birth control” like bokay, no one was doing that. Why are you fucking mentioning it?
Fine, I’ll rephrase: Furries that think they’re actually furries, identify as furries or actively take part in furry fantasies that are aside from primarily sexual and stray into more representative roles are weird and will forever be weird.
STOP NORMALIZING MENTAL ILLNESSES!
Your rephrase is a double down on your own absolute inability to tell fact from fiction. Stop being weird dude. Make a furry friend and talk to a human being Bout this shit rather than just letting your sexual fantasies about them go wild
Mental illness is normal in 2024, especially in the United States, which continues to go though a mental illness epidemic. The mental health sector of the world is looking at the results of the 2024 general election and noting the corellation not just of social and family dysfunction but intergenerational mental illness handed down through abuse and isolation, as a possible factor in the election results elevating a known threat to US democratic features to President of the United States.
While there may be correlation between mental illness and furry identity (I haven’t seen any data based assertion this is true) that still would not indicate causality. Interest in TTRPGs correlates since gaming can serve to aleviate symptoms, distract from trauma, and give people with social deficiencies a mechanism by which to express themselves safely.
Besides, there is a notable similarity when calling furry identity a mental illness is juxtaposed to the classic assumtion that LGBT+ identities were indicative of mental illness.
That said, some of us are actually diagnosed and contend with symptoms like suicidality and interpersonal dysfunction, so please don’t use mental illness as a subject of derision or contempt. We aren’t 1980s era slasher antagonists.
Fair enough, you may have misunderstood my initial statement. I will once again clarify. I meant to say to stop validating abnormal behaviours that are likely mental illnesses. Now, you can make the claim that if someone wants to act like a furry even though it might be a mental illness, then let them be. But i know that if i ever had a child that exhibited these tendencies, i would want them to seek help for it, because it is NOT NORMAL - at least in my opinion.
Also, I don’t mean to say that there’s a mental illness necessarily causing these tendencies, rather it is the fact that these furry tendencies - the ones that I’ve described - are in and of themselves a mental illness.
It’s entirely possible that i am wrong, and that it is not a mental illness, but i would bet big money that it is one.
How about you chill?
SFW furry? There’s kinda no such thing.
If it’s identifiably furry then it tells me something about you and your sexual preferences that I didn’t want to know. The same if you had a Bad Dragon sticker or an Ahegao sweatshirt. Just because it doesn’t have explicit nudity doesn’t mean it’s not sexual and doesn’t mean it’s appropriate.
Y’all want to do things anonymously on the internet, great. Y’all want to have conferences or get together in spaces that support that, also great. You should absolutely have those spaces. But so many furries that I’ve met overshare about it. Don’t use your fursona as your work profile pic. Don’t tell me you’re a furry when I didn’t ask anything remotely related. Don’t openly thirst over Judy Hopps. Ain’t nobody going around saying “I like tentacles and I’m proud of it” - take a note.
I know multiple furries personally who are asexual. You are speaking out your ass and fetishizing furries out of your own sexual repression.
SFW furry? There’s kinda no such thing.
You realize that you’re the one sexualizing them, right?
There absolutely are people who have a fursona or participate in the fandom in completely SFW ways. A fursona tells you exactly nothing about their sexual preferences. Honestly you sound exactly like homophobes insisting that two boys holding hands is obscene. Just because you equate a fursona with sex doesn’t mean that every furry thinks the same way.
Your point comparing furry haters to homophobes struck true to me. I don’t know much about furries, but I live in the home of anthrocon and the annual furry parade is one of the most wholesome things this city has. Families and kids love to see all the costumes, and furries are some of the nicest folks I’ve met. I’m always a bit taken aback when people call them perverts - it seems like a harmless hobby to me.
From Wikipedia:
Another survey at a furry convention in 2013 found that 96.3% of male furry respondents reported viewing furry pornography, compared with 78.3% of females.
I don’t have an issue with gay people. I don’t have an issue with anybody existing or being who they are. I have an issue with repeatedly learning sexual things I didn’t want to know about people, which has happened multiple times with furries specifically. Maybe I’ve been unlucky or something, but my experience has been that furries far more than other groups overshare and don’t respect reasonable boundaries around this.
There’s some self selecting bias there, going to a ‘furry convention’ is a rather steeper level of engagement than just, say, looking at a webcomic featuring art like this mascot here.
Those more hard core sexual furries scare off casual furries as well as folks a bit timid about being associated with the most… Forthcoming portion of the fandom.
It’s rough on some as they want to engage without sexual interest in the aesthetic, but as a result get grouped in with those with a sexual interest. They want to identify as something, and furry is closest, but they aren’t into the sexual facet and struggle with that broad association.
