Welcome to Furrystuff.com! This is the most recent incarnation of my attempt to create a Furry website. Originally (several years ago), furrystuff.com was going to be a “portal” for the furry community on-line. For those who grew up with Google and Web 2.0 (and beyond), a Portal was a special website that had an easily searched/remembered name that provided links and comments to a special-interest on-line community. Back in the day (steam-powered computers), web searches were crude and obtaining obvious site names was difficult. Much of the content of Furry interest was buried on personal websites or in members-only subsets of the Internet (like AOL). For example, someone new to the fandom would not think to search for “VCL” to find the original Furry art archive. My original concept was simple: If you were looking for furry stuff… the obvious place to start would be “furrystuff.com”.

Of course, just obtaining a URL was only the start. A website had to be created and maintained. At first, I had hoped one of my partners (our house IT lion) could help me with the site, but website creation was one of the (very) few areas of computer/networking knowledge he was lacking (and was not particularly interested in). I attempted to become familiar with Dream Weaver, but I had trouble with the basic restrictions of site design, and I just couldn’t wrap my tree-weasel brain around the mechanics of site design. I had offers of volunteer help, but never found enough time to properly collaborate with my site gurus. I even offers to PAY someone to create my “free” site… but the pros were too busy making real money (or I was to busy making a living, assisting with conventions, and enjoying family life)… Oh well. The need for a “portal” site is long gone, with the incredible improvements to web search and social networking technology. The question I asked myself (and friends) is: what do I do with furrystuff.com? For now, my intention is to start a blog site (How original!), and just see where it takes me. There is a lot of information on the Internet about the Furry community. Some of it is poorly researched or purposely inflammatory. There’s a “whole lot of trollin, goin’ on” . The climate has improved as the community grew. Hating furries has become so last-decade. There is genuine interest in the community from real journalists and, more importantly, from younger members of the fandom and the fur-curious. More people are interested in the origins and history of the Furry phenomenon then ever before. With new fan groups like the huge My Little Pony-Friendship Is Magic “Brony” community growing astronomically, with so many creative people involved, sharing an attitude of “live and let live” that has positively effected some of the most volatile social networks; I believe that the time has come for some of us “seasoned” veterans of Animal-fantasy based fandoms to add our knowledge and opinion to the global conversation.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to create interesting and informative content. I can answer questions and provide insight about the Furry community from personal experience. I will also be writing editorials from time to time that are based on my opinion. I hope to have some funny stories of mine to tell, or of others to relate. I may even conduct some interviews with interesting people involved directly or indirectly with the Furry experience. Right now, I’m not sure what directions furrystuff.com will be taking, but I hope to make the place worth an occasional visit.

Sy