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Comment by iforgotpassword | Hacker News Reader

It's just surprising that everyone wants to look like a mix of a 16yo anime schoolgirl and a fox.

It may or may not be a symptom of the masculinity crysis the western world is l experiencing and also sweeping under the rug every time discussions pop up about it.

Also there is something seriously wrong with the world when a people playing virtual pretend immidiately makes others, even in such thoughtful places such as HN suspect that they are horrible child molesters etc etc.

I think maybe because those are both things that are significantly different than reality.

Nah, it's more a combination of memeing and that the avatar interface in VR Chat is horrible. Picking an avatar takes a lot of work. Some of the ones listed can crash some machines. Many of the ones listed are only available on the PC version, so you get some "PC-Master-Race" posturing. And there aren't a lot of good, default options, so you end up with a lot of people picking the same avatars. There are lots of other avatars, but most of them are very unhuman-like and several are just plane bad.

EDIT: for what is worth, I tangentially work on the same sort of software. My system is a training environment not intended for the public, but a lot of the same concerns are involved. Currently, we have no avatar selection system. Everyone gets the same avatars, differentiated by a name tag. This was 50% a deliberate decision to avoid avatar mayhem and maintain an egalitarian environment, 50% pushing off the problem until I can figure out how to give some options without devolving into avatar mayhem.

There are lots of things that are different from reality, the questions is why so many of them chose that particular way to be unrealistic.

Pretty easily answerable question...

As mentioned in another comment there's no difference between someone choosing say a furry avatar vs someone choosing say a star trek character as their avatar. Same reason: they enjoy that world/universe.

Why do people make pop culture jokes? Because it's something they familiar with and enjoy and that gives 'em the seratonin.

The question is not "how can anyone choose to be an anime fox", it's "why do so many of them do that".

If say 40% of all quarterbacks were named James, you are not explaining that by saying "James is a perfectly normal name, just like Richard or John".

This is one of those situations where having the conversation in person would be way easier. I have no idea why this point is not landing lol.

It's probably tied to internet culture/subculture - VR Chat is still a pretty niche thing, most people don't own VR headsets. A lot of people owning a headset and interested in participating in a virtual world intersect with online subcultures and Otaku subculture.

Personally, I don't understand why there is so much surprise. If you really think about it, your avatar is something you will look at a lot. So you naturally choose something you like. And people have tendency to chose live objects rather than say, a gigantic 3D number, particle system, or white light. There is not really much choice; humans (humanoid characters, like elfs), animals (& imaginary creatures & hybrids, four-legged animals are typically weird to control in 3D environment) and maybe robots.

I feel seriously old since I've been using furry fox avatar in SecondLife back in the 2006, and even then, this was fairly common.

People with similar intrests tend to clump and early adopters of a technology tend not to represent the general population. Not to mention there are very obvious reasons why people drawn to roleplaying as something other than they are would be drawn to a technology that lets you easily do that in a relatively risk free environment.

I also wonder if its really as many as you think it is, or if they just stand out to you because you don't like them. You also don't have a good basis of comparison since you have no idea how many people in regular life are like that (i imagine its still much higher in vr space, but maybe the gap is not as vast as you think)

well, it's all about different perspective and respect each other right? Because those who don't like anime girl/fox and think every fiction character should look over 30 are _also_ weird to some other group of people.

I think that's a little understating, certainly anyone with experience of fringe groups attaching themselves to Pride each year (Minor-Attracted Persons and furries well represented), "perspective and respect" is probably the least interesting aspect.

Sexually developed adults suffering from age or species dysphoria and ultimately demanding rights to match their self image is something that should not be encouraged in civil society, as those rights are inextricably linked to an implied requirement for consent which cannot be given.

It might be tempting to try and draw a line between the kind of folk above and the folk from the video, but I find that difficult given the variety of clearly sexually exaggerated avatars on display. The one that sticks most in mind being a fox with a pair of impractically large breasts.

I don't get why you're linking those two groups.

As far as i understand, furries just want to dress up as animals and maybe have sex with other people dressed as animals, not have sex with actual animals. As long as everyone involved is a consenting adult i don't see anything wrong with that. I might think its weird, but that's true of a lot of "sex" things. Seems very very different from the people attracted to children.

Both groups were mentioned due to their presence in the video and parent comments, it is not an association I made.

There is definitely a cute and innocent side to the furries particularly among younger folk, it seems for many there is no sexual element to it at least initially. It'd be a much happier world if the two were more easily separable, but even then the question would remain whether the gentler group acted as a pathway for the uglier group. That both exist undifferentiable and intermingled in the same spaces is extremely problematic, and a priority issue for those folk to solve.

In the early gay community it was also the case that desires for otherwise healthy and innocent rights were abused to mask much more insidious causes. Today it is unlikely you'd see homosexuality and paedophilia mentioned in the same breath without provoking a surprised response, but relatively recently that perception was still common. I think this is probably a good parallel to where furries are now

The reason being solely that people of those two groups declare themselves and justify their behavior under the LGBT umbrella.

Saying you're LGBT doesn't inherently make you LGBT - nor does it grant you any particular credibility. The community is insanely diverse these days and at least in American politics, most of the large issues have been resolved (with the exception of trans individuals, who still face struggles w.r.t. insurance and healthcare).

MAPs tend to latch on saying their "attractions" (pedophilia) are part of their unique sexual identity. This is not true, and GP is correct in pointing out these two groups cannot adequately acquire consent from the other party - one is incapable, and other has determined to be not of mature enough mind and body to do so.

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