Is it Furbait?

A blog dedicated to determining if an anthropomorphic animal character is something that is "Sure to garner the attention of the furries" through certain subjective reasonings The inbox is open for submissions This blog is run by users, Hazel, Vaan, and AJ

[isitfurbait]

Hey, I just wanted to let you know that if you are a “MAP” or into cub, you are not welcome here. I don’t want you getting comfortable here. Please leave this blog. Unfollow/block this blog. Do not come back here. There is no justification for what you “like” or are attracted to.

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I felt like bringing this back with an addition. You aren’t allowed here if you admire these people and don’t scorn them. Additionally, if you advocate for the genocide of any people who were born a certain way or from a certain people, then I definitely do not want you on this blog. I am not pulling any punches and not being ambiguous in any way when I say that. You may find this blog humerous, and I’m sorry for that. If anything I say seems to be enjoyable to you, then I apologize for being so welcoming before. I choose the my words wisely here so this next sentence is meant with the most pure vitriol that I can muster. Get the fuck off of my blog. Block me, unfollow me, and never come back to check any post I submit.

[isitfurbait]

How about Manni from This N That?

https://bsky.app/profile/ogthisnthat.bsky.social/post/3lkmjfqmq3s2j

Yeah he's a jerk, but design-wise, sure! He's plenty furbait from all the big man art I've seen over the last couple of years.

[isitfurbait]

Tawna Bandicoot in Crash Bandicoot 4. It's a redesign worth judging.

You're right. The first ask was submitted long before this game was announced, and honestly, it's better. I got a non-furry howling over this at the time. She's still furbait, but it's just important to highlight this design.

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Minerva Mink from Animaniacs

Give it up for the classic furbait! I don't think the furry fandom would have gone as far as it has without the likes of Minerva Mink. She's got the sex symbol status of the 90s as well as being an anthropomorphic character. Her literal defining trait is that she's sexy and an animal, so I really gotta hand it to her.

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The musician horsegiirL

I was worried looking at images at first, that she'd be a Jon Pork AI-generated artist that brings to people who don't outright hate AI claiming this is art. I know that she's literally in a mask and has made her whole personality be that she's as much horse as she is human. If that's not furbait in its own way, I don't know what could be.

[isitfurbait]

So continuing with my streak of Puzzle and Dragons submissions, is Orthrus a furbait?

I'm posting both of the forms available; one's more beastly than the other, but I think its a Transformers situation

I like the way this looks, honestly. I like the shading in the art direction. It's a bit busy, but you know, a two-headed dog with snake tail could only be so neat without being boring. This also seems to be the only images of this guy, as I can't find any images, even on the dreaded fandom wiki. Do wish I had more information to base this off of, but the second form is definitely more furrybait, but both I would argue are.

[isitfurbait]

i'm fairly sure the answer is yes, but is tiny tiger (who's a thylacine/tasmanian tiger btw) furbait?

Gotta love the one that isn't related to these by literally being a tiger. My secret is that I'm a sucker for a loin cloth design. BUT I do not like this build. This lack of leg day design inherent to Crash Bandicoot designs is really pissing me off. Awful proportions. Honestly, I think his original designs are too toothy for standard furbait. I know that's the point of being a thylacine, but still. I'm going controversial and saying he's not furbait.

[isitfurbait]

Ringmaster Raven (Poptropica)

Maybe I'm overreacting a bit, but I think one of the reasons it's been hard for me to work on this one is the possible nature of this. I don't play Poptropica, but there is a lot of weird stuff going on here that makes this design seem... entrenched in something beyond itself. Sure if i were to look at just the idea of "this is a carnival ringmaster whose design is a raven! how quaint!" then sure, I'd go with the furrybait option.

However, the elephant in the room here, is that much of the history of the early 20th century is fraught with racist depictions of black people just for the sake of white entertainment. Ringmaster Raven hearkens back to that time of racial violence, where there is and was real harm on the stage when it comes to black people. Using a raven as a stand-in is better than a crow, both being harbingers of death, but the crow being used as a pejorative stereotype of black people. To use another cliche from black storytelling, this ask feels like a tar baby of sorts. The more I dig in to help, the more I get stuck in a pitfall. Jeff Kinney, and the team behind Poptropica. I could just be a white knight tumblr user approaching this, but I'm still concerned by the danger of disregarding America's checkered past by just labeling this as furbait or not furbait.

I know, I know, just tell me furbait guy if this counts. Sure. Yeah. But I'm not happy with it.

[isitfurbait]

Myron Van Buren from Poptropica

So that's just a man.

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Got some weird ones from a new show. First off is Mr. Okay from StuGo Furbait? And what do we think of old man Nils Vulfen from StuGo? Specifically episode 13b "Chuck Beastknuckles" after his transformation into a chimera? (and NOT Chuck Beastknuckles/Chip Manhands since that is a minor)

Not seeing any evidence on Chunk Beastknuckles existing separate of Chip Manhands, which I can't say for any reason that that design is even interesting enough to be formative furbait.

Mr. Okay from what I can tell is a pretty good standard of furrybait, at least. I could see people falling in love with this character pretty easily.

