Furry Drama - Seriously?

[Ember]

"Furry Drama" exists in large scale for pretty much one reason: furs are (mostly) young, naive, and inexperienced at life as a whole.

ALL large social groups have "drama" but because for many furs furry is their first introduction to large social groups this unchangeable fact looks alien, they attribute it to the group of people instead of "drama"s natural role in any social group.

This unfamiliarity also breeds with it an inability to handle said "drama" in an adult manner. This causes a spiraling circlejerk of kids acting like dicks to one another.

Childish inability to deal with small personal slights causes many more problems than the slight itself. Your post is a good example.


People can be dicks. Get used to it.

[Drake Wingfire]

lol so pretty much what I said XD

[Tony Greyfox]

Ember, you're broadly right - age and social instability are a big source of drama. The fact that so much of the furry social scene is Internet-based makes it worse. Often younger furs jump in with both feet before they've even learned social skills.
Case in point (gonna get a CSB for this one, I'm sure) - an ex-friend of mine. He was in his mid-teens when he found the Internet and got heavily involved with furry and related groups. Brilliant guy, advanced college acceptance and everything, but he never learned face to face social skills. Plus he interpreted roleplay to be "real" or close to it. I won't get into the sordid details, but suffice to say what happened was the epitome of drama... Threats, broken friendships, and so forth. Had he been able to read social cues better and been less of a narcissist, things might have been different.

Tldr: bad social skills can equal drama so go outside and play with friends. =P

[Violet]

Ember:

2 comments here:

1.  People who do not want to partake in gossip and stupid rude high school drama are not "more dramatic".  They just don't want to partake in childish behavior, like most adults.
2.  I didn't explain the whole story, in order to protect some identities, and to avoid opening a larger can of worms.  It's a lot deeper then just "someone used me".  But seriously, who the hell wants to listen to all that?  I wouldn't!  :P

As a side note, your music at the con was very good!

[Ember]

As a side note, your music at the con was very good!

Thank you! ^~^

[dreki]

Yeah, I have to agree that a lot of drama appears to be caused by a lack of understanding and real-world social skills. The internet tends to breed it in a cyclical manner: get addicted to online/gaming/etc, spend less time irl, lose irl friends and start to feel socially awkward. Meet people who "understand" you on IM and think how much easier it is to meet people online. Repeat. The cycle continues until suddenly you haven't got anyone you're close to IRL and/or have seriously underdeveloped social skills (I notice this happening with many of my online friends who are all around my age). Then, when a situation comes up that requires real world thinking and experience, there is a lot of chaos.

Of course, this isn't always the case but I've noticed it recently more than ever due to something recent with my mate... I was the one in the wrong for suggesting that he should settle down a bit with his "fun" rp's that he was doing with other people. The drama wasnt with him (he agreed). It was everyone else in that circle whom their entire bond as friends initially formed from rp'ing adult things. The other people didn't know how to handle the situation at all and created a big fuss over what should've been a relatively painless discussion/agreement between myself and my mate. In the end, things seem like they will work for everyone, because the person who said "I'M NEVER TALKING TO YOU AGAIN" when my mate suggested to him to stop with that finally grew up and realized that it is possible to maintain their friendship without dirty rp. But the lack of support for doing something that would make both of us happy was appalling. People just didn't get that we wanted to make our relationship more tangable/real instead of dwelling in the fantasy that you get whatever, whenever. (For the record, I am not "active" in terms of that kind of RP and that was another reason the whole thing was weirding me out a lot). Anyways, I understood some of their counterarguements (it's just "harmless fun") but what they didn't realize is that it wasn't harmless and that we are in a real relationship, not just something silly/pretend. *shrugs*...Sorry, that turned into a personal rant really quickly. You can tell what's been on my mind the last week, heh...

Summary: I've noticed so many of the furries that I personally know around my age are stuck in their online fantasy world and have no grip on how to handle real world situations, likely due to the trend of the internet eliminating RL social interaction. There's no moderation when it comes to time spent online, for most of them. And because they don't know how to handle situations, drama is caused over the tiniest of things while large problems that should be addressed are often left untouched :/

...I'm guilty of spending a ton of time online too btw. But I still try and maintain a social life outside of the internet.

[Tef]

Aye, from what I can get at and accept from the posts...
the reason why furry drama exists is because people think they can slap one medium of communication onto another, be it internet-real life, and real life-internet.

Let me offer a few sage words of advice from my own personal experience.

There's a very good 'strategic' reason as to why I try to make myself more "shy" when I first established myself within the community, both online and shortly later, offline and in person. I take the situation in one at a time, 'cause if one plans a few steps ahead of time, one'll end up as a loose cannon of drama or just curl up unto himself or herself due to information overload. This is one of the cases where the intermediary "shyness" is crucial between two mediums of communication. As Marshall McLuhan always state, "The medium is the message."

