2.6 Related Fandom Interests

Given that so many furries have been shown in past studies to have an interest in related fandoms (e.g., Anime, Science Fiction), we assessed whether there were observable trends in furries’ preference for other, non-furry media and activities1.

With regard to “other interests”, furries’ interests were categorized into 76 distinct activities. The most popular ones are displayed below.

Most Frequently Identified Non-Furry Interests

Rank Interest Sub-Interest
1 Animation / Cartoons
  1. Anime / Manga
  2. Comics / Webcomics
  3. Pokemon
  4. Disney
2 Video Games
3 TV / Film
  1. My Little Pony
  2. Doctor Who
  3. Steven Universe
  4. Star Trek
  5. Star Wars
  6. Supernatural
  7. Game of Thrones
  8. Lord of the Rings
4 Science Fiction
5 Art
6 Music
7 Tabletop Gaming
8 Athletics / Sports
9 Fantasy
10 Computers/Technology
11 Writing
12 Animals
13 Roleplay / LARPing
14 Science
15 Automobiles
16 Kink / Fetish
17 Books / Reading
18 Crafting
19 Food
20 History

Worth noting in this list is the fact that furries’ alternative interests tend to overlap considerably with other traditionally “geek” interests (e.g., science fiction, video games). Additionally, coinciding with other findings suggesting that furry is, first and foremost, a fandom and not a sexual fetish2, it’s telling that kink and other fetish interests were considerably lower down on the list, being provided by fewer than 5% of participants.

While the question was open-ended, it reinforced our earlier study on furry interests3, in which furries indicated their interest in a closed list of related fandoms and activities, on a 7-point scale:

2-6-interest-in-other-fandoms

In a similar vein, we asked furries about the genres of television/film and music they tended to prefer, resulting in 39 and 69 distinct categories, respectively.

Most Frequently Identified TV/Film and Music Genres

Rank Film / TV Music
1 Science Fiction Rock
2 Action / Adventure Metal
3 Comedy Pop
4 Fantasy Electronic
5 Horror Alternative
6 Cartoons Classical
7 Drama EDM
8 Anime Techno / House
9 Documentary Punk
10 Suspense / Thriller Indie
11 Mystery Hip-Hop
12 Crime Folk
13 Biography / History Soundtracks
14 Romantic Comedy Rap
15 Comic / Superhero Jazz

In another study4 we asked furries whether or not they identified as members other fan communities. Nearly half of furries (44.0%) were anime fans, and about 1 in 5 were bronies (fans of My Little Pony, 21.1%). Consistent with the findings above, only 10.5% of furries considered themselves to be sport fans.

References

  1. Anthrocon 2017 Study
  2. See sections 5.4 Frequency of Porn Use; 5.7 Preference for Erotic Furry Media
  3. International Furry Survey: Summer 2011
  4. IARP 2014 3-fandom study

1 Comment

  1. Jules

    I was gonna say that one interest/fandom that furries aren’t interested almost at all is history (this includes history games like Civilization and Paradox’s games), but finding it just reaching the top 20 interests (with most likely like 2% interest at most, as 16 [kink/fetish] has less than 5%) doesn’t surprise me either.

    Reply

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