Being a Fandom that, especially in its early days, is dominated by white men, some foundational Fandom content is ridden with offensive and insensitive themes. Some subgroups of the Funny Animal Fandom, whose tropes carries into the furry fandom, made content specifically to be as outrageous and inappropriate as possible- while other material was made out of ignorance or indifference to various cultures and social issues. Even the first addition to the Archives, Cutey Bunny, contains some tropes like the fetishism of nazis and facist groups, and other early furry work is littered with offensive content. Most often so far I've seen sexualizing and appropriation of Native American, East Asian, and Middle Eastern culture, callous use of nazi imagery, and making light of slavery and sex trafficking- and the list certainly doesn't end there. (And it's worth noting that these are still issues our Fandom has carried to today!)
I'm reminded of when old Warner Brothers content that contained offensive content was released it was unaltered with a notice at the front recognizing it's insensitivity but highlighting it's historical importance. I'm also aware that the content in these early furry books can be much more offensive than what was in those cartoons. And, while I believe everything I put on the archive has historical importance to the furry fandom, nothing would be nearly as influential as those WB cartoons, and the world would miss much less if there was a pin-up of a culturally inaccurate Native American missing from a PDF here XD So I'm hoping to get some input from the community here; All input is valued, but I especially want input from groups who are targeted by the offensive content. Should I release everything unaltered with a content warning, or should I just not bring that negative content back into the Fandom? (And since some content is far worse than others, a bit of both could be applied.) Or is there another option I'm not seeing? Thank you so much for your comments here, and I will update with what my decision will be. On a brighter note, I've gotten lucky finding some old comics at a big garage sale, so incoming is Hit the Beach and more Cutey Bunny as well as Furrlough, Xanadu, Wild Life and more! (BTW, I have already decided I will not host any pornographic material of characters who are children or feral animals on here if I ever encounter it (luckily haven't yet!)) EDIT: Thank you so much for your input here and on the corresponding Twitter post about this topic. I have decided that offensive content will be posted here unaltered, accompanied by proper content warnings. I'll go through and do those for the few things I have on the Archive so far. Back to the fun stuff!
3 Comments
8/7/2021 06:22:47 am
I think they should be archived uncensored and as is.
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When faced with a websites function a question is asked:
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Brandy J. Lewis
8/7/2021 12:24:52 pm
It looks like you’ve made the decision to keep and upload content you find with needed disclosures and statements. I echo these decisions, as well; the material just simply out there can’t be ignored, and having it available with comments allow a much more active reading process without silencing obvious white supremacist histories/traces existent. Good on you and your work.
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Anthropomorphics archive blogHere I post the newest content I'm adding to the archives, as well as general updates and discussion. Archives
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