TL;DR: Being initially "shy" is like buying travel insurance before you travel off for vacation. You'll thank yourself in the long run.  

[Drake Wingfire]

Aye, from what I can get at and accept from the posts...
the reason why furry drama exists is because people think they can slap one medium of communication onto another, be it internet-real life, and real life-internet.

Let me offer a few sage words of advice from my own personal experience.

There's a very good 'strategic' reason as to why I try to make myself more "shy" when I first established myself within the community, both online and shortly later, offline and in person. I take the situation in one at a time, 'cause if one plans a few steps ahead of time, one'll end up as a loose cannon of drama or just curl up unto himself or herself due to information overload. This is one of the cases where the intermediary "shyness" is crucial between two mediums of communication. As Marshall McLuhan always state, "The medium is the message."

TL;DR: Being initially "shy" is like buying travel insurance before you travel off for vacation. You'll thank yourself in the long run.  

I see the logic behind what you are saying and can understand how it works, but at the same time just playing a role can really come back and bite one in the ass when the people you get to know start seeing a whole different you. It goes both ways though, playing too bold can also just make one look like they are overcompensating and trying to play the "too cool to be social" role.

[squashNstretch]

The irony is that the anti-drama furs are usually first the most dramatic, and secondly cause the most problems.

Spot on. I think that goes for everyone though. The fuel to the fire in the furry community specifically is that you have socially inept people in the fandom that are more/only comfortable socially online. I've seen it so many times... The shy, mousey types that can't make eye contact in a social setting have all sorts of things to rant and whine about when they are behind the safety of a computer monitor. I am particularly wary of the quiet, super judgmental types that have self-diagnosed themselves with Asspergers syndrome so they have an excuse to fall back on when they act like a tart. Add to all this the fact the furry community is VERY clique-ey and you have potential for a lot of "drama".

[Drake Wingfire]

Spot on. I think that goes for everyone though. The fuel to the fire in the furry community specifically is that you have socially inept people in the fandom that are more/only comfortable socially online. I've seen it so many times... The shy, mousey types that can't make eye contact in a social setting have all sorts of things to rant and whine about when they are behind the safety of a computer monitor. I am particularly wary of the quiet, super judgmental types that have self-diagnosed themselves with Asspergers syndrome so they have an excuse to fall back on when they act like a tart. Add to all this the fact the furry community is VERY clique-ey and you have potential for a lot of "drama".

Well said, I gotta agree with people that the anti-drama furs are like that because when you get down to the core of what they come off as.. well I would sum it up like so.

Poor social skills/ self diagnosed "get of jail free card" behavioral types: Treat all things that have any tinge of negativity ironically as a social problem and pretty much just insult the individual and fuel the fire, usually so they can try and act like they are better than others.

Anti-drama types: Think everyone can just magically get over everything and anything at the drop of the hat, because they too see negative and unhappy situations as some form of social problem and no matter how bad it is think people just are weak if they get depressed or sad.

As a possibly very touchy side note I think society has gone too far trying to make everything into a medical condition, these days they are trying to tell us that being a grump and bitter is a medical condition, or that yelling at people in wal-mart for a tiny thing is part of a excusable condition.. I just don't like it because it all stinks of excuses for people to not even try and function in society. I remember once long ago I had a friend, a very normal guy. Just a few small little ticks (if you were looking for a stretch) but it never bothered him or anyone from what I could tell.. hell I really didn't even notice anything honestly. but his parents insisted he got checked out. Diagnosed him with ADD and from that point his attitude on things changed.. I found it pretty sad in a sense cause nothing changed in him, just when he learned he had this condition its like he just partially gave up on himself inside. Some time down the road I was talking to him, and some people that know me probably notice I talk faster than I think so I screw up every so often and jumble words, no big deal haha.. well I had that friend tell me I should get checked out to see if there is something wrong with me... I just cringed and told him that I have made it through my adolescent years and right through to my 20s with no problems, made it through school and work just fine and that put very bluntly I do not want to be diagnosed with some social/ learning problem because I have seen how some people have changed when a doctor handed them the news and I am just too proud to have that same kind of fall back for any time I mess up.

[Silvermink]

Lol I always laugh when I see the word "furry" fixed in front of the word "drama."  Drama is drama, it exists everywhere people do.  Furry drama is no different from regular drama, and like regular drama, it will occur anywhere, anytime, for any stupid childish reason.

A million times this. People getting worked up over silly things is hardly a phenomenon exclusive to furry. I do think it happens more often in geek communities because there are a lot of socially-awkward people.

I do get tired of people who dismiss any amount of interpersonal friction as "drama" and seem to have no grasp on nuanced social interaction.

[Corset]

age old rule of life there will always be drama aslong as there are peopel interacting there will always be people doing things to pis soff others and yadda yadda just if you don't like it avoid peopel that you find bring drama in to you'r life.