Is there some study to explain why? Do they feel more safer pretending to be human sized...furry animal?

Gigachad 38 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

I don't have a study, but I became a furry after seeing them in tech spaces all the time while I was learning to program.

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kstrauser 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

My hypothesis, based purely on personal experience and what friends have told me. I am not a furry.

I feel like infosec was one of the earliest "no one cares who you are if you have skills" user groups. Online, you were just a handle. Man, woman, both, neither, no one knew until if/when you met up IRL. Until then, all you had was your reputation. I think that led to people having a pretty good idea about the attitudes of people they were talking to online, staying away from people who were going to be jerks about identity or pastimes, and a lot of conversations like "General Mayhem is weird, but he's our weird, so no one mentions that fox tail he wears everywhere."

Over time, that was a positive feedback loop: people who weren't cookiecutter felt safer around infosec folks than most other crowds. => That increased the "weird density" of infosec meetups. => People who don't like being around uncommon appearance or behavior stayed away from infosec meetups. => Those meets became safer for uncommon folks. => Repeat.

I don't know if that's right, but again, that's what friends have expressed to me before. It seems plausible.

Note: When I say weird, I mean it affectionately. I've never met anyone in infosec who didn't have some quirk not far below the surface. Frankly, I love that. And because of that, and the virtuous circle I described, I've never had one single person in infosec confess to me that they weren't OK with gay or trans or furries or other type of behavior/identity/etc. I'm a straight white middle class dude, and unfortunately I have had people confess such things to me in other circles, mistakenly assuming that since I was in their demographic, I'd agree with them or at least be OK with it.

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Aachen an hour ago | parent | next [-]

> Man, woman, both, neither, no one knew until if/when you met up IRL.

And sometimes not even then! Which is fine because indeed, who cares :)

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cybrexalpha 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The visibility is a huge part of it. It signals "it's okay to be yourself here" when most professional life, even in tech, is dominated by keeping up "professional" appearances.

	▲	kstrauser an hour ago \| parent [-]
		That makes sense. And I do strongly believe in the "virtuous circle" bit: people who aren't OK with others being themselves tend not to feel comfortable at, or get invited back to, events. That would make it more comfortable for the next event's attendees, making it less pleasant for the remaining pains in the necks, and so on. I've participated in conversations like: Q: Why do rightwing websites keep getting hacked? A: Because none of the best infosec people want to work where their friends wouldn't be welcome.

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post-it an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Closest they can get to piloting a mech.

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greggsy an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Why would we need a study? It’s just escapism.