People who read a lot of books often enjoy the occasional smut. People who watch anime are probably more likely to watch hentai. It’s not really surprising that people’s passions and hobbies leak into their choice of pornography.
What in the useless statistics Batman? So because a large percentage of people who identify as furries have viewed (not actively view, not prefer, quite simply have viewed) furry pornography, the entire furry community must be a sex thing? That misses more than a few possibilities. Fuck, I’ve seen gay porn, and I’m not gay. As far as “learning something sexual about someone”, unless you’re calling learning someone has a fursona learning something sexual about them, this whole thing is a non-sequiter based entirely on anecdotal experience.
I like Dusk: an elysian tail. Its a nice game with fun mechanics. And is a SFW furry game, just the people its animal like.
Another day, another sensationalization of the sexual aspects of a queer subcultures. If it’s not the “inherent sexualization of discussing gay people”, or trans people as "autogynephillia and autoandrophillia’, it’s furries or kink at pride. It’s really disheartening hearing the same tools of oppression being deployed over and over again.
What about people proudly showing things like this: 🏳️🌈
Please. I’d rather not learn anything sexual about a person.
/S
Sure. Lots of people do that as allies too and it’s just a flag.
Now say you did a rainbow flag shaped like a penis - that I would take some issue with.
I hella want the coins. 😩
All countries need official fursonas; can’t change my mind.
Hungary should have the mangalica, it’s a furry pig, and it fits sooo well.
🇩🇪: German Sheppard (obviously)
I agree with that, at the very least more countries should have them.
It’s called a national animal
Nope. Animals aren’t fursonas. A fox fursona isn’t a fox. Fursonas are anthropomorphic.
Your mom is anthropomorphic
You’re not wrong…
Let’s just anthropomorphize the animals then
Oh yes!
FYI: anthropomorphic just means it has human-like qualities of any kind. It can still be a regular looking animal and talk like, or behave like a human to be anthropomorphic.
All countries need official moës as well. If not, moës will be made for them.
Moldova=sheep/goat
What’s wrong with having a furry mascot exactly? I mean the Japanese Air force had a furry mascot for one of their bases, not only is he a furry but also a femboy. His name is Omaneko (おまねこ)
Omaneko images
Google’s translation of the text in the first pic:
Motif: Omaezaki City’s tourist attraction “Nekozuka”
A member of the 1st Nyanya Police Force. He is currently stationed at the base because he wants to play with the radar dome.
-
Height is 176cm or 40m. Good at sports but not good at water.
-
It is male
Is that tall? I like it more now
-
not only is he a furry but also a femboy
Are you sure it isn’t the navy?
Japanese Air Self Defense Force (JASDF)
Yeah I’m sure about that.
It was a joke.
I love him 😍
He is very cute.
Bizarrely, I had never heard of this before, and I am Australian. So maybe it was released, but maybe quietly swept under the rug?
Same here! I thought it must’ve been for the Brisbane Olympics, not the ones bloody 4 years ago.
I’m in the same boat as you
I remember when this happened, and I remember that post on particular from the artist. I’m not certain they swept it under the rug on purpose, but we certainly haven’t seen them since.
Side note, the Paralympics mascot is fine and I’m only a little bit fur-curious, lol.
This has such MSI “there will be no bad dragons on my watch” vibes.
Weird. A real thing that somehow made it through every level… This is truly a remarkable example of the Swiss cheese model in action.
I give you, an eBay listing: https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/314945286881
I don’t see why any level, even knowing “furry” would find these particular designs “objectionable” and worthy of rejecting. They aren’t even vaguely fetishized.
Why would it be a hazard or remarkable or even something special that it “made through”… It’s just a mascot, and a good one as well
TIL Swiss cheese model
I don’t see why any level would go “Oh furries are going to love this, and we can’t have that” and change the design.
How many NBA mascots would lose their jobs if we were all so uptight about shit like this?
This guy is safe
If I’m put in charge, that guy is the first to go.
I feel unsafe looking at that picture.
The girl looks uncomfortable being next to it too
Displaying that mascot qualifies as large scale mental abuse.
Agreed, @sangriaferret@sh.itjust.works would be best if you wrap that image in a spoiler.
Giant zombie baby from Dead Alive?
Based on the photos of the mascots, there’s no way they didn’t hire a furry to draw those.
It’s funny how it’s so distinctly “furry” over just “animal mascot” but I can’t put my finger on the details that make it so
$50 all in w/ shipping to the US‽
Jesus take the wheel I’m about to make some poor financial decisions
Lizard kinda cute tho 👀
That’s Lizzie! She’s adorable!!
She’s the Paralympics mascot, and a frilled lizard! Her frill is shaped like Australia!
Bravo. The long con. Masterfully executed.
Those poor innocent feet
