(upbeat music)
- I have no idea.
(laughs)
- That's the name of them or
you just mean in general, furry animals?
- They (bleep) with tails on and (bleep). (laughs)
- Furry, nothing.
- I don't know man.
They dress up like Star Fox and they (bleep) each other.
Is there a furry behind me? (laughs)
- [Haven] Hi. (Marcus laughing)
Hi. - Hi! (chuckles)
(laughing)
- Oh hi! - Hi.
- Oh my gosh.
You guys are,
wait.
- And now I feel bad for laughing in person.
This is much different.
- My name is Lumio Draco, that is my furname
and I am a celestial moon dragon.
- My fursona is Haven Fusky.
I've been in the furry community
slash fandom for four years now.
- I have been in the fandom for,
I wanna say goin' on seven years now.
- I've never had one of those moments where,
oh, are they right behind me?
But as soon as I started makin' jokes about furries
I heard the rattlin' and
I'm assumin' y'all don't commit a lot of crime
'cause you can't sneak up on anybody.
- You can't. - (laughs) No.
- I'm assuming you're docile people. (laughs)
- [Lumio] The furry community is essentially
enthusiasts of anthropomorphic animals,
which means animals with humanlike characteristics.
- But I've had so many questions and now I'm just frozen,
mostly 'cause y'all still look like y'all could hurt me
(Haven chuckles) if y'all felt like it.
- You don't have any fur.
- I don't. - He's a scaly.
- [Lumio] I am what you would call a scaly.
- A scaly? - Yes.
- How you're dressed, is that how you see yourself?
- [Haven] Yeah, it's called a fursona.
- Where do you usually go in character?
- [Lumio] Wherever there's an opportunity.
- [Haven] Yeah, yeah. (Lumio laughs)
- [Lumio] But commonly the furry community
has their own furry conventions that they go to.
- [Haven] Other than conventions,
I go out to clubs like this and
then also I've done charity, I've done parades.
We'll go to children's hospitals
to kinda brighten up their day.
- [Lumio] We actually have a group that's devoted to
doin' that on a weekly basis, to cheer up the children.
- Wow. - Yeah.
- Oh that's incredible. - Yeah.
- I have to ask, how white is...
- How white is furry? - Yeah.
- [Lumio] I don't know the statistics but yeah, it...
- [Haven] Just blunlty speaking, it's pretty light.
There's a group that just started doing
POC focused room parties. - Yeah?
- [Haven] And I'm like yes, that's awesome!
That's amazing!
It's very open across the spectrum of LGBT.
- Oh yeah.
One of the biggest diversities in our fandom is,
we come from a wide spectrum of sexual orientation,
gender identity and gender expression.
- I've been an out and open gay man for many years
and what I've found with the community,
because we sort of exist as these characters,
we are much more likely to open up.
- A lot of people who enter in to this community,
they're very pressured to be someone that they're not.
By creating a fursona you can alter that
and have the ability to really discover who you are
from a third person perspective.
- Do you only do relationships with other furries
or do you have like a furry relationship
versus human relationship?
- [Haven] You know, I'm one of those,
I would be open either way as long as I feel
that we're gonna get along in general
then you know, it doesn't matter.
And if they can deal with this every now and then.
- So, I've seen some furry porn, I guess.
- [Haven] Uh-huh.
- You know they have the ears and they have the bunny tail.
- [Lumio] Mm-hm. (chuckling)
- And that's usually as far as I've seen.
I haven't seen two people in costumes.
Is that a, like?
- [Haven] Okay, so because we're adults here, you know,
you have to say it's something that does happen
but it's not as often as people think.
- As people think?
- There are people that enjoy the
adult aspects of it and I think that's okay,
but it's not the sort of levels of debauchery
that, you know, people think it may be.
- I would say the main misconceptions
would be that it's a fetish.
It is not.
It's an interest.
It can be a lifestyle.
It can be whatever you want it to be.
For me personally it's about
self exploration and self expression.
