Furry Writers' Guild Forum

Furry Fandom versus furry fandom

Do you capitalize Furry Fandom or leave it uncapitalized? Is there a correct way? The Anthropomorphic Literature and Arts Ass’n has been discussing lately how to spell it in the ALAA’s correspondence.

The consensus seems to be that lower case is preferred. Possibly more significantly, both FurPlanet Productions and McFarland have asked me recently to standardize on the lower case in all writings for publication with them.

Have any FWG members been asked whether to capitalize the term or not?

I’ve never been asked that I recall, but I tend to leave it uncapitalized and say “furry fandom.”

I’ll also frequently said “furrydom,” to sidestep the question of “is it really a fandom or is it something else” that I occasionally get from people who believe that fandom connotes “fans of existing media products.” (I don’t, personally, but I came to furry by way of literary science fiction fandom, and the similarities between furry fandom and, ah, non-furry fandom seemed pretty obvious to me.)

I, too, think uncapitalized is more sensible. To draw a parallel, I don’t often (ever?) see “the Science Fiction Fandom” or “the Steampunk Fandom”.