The title might bemuse you because this sort of story is certainly bemusing. It’s a modern sort of story, something you would never have seen about 10 years ago or more. I’ve referred to “cat furries” but actually it includes all furries. I dressed up the title a bit. Get the pun? What are furries? They are people who are fans of anthropomorphic animals. It seems that they like to dress up in animal costumes. They are involved in “furry fandom”. Yes, it is a bit confusing but let’s just say they like animals and like associating themselves with animals. That probably isn’t a new thing because millennia ago people adopted spirit animals to help cope with life’s challenges.
The tribes of South America looked up to the jaguar as a strong force for good. They lived in fear and awe of the animal but it helped to guide them and give them strength. This is my interpretation. So people like to connect themselves with animals which is certainly a good thing.
In this instance it appears that the National Police Association (NPA) in America believed that furries were abusing their Twitter account in making derogatory comments. I’m not sure whether it is entirely true or how bad it got but the NPA decided to block furries describing them as an “infestation of costumed cop haters”!
The NPA is a non-profit organisation which “works to bring national and local attention to the anti-police efforts challenging effective law enforcement”. It seems that they feel that furries are anti-police. Perhaps they are. A lot of people are and often for good reason because the police do not do themselves any favours when they abuse their powers and forget that they are the servants of the people.
Both in the UK and the USA there has been a constant drip-drip of bad publicity about the police, all of which is self-imposed. Bad cop behaviour is hardly ever punished and they never lose their jobs when they commit crimes. Well, in fairness, they do sometimes but it is incredibly rare because they close ranks when one of their members misbehaves. This is what turns people off and if the furries are attacking them on their Twitter feed then good luck to them.
And that’s the attitude that the furries have taken. They are lining up to be blocked by the NPA as they consider it a badge of honour.
The story goes a lot deeper than a battle on Twitter. It goes to the attitude of people who want to take on the persona of an animal because they like animals. And animal-loving people tend to be politically left-leaning. People on the left politically will tend to be against the police because the police are on the right politically. The police won’t like furries even on the ground, in normal life, never mind in the ether of the internet.
Apparently, the NPA didn’t know about furries until this issue arose. They said on their Twitter page that they didn’t know about furries but, “Some of them are purportedly Nazis. The furries clearly know there is such a thing as the NPA, because they are now all visiting us every day, objecting to our diabolical rumoured plan to block all furries.”
They say that it is unclear how the rumour started that they are blocking ’em. They admit that they do block people who make a “large amount of obscenities”. In fact they also block their followers. They blame furries for sending out a “clarion call to all furries stating the NPA is blocking all furries”. This has resulted in furries swarming to the NPA Twitter page to “spam relentlessly with obscene comments and graphic images and by doing so demonstrate the claim that the NPA blocked all furries is false”.
Have you had enough of that? It is a storm in a teacup. It is a modern form of dispute between the left and the right. It’s all happening on the internet, on Twitter. Perhaps it reflects an underlying, simmering, hostility between a section of society in America and the police. If that’s true it is reflective of what is happening in the UK, in my opinion. It is very similar here with the police becoming more dictatorial and stepping over the line while forgetting that their purpose is to serve the people and protect them, not boss people around.
Note: sources for news articles are carefully selected but the news is often not independently verified.