- People think that we're the worst of the worst.
That we don't have anywhere else to go
and so we sort of fall into the fandom.
But it's entirely untrue.
I think we're some of the best
of what we have to offer society,
as people and as our characters.
Before you get to know us, we may come across
as kinda weird or what have you.
But we come from all walks of life, all professions.
I mean, we have doctors and lawyers
and engineers and psychiatrists, psychologists.
- [Lumio] And a famous one is a chemist, Dr. Uncle Kage.
- You got people who are like,
secretly Will Smith's Scientologist?
Are there any people that y'all low key know
as a furry but like, that Emma Stone,
actually a furry but people don't know?
- Yep. - Oh, so actual celebrities?
- Yep, celebrities, oh yeah. - Oh yeah, yeah.
- I don't want you to out 'em as like, a big deal,
but there are people you know, like low key.
- Yeah. - Oh yeah, oh yeah.
- That's (bleep) up.
That is so dope!
- [Lumio] Furries who are in suit is like 15% of the fandom.
You look around in your own social circle,
you probably have someone who is a furry themselves.
- I think I'm like, half way on my way to being a furry.
- Oh you're, yeah. - You should create a fursona.
- I should.
- [Haven] If you were to wake up tomorrow as an animal,
what would that animal be.
- Goddammit, see...
Bears swim good.
It'd have to be some kinda bear with flight.
- Right now I'm really into elephants
which would work perfectly for my size at this time.
(laughing)
- Some kind of flighted bear that I can...
- Yeah. - Swoop in and grab salmon.
- I kind of like, relate,
and this is weird maybe, but to a phoenix
'cause I've been through a lot and then
I've still managed to pull myself up.
- Or I could do a beautiful, colorful sloth.
- [Haven] Absolutely, yeah.
- [Joanie] That sleeps a lot.
- I don't know what to call it though.
- [Haven] Yeah, you need a name.
- [Lumio] Well that's the next question is,
you know, what'll be the name?
- I want it to have Ss so it'll all flow like sloth.
- [Haven] Like sloth?
- Do people do regular names?
- Yeah. - Some do, some...
- Is there like a giraffe named Darius somewhere?
- [Haven] (chuckling) Yes.
I keep coming up with silly Buffy sort of names like...
- Like what? - Like Buffy. (laughs)
I kinda like Sasha.
- (gasps) I like that! - Sasha.
- [Haven] Sasha Sloth.
- I like that.
- [Haven] I'm going like, Xander, but trying to...
- Feminize it? - Yeah.
- Like Xandie?
- Xandie! - Yeah, Xandie.
- I like that. - Xandie the phoenix.
- I can't think of a name.
I feel so bad on the spot.
- [Haven] Okay, so let's use the drag name.
The name of the first street that you grew up on
and first pet's name. - That's it.
- Melrose Polly?
- Hey! (laughs) - Boom.
- Melrose Polly. - There we go.
- The flyin' bear squirrel. (laughs)
- What the community means to me is that sense of family.
Sometimes we come from families that can be
very abusive to us, so it's nice to have a family that
really does care about us and
really allows us to be who we want to be.
- No, they were super sweet.
I figured they'd be sweet.
- It's actually really unfortunate that
they have such a negative stereotype against them
because they're just wonderful people who wanna go out,
escape, and make everyone else happy
and that's a wonderful thing.
- I just think people who don't think it's a good idea
probably have a hard time being their authentic self.
Because if you can be who you are and have fun
life is a lot more enjoyable.
- What you feel that you're missing in your life
you probably can and will find that
within this particular fandom and within this community.
- Just, don't judge anybody, even if they're dressed up
like an animal that doesn't exist
'cause they're probably nice and it's not all about (bleep).
Is there like a higher,
is there like, a grand wizard? (laughs)
- [Haven] A grand wizard? (laughing)
- Hey, unsolved is on a new channel.
And now your part.
- Subscribe here. - Subscribe here.
- That was my part.