![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
And now a bit of fans acting like fans, so sane people might want to just skip all of this and go somewhere else, because it's just me gawking at fans being ridiculous in the way fans of things often are.
FurAffinity is an often-functioning web site for people in the furry fandom to mostly share art and stories and occasionally music. A couple years ago they started a little user-grown tradition of Fat Bunny Week, dedicated to exactly what it says on the label. I would imagine that on learning this, you have either reaction (1), ``Oh, that's cute'', or (2), ``Yeah, whatever''. This is because you're not part of the fandom.
See, over on the as-official-as-it-gets announcement of the winning banner for the thing, and talk about raffles and trading cards and other related stuff, there's been a fascinating outpouring of This Is Horrible talk. Part of that is because in any online group people doing anything arouses violent opposition, since ... I don't know. The attitude that you have a responsibility to stop people from having fun you personally don't like is one of the less respectable traits that people have. But you see this turn up in the people saying, ``what's so special about fat bunnies? Why not something else?'' and the repeated explanations that if you want to have a week celebrating whatever, just hold one, anyone can do it.
At least part of the expressed opposition is based on This Is Promoting A Fetish. That's understandable, as both fatness and rabbits are fetishes among furries. Other things which are fetishes include non-fatness, skinniness, non-skinniness, non-rabbits, semi-rabbits, frogs, changing rapidly back and forth between skinniness and fatness, blue, sunlight, computers, sharks, flatness, sphericity, tea, Arrested Development, eyeglasses, plastic, toes, bottles, tape, gold, eating, not eating, paint, beach balls, Tron, propeller-driven fighter planes, clowns, communes, bees, carousel figures, bioluminescence, and trees. There's a streak in furry fandom which is terrified that someone is going to find out about all these fetishes, probably because it's very hard to explain what furries are fans of exactly --- really, the furry fandom is a bunch of people who are fans of each other --- and the salacious stuff gets attention from those outside the fandom because, ah, it's salacious and weird stuff, and it's always embarrassing to explain why someone you know (or even you yourself) have this particular kink. (I'll admit that if you follow the link above there's a good chance you'll see a rotating banner ad I'm embarrassed you'll associate with me.) Some have gone out working out ways to filter out the banner from their pages for a week so they won't have to see such disgraceful outputs of a deranged mind as ... well, let me hide it behind a lj-cut so as to spare your sensibilities.
Whew. Anyway, I'm just looking in wonder at a really glorious bit of Fans Making Much Out of ... What, Exactly? And I suppose it's not really doing anything good to point and snicker, but when you see something like the claim that stuff like Fat Bunny Week has ``made thousands move to Weasyl'' (another furry art site), ah ... yeah. I just wanted to share the wonder of all this.
Trivia: By the end of 1942 about 30 percent of printed matter sent to military bases was comic books. Source: Men of Tomorrow, Gerard Jones.
Currently Reading: Astounding Days, Arthur C Clarke. I took it to read while on vacation and we did stuff instead of reading, mostly.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-19 04:21 am (UTC)I could, actually, from personal knowledge cite an example of exactly this...
(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-19 06:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-20 02:39 am (UTC)(I'm not finding out, mind. Fat Bunny week, IMHO, is goofy but harmless enough of goofy.)
(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-21 04:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-19 06:53 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-21 04:38 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-19 07:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-19 09:49 am (UTC)Sonic. And Pokemon. You can't truly be part of The Fandom (play appropriate musical fanfare here) if you post pictures of these characters... Except Tails, who is included in many, er, "situations." :D
Fat bunnies, or diapered bunnies for that matter, aren't to my liking, but there's a scroll key for that. Hmmm, maybe fat Sonics and diapered Pokemon Week next?
(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-21 04:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-21 12:46 pm (UTC)My favorite (snore) "I remember when..." story is my tale of mentioning Barney (dinosaur type) in a chat room. The general discussion was negative, so I decided to drop a positive comment (big happy fursuiter, kids love him, that sort of thing) and I realized then what everyone else probably already recognized: no one cared because the point of the discussion was to agree on how bad the guy was, not to try to defend him. This wasn't even a discussion: there's probably a program that could emulate this sort of flaming that would put the offending item's name into predetermined negative comments and keep them running down the page (like a chatterbot, only not "designed to simulate an intelligent conversation").
(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-26 04:58 pm (UTC)I'm amused as well that someone countered 'Fat bunny week' with 'Fit bunny week', which happens at the same time and has no difference other than the bunnies are shown doing healthy exercising things.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-26 06:44 pm (UTC)MLP has steam-rolled through all manner of social networks.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-29 02:00 am (UTC)Uncertain if this will occur with Bronies. This is *different*, in some significant ways (Bronycon this year? over 8,000 attendees. 50% larger than Anthrocon.).
(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-29 07:09 pm (UTC)I loved MLP initially, but not to the degree of worship. I think I missed most of season 3. I'm lucky if I can name the "Mane 6" and generally butcher names (like Twilight Princess and Rainbow Flash).
(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-19 10:04 am (UTC)All those who oppose "Fat Bunny Week" actually have knowledge about the Sekrit War™, but don't want to tip their hand to the common Fluffy Enemy.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-21 04:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-19 04:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-20 01:35 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-21 04:48 am (UTC)