oh internet

Full grown men and women running around in animal costumes.

Summary

A fursuit is essentially a mascot costume, not unlike one you'd see at a sports event, but is slightly more specific in that it usually refers to a costume of an anthropomorphic creature that is the fursona of the individual (furry) wearing it. Wearing them is typically an attempt at escaping from reality, with the person wearing the fursuit giving in to their "animalistic side" by trying awkwardly to communicate silently and playing DDR. Wearing a fursuit is usually referred to as fursuiting and the individual wearing the fursuit is called the fursuiter, though for simplicity's sake both may simply be thought of as unnerving.

Fursuits can be categorized into various stages of "completeness", ranging from a simplistic tail-and-ears setup that wouldn't be out of place at, say, an anime convention, to a full[-blown] fursuit which conceals the entirety of the person wearing it. The two most well known, if not the most common, kinds of fursuits are the partial fursuit, which consists of a head, tail and occasionally paws, and the aforementioned full fursuit, which is a full body costume. There are also yiffy fursuits, which boast features such as orifices and appendages which are useful for the exploration of one's sexual fantasies, though most fursuit makers refuse to construct such fursuits because even they have a conscience.

Fursuiting is a big deal within the furry fandom, and fursuit builders can scrape together a meager existence off it if they're reasonably competent (though where the furries get the money to finance their fursuits nobody really knows). A fursuit will typically cost between five hundred and a couple of thousand dollars, and may take many months to construct. There are also online guides for constructing your own fursuit, though the quality of them varies dramatically so your mileage may vary.

Because of the furry fandom's large online presence, there's a plethora of online videos, websites, forums and discussion groups devoted to fursuits and fursuiting. For example, LiveJournal has fursuit.livejournal.com, a large fursuiting community group, and YouTube features many videos of fursuiters and their wacky hijinks.

Origins

Fursuiting has been around for a very long time - long before the furry fandom became popular and long before mainstream acceptance was achieved by way of the internet. The actual term, however, was coined in 1993 by Robert King.

Current status

Fursuiting is still a common activity which has a considerable internet presence on practically all websites inhabited by furries.

Images

Fursuits at the 2007 Anthrocon

I'm sure that dog is terrified of its owner

Not even Nazis are safe from fursuits

Videos

Related Pages

Anthrocon

cgl

FurAffinity

Furry

Furry art

Fursona

Otherkin

WikiFur

Yiff

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