Things Get Furry at Southeast
Richard Berry presented to his class how to make a wolf tail. Adam Kern wears a wolf suit around campus under the name Blaubeere-German for "blueberry." They both call themselves furries. A furry is a person who enjoys anthropomorphism, or the act of depicting animals-like wolves in Berry and Kern's case-with human personalities and characteristics. This sometimes involves dressing up in animal costumes but also involves artistic expressions such as drawing and writing. "I like the entertainment aspect of it; I love making people laugh," said Kern, to which Berry agreed. Both have been part of the furry fandom for sometime. Kern said he has been a furry for the past three to four years and Berry said he has considered himself one since "at least late 2004." Both said they were unaware of any other furries at Southeast, with Berry, a Jackson native, saying, "They're pretty hard to find, even amongst ourselves." However, Kern mentioned that he knew "four to five others in Joplin," which is his hometown. Concerning their families, Kern said that his mother is aware of it, but "my father, not so much. Because I really don't need his variety of jokes aimed at me." Though Berry said that his family isn't as aware, "they know that I draw anthropomorphic animals, but they don't know about the rest of the fandom as a whole." Reactions to the furry fandom are often negative. Katie Rennegarbe, a junior at Southeast, said, "That's weird, I feel like there's something wrong." Both Kern and Berry have received some backlash regarding their lifestyle. Berry said, "A few weeks ago I wore my tail because the drama clubs were here and I wanted to show my old teachers; but when I went down to the student lounge, one guy I knew from high school started getting on to me about it; but he'd done it in high school, so it wasn't anything new to me." Kern mentioned that he also received some backlash in his high school years, but it was nothing more that "people making sly jokes and stuff like that." He said he would laugh along with them. "Oh yeah, I laugh at myself all the time; I mean the antics I'm doing in this suit, I'm laughing while I'm doing them." However, some are more supportive. In regard to Kern dressing up around campus, Amanda Carter, a junior at Southeast, said, "I think it's great he's being creative. Sometimes it's nice to see someone outside the mold." According to Berry and Kern, there are also a lot of misconceptions about furries, Berry saying, "One of the biggest ones is that all furries are 'fur-suiters,' or wear a suit. I would say the actual demographic would only be about 10 percent of the fandom." Kern also said that one large misconception is that furry fandom is overtly sexual. "I'm not going to say that there aren't sexual aspects to it, but that is a very low percentage. According to one of the furry websites that artwork is posted at, the numbers last year show that about 80 percent of it was general artwork and just a very small percent was of the adult orientation." Neither showed hesitation about having to balance their personal lives with their professional ones after they graduate from Southeast. "It's going to be easy. My choice career is going to be writing and my writing is of the furry nature." "Furries are normally seen as geeks, freaks and just generally weird; people get the wrong idea from [the Internet] and when they do that, things run down hill and then we get so much rap for bad things; we rarely get good press." He said that many national news programs depict them as being "perverted, deviant [and] wrong," and that "they don't sit down with us and take the time to get to know us as people. They know us as weirdos-people they can push out and chastise."