As for Nils Wulfen, I want to say that his design is definitely leaning more into monsterfucker territory. Like yes, I'm the "label every anthro design as furbait or not" guy, but I personally am against imposing labels on things sometimes. This guy is a genetic monstrosity, though. Like in lore, that's what's going on here. I could say that by my standards of what I see on image searches, there is nothing here. I mean I had to luck out to find a video of this scene revealing him. His design does not exist outside of that.

[isitfurbait]

I mean, what qualifies as furry media here has shifted considerably as media actually made for flurries started appearing. In Japan the furry fandom absolutely exists but not to the extent that it does in America where furry culture is generally considered to have originated, branching off of the sci fi con circuit as it's own thing in the 80s and 90s. Like yes, cat girls existed, but I think we can all agree cat girls arguably fall into proto-furry/pre-furry territory depending on if that's a purely aesthetic choice or not

I'd argue that in order to determine whether or not beastars characters are furry bait or outright furry art would highly depend on what the state of Japan's furry community was like when it became popular as well as, tbh, whether the mangaka is a furry. Because unlike a lot of mainstream western media, it wouldn't be too far fetched for the people writing manga and eventual TV Anime to themselves be into aspects of nerd culture and to draw from that on purpose.

In other words if Japan's furry scene isn't big enough to be edging on mainstream and or the person who wrote it is part of the fandom, it's straight up furry art imo. Particularly if it wasn't intended to take off much outside of the fandom. I don't actually know enough about the mangaka to say tho.

Oh yeah, I intentionally know next-to-nothing of ita-paru to keep myself from building a parasocial relationship with someone whose art I drew personal connections to as a young adult coming to terms with myself. As for Beastars just being furry, I think its worldbuilding seems to have a lot of organic fixes to a culture where people seem to be unable to control an aspect of their nature. It entrances much of the furry fandom, but there are points where it falters in criticism. I see much of the worldbuilding of Beastars as an additional flavoring agent to carry on the true heart of the story: its characters in their setting.

A lot of people smarter than I and that have faced true discrimination argue that media like Beastars and Zootopia fail in one major aspect of their race allegory. In Beastars and Zootopia, the social pressures to discriminate against carnivorous animals are based on a true nature. However, socially, there is no "true nature" to base real-world discrimination upon. There is no genetic difference between people in the in group (In the United States of America, the conservative cishet white male), and the outgroup (everyone else). There is social violence created from a false economy of hatred. Creating a world to negotiate racism and other practices of othering (even colonialism, if you read the manga), could be a great means of creation. Its inspiration of others may be taken away from you to hide all aspects of political beliefs you bury in it. What others take away may not be there to challenge the homophobia in your world, to challenge xenophobia, nor may they negotiate their own statures in the world around them. What they may take away is "character hot" and "would" and "wait, don't say hot, because that's a kid." I can understand from these where a creator may not want to engage with the world they built beyond a little bit of hype.

Okay this was a rant to respond to a rant. Somebody take this microphone away from me before I make a fool out of myself.

[isitfurbait]

NGL a lot of these submissions feel more like monsterfucker than furry. To be fair, though, it's a thin line

You're right. Gargoyles are a good example of monster-fucker rather than furbait. But also I feel this whole blog thing's been a little defunct for a bit. I mean it's hard to ride the coattails of popularity and new things when a lot of submissions are users trying their best to one-up each other in obscurity or ambiguity.

[isitfurbait]

does furbait mean “something that is designed to bait furries into becoming fans of this media” or “something that is designed to bait fans of this media into becoming furries”?

See, when I was starting, I did like playing with the latter interpretation. I was a lot more opinionated on the good of anthropomorphic representation in media aimed at children. I saw it as a means of fostering a creative environment. I still do see it as that to an extent. However, I see furbait as another form of criticism, like queer critical theory, or race study. In that, due to the death of the author, the way this work engages with the world around it is entirely disconnected from the intent of the author. As a result, one cannot approach furbait as the means to establish anthropomorphic animals through which you can brainwash someone into becoming a furry. In that, there can not always be an assumption that something is designed to create furry interest. I cannot deny that happens in things with a large rogue's gallery, like many TTRPG's.

Furbait, as I've placed on the mobile version of the blog's header, is something that is sure to get the attention from furries. I use the urban dictionary definition, because it's precisely vague enough for me, someone with a Master's in English can semantically rip apart and re-design. In some cases it's one of those those things where you can tell by one look and am just using similar traits of canid or feline designs that people typically enjoy. In other cases, I try to take an open-minded approach to see if somebody's trolling or genuinely curious on a specific design. Furbait is a made-up concept. Placing intent into it is a vast oversimplification of the traditions of the furry community.

[isitfurbait]

While we're on alcohol mascots: is the Stone Brewing Co. gargoyle furbait?

I'm thinking of it. It's hard to say for sure, because of the whole... what are gargoyles? thing. Like, I could get all um ackshually this is a grotesque, because gargoyles are spitters and quitters. Still, though, it's muscular, which of course ties itself strongly to the masculine roles of beer. In the end, though, as a furry design, I don't see much going on here. If you find it hot, good for you, but that doesn't quite make it furrybait.

[isitfurbait]

King George from Hoppers

Breaking my long silence to say that this beaver fully could get it. Like. This is probably the most furbait I could see Pixar doing. That includes anything else you've seen them do. I promise you, this beaver is hot.

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Yes I know he's in the movie. No, I'm not paying $22 per person for a ticket.

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Are trans people furbait

Only if they want to! Trans people deserve the world!