Welcome class, please leave your judgmental tendencies at the door and proceed with an open mind and a prevailing sense of curiosity. I recently wrote a blog that touched on the importance of welcoming and holding space for all different kinds of people in the automotive enthusiast community, and that holds true today as I write about furry car culture. Prior to stumbling across this video, I had never considered how the furry community and the car enthusiast community might overlap. Let’s just say my eyes are wide open now. A furry convention called Furrydelphia invited Mr. Regular and Mr. Roman of Regular Car Reviews to a furry convention called Furrydelphia as guests of honor and held a panel to discuss furry car culture. These are their findings.
For those who are unaware, the furry community is a community of people who consider themselves a mix of fans, artists, writers, gamers, and role players. Furries often create anthropomorphized animal characters called “fursonas” (pronounced like personas) and wear elaborate costumes to represent themselves and role play as their fursona. Furries are still people like you and I who have varied interests, including automotive enthusiasm. This video demystifies the niche-within-a-niche of furry car culture.
Mr. Regular does a great job of translating the endlessly intricate and nuanced world of furry culture in a way that’s easily understood by someone who’s unfamiliar with the sub culture, and then ascertains how it all aligns with car enthusiasm. Studies show that folks who identify as furries have an elevated likelihood of being bullied in adolescence, so many furry car enthusiasts celebrate weirdo cars that are similarly under appreciated by the masses. They tend to be cars that are “friend-shaped,” characterful and unpretentious cars with inviting features.
Mr. Regular’s final thesis in this study is that “furry car culture celebrates affordable and friendly vehicles which compliment the owners’ imaginary anthropomorphic animal personas.” Honestly, it sounds like “traditional” car enthusiasts could stand to adopt some of the accepting and welcoming aspects of furry car culture. Either way, you can now say you read a story about furry car culture and I’m proud of you for being so open-minded.
