FurAffinity
Type of businessSubsidiary
Type of site
Art display
Social networking service
Available inEnglish
FoundedJanuary 16, 2005 (2005-01-16)
Area servedWorldwide
ParentFrost Dragon Art, LLC
URLwww.furaffinity.net
sfw.furaffinity.net
RegistrationOptional (Required when viewing adult content)
LaunchedDecember 10, 2005 (2005-12-10)
Current statusActive

FurAffinity is a furry-centric art community that hosts artwork, literature, photography, and audio recordings. It was officially launched on December 10, 2005 (although an older version existed from January to August) by Alkora, and is currently owned by Dragoneer and his company, Frost Dragon Art, as of 2021.[1]

FurAffinity features both standard furry art and adult art, although an account is required to view the latter. The site has become the most well-known and used furry-based website since its launch, receiving around 20 million visits monthly,[2] although the site has also become notorious in the furry fandom for its numerous controversies.[3]

History

Prior to the launch of FurAffinity, the most well-known furry-centric website was an art site called SheezyArt. In 2004, it was announced that SheezyArt would be disallowing adult art. Alkora, a SheezyArt user, decided to launch FurAffinity in January 2005 as a site that was open to adult art, along with standard art.

The original version of FurAffinity was challenged with numerous security breaches and hacks. On August 1, 2005, due to a disagreement with the server provider and the lead coder, FurAffinity was shut down. After a brief fundraiser to support a new server, FurAffinity was relaunched on December 10.

FurAffinity would continue to face server issues for the next few years. In 2007, site-runner Dragoneer's account was breached, which caused the site as a whole to go down for 2 days. In 2008, the site was taken down for over a month due to a "server hardware fault", and another fundraiser was set up in order for servers to be replaced.

In 2011, FurAffinity merged with fellow furry-centric site, Furocity. In 2013, the site had achieved a total of 10 million posts. In 2015, FurAffinity was purchased by 3D software platform IMVU.[4]

In 2016, FurAffinity's source-code was leaked, causing many users' personal data to be compromised. The site was immediately taken down as a result, and users were ordered to reset their passwords.[5] In 2017, around 600 bot accounts posted graphic imagery of gore, once again causing the site to go down.

In January 2021, Dragoneer was fired from IMVU. In February, Dragoneer announced that he had regained ownership of the website, and formed the limited liability company Frost Dragon Art. In 2022 the site took a stand against artificial-intelligence generated artwork, stating that AI-generated works lacked "artistic merit" and were not welcome on the site.[6] In 2023, the site was banned in Russia due to "prohibited content".[7] In the same year, it was reported that Shanghai Disneyland had included a picture from the site in a new City of Zootopia attraction without the artist's permission.[8]

Functions and Content

FurAffinity is an art community website, with a format similar to that of Newgrounds and DeviantArt. Newsweek described it as "the furry equivalent of Facebook."[9] Registered users are able to upload artwork, animations, literature, photography, and audio recordings (including music). Users can also comment on posts, like them, and follow artists. Much DeviantArt, users are able to create folders of their media, and can even list them as "scraps". FurAffinity also hosts Adobe Flash media and has integrated Ruffle into the site following the former's shuttering.

While FurAffinity is not necessarily an adult website, adult content is often posted. Posts marked as "not safe for work" are automatically restricted to registered users at least 18 years of age, although many artwork containing fetishes but not considered outright pornography have often gone unmarked. FurAffinity has an all-"SFW" of the site, that doesn't show adult art, or fetish art. Regarding adult content, only media depicting adult anthro-bodied characters are allowed, with pornographic/fetish content depicting underaged, non-anthro animals, and/or "feral"-bodied anthros are strictly prohibited. FurAffinity also bans porn of "aged-up" characters (characters from established properties or from fellow creators that are canonically underaged, but are made into adults in fan media). Despite the rules being set in place, there has been some controversy regarding moderator conduct, often involving their moderation, or lack thereof, of certain posts (I.E. the aforementioned unmarked fetish art). In May 2023, FurAffinity announced new rules that would crack-down even harder on content fetishizing underaged characters, however several known fetishes, such as vore, would be allowed to continue with underaged characters if the content was "non-sexual". This caused heavy backlash towards the site, and a new rule was immediately posted to ban this content as well.[10]

Community

FurAffinity is the most popular all-furry website and has become both well-known and controversial in the furry fandom. It is used by furry community artists to promote their work.[11]

FurAffinity formerly held a convention called "FA: United". The first convention was held in 2007, and was held yearly until 2020, when it was discontinued as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.[12]

Several of the site's controversies have stemmed from infighting and conduct between the admins and staffers, including long-time owner Dragoneer.[13] Many users have migrated to other furry-centric websites, such as InkBunny, SoFurry, Weasyl, and Itaku as a result of the site's controversies. There have also been reports of alt-right furries, or "nazifurs" posting images on the website.[14][15]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Strike, Joe (October 3, 2017). Furry Nation: The True Story of America's Most Misunderstood Subculture. Cleis Press. ISBN 978-1-62778-233-3.
  2. ↑ "furaffinity.net Traffic Analysis". Similarweb. Retrieved December 14, 2023.
  3. ↑ Silverman, Ben(Benjamin Luke Matanos) (2020). Fursonas : furries, community, and identity online (Thesis thesis). Massachusetts Institute of Technology. hdl:1721.1/127662.
  4. ↑ "Mar 19, 2015 - FA Joins the IMVU Family [UPDATE 2] -- Fender's Journal". www.furaffinity.net. Retrieved December 15, 2023.
  5. ↑ "Hackers Destroy Fur Affinity Art Gallery Website". www.hackread.com. May 23, 2016. Retrieved December 16, 2023.
  6. ↑ Cole, Samantha (September 13, 2022). "Furry Fandom Site Bans All AI Art". Vice. Retrieved December 16, 2023.
  7. ↑ Dragoneer (February 9, 2023). "Tweet by Dragoneer". Retrieved December 14, 2023.
  8. ↑ "RUMOR: Stolen Furry Fan Art Used In Shanghai Disneyland's Zootopia Without Artist's Knowledge - WDW News Today". wdwnt.com. December 2, 2023. Retrieved December 16, 2023.
  9. ↑ Hicks, William (November 22, 2017). "Neo-Nazi Furries Trump's Latest Alt-Right Supporters". Newsweek. Retrieved December 16, 2023.
  10. ↑ "May 24, 2023 - Update for Upload Policy Section 2.7 -- Fender's Journal". www.furaffinity.net. Retrieved December 15, 2023.
  11. ↑ Ho, Rosemarie. "Where will furries go after Tumblr?". The Outline. Retrieved December 16, 2023.
  12. ↑ FA United (December 2, 2020). "Tweets from FA United". Retrieved December 14, 2023.
  13. ↑ Dragoneer Part 1: The Stumbling Leader of FurAffinity, retrieved December 15, 2023
  14. ↑ "Terror, Teens, and Furaffinity — How a chain of violent hate incidents links to furry fandom". Dogpatch Press. April 14, 2020. Retrieved December 16, 2023.
  15. ↑ "FBI Ties Nazifurs to Atomwaffen Division — Attacks Targeted US Gov Official, Journalists". Dogpatch Press. February 28, 2020. Retrieved December 16, 2023.
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