Tracing the lineage back shows that furry has its origins in the Science Fiction fandom. Sci-Fi fandom has a
long and detailed history running back to the 1930's or so. Some time in the 70's the Science-Fantasy wing begat the first proto-furries and the earliest furry works (this is contrary to manic fan Tim McClellan's insistance that furry fandom kicked off as soon as someone gave an animal
coherent thought) began to circulate. Some
go so far to say that "furry fandom was arguably created by the cartoonists’ APAs Vootie and Rowrbrazzle," both of which were pretty solid science-fantasy. Patten's
furry history shows that furry's first conventions were sci-fi conventions, Worldcon, Westercon, and others through the 80's; furry BBS and zines started off as SF with partial animal content. Other Suns was hard science combined with fantasy animals at a scale not seen outside of... well, maybe the Man-Kzin Wars series. Furry, for a decade or two, pretty much WAS Sci-Fi.
Things split off along the way, of course. Merlino was a creepy, creepy man with his own ideas, and once Baycon kicked him and his crew off the property in the late 80's furry was definitely going its own direction. Whether we can blame Merlino, the fact that by the early 90's every other zine was pornographic (remember when Genus wasn't embarassing?), or a trickle of younger members with zero interest in sci-fi or established fantasy, furry broke away from the SF fandom and begans its evolution into a proper society. (There are
funnier excuses for why.) Larry Niven and Mercedes Lackey left FurryMUCK by 2000. The "greymuzzles" usually recognize the change with a little lament, excusing some who are apparently unaware that's it's 2007, Yerf is dead, and furries mostly communicate through user icons on FurAffinity. Phil Geusz is one of the old guard of fandom; the last Anthrozine ran a column in which he he relates a story
from RainFurrest and anecdotes from an earlier MFM. He and others still show strong SF roots -- and that he considers his SF background relevant to furry fandom just shows how wide the gap is. Fandom having died a decade or so ago, the editor has to drop in a glossary of fannish terms, being that pretty much no one outside SF born since 1975 will have heard the terminology Geusz uses. 'Less one has been browsing the
FANAC resources. There's a sense of dignity one gets around these people, and they offer maybe a little dysphoria in relation to the culture. The language is different, the structure is different, the players are nearly alien. No one can prove just what it is we're fans of any more. On the other hand, as we've given up being fans, most of furry has struck out into lunatic self-expression and creativity well beyond what anyone could have imagined (or feared). This certainly ain't Patten's furry any more.
