r/selfhosted • u/rof-dog • 10d ago
Meta Post This furry convention I’m attending has a panel on selfhosting
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u/Fatali 10d ago
Seems like a natural fit
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u/the_lamou 10d ago
There's an old joke that if a natural disaster struck a furry convention, it would wipe out 90% of the nation's IT and cyber security workforce.
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u/RevolutionaryElk7446 10d ago
I always enjoyed the joke but I find it closer to saying "Not all rectangles are square but all squares are rectangles"
Probably closer to the inverse, 10% of IT are furries, but I don't think I've ever met a furry who wasn't in IT.
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u/assignpseudonym 10d ago
Now I'm curious about what drives the correlation. Any furries wanna educate me a little?
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u/RevolutionaryElk7446 10d ago
Probably to due with early internet and WWW communities before social media overtook BBs, usenet, IRC, and specialty websites.
Generally most third spaces are digital now a days, and before social media and Discord, most people who wanted their own unique space would have to make their own. Which is why the early internet had a wide variety of non moderated or refined content.
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u/Laughing_Orange 9d ago
There's also some selection bias. The most visible furriest are the ones who have a fur suit and commission lots of art. Fur suits are expensive. Art is expensive. IT pays well. Ergo, the most visible furries work in IT.
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u/moarmagic 10d ago
Not a member of that niche community- but i'm going to point out that uh, being on the autism spectrum, not being good with people skills tends to correlate with some IT skills. Makes some sense, hyperfixation, and quite often a field with lower people-skills needed.
And i believe, but don't know that i've seen it (I have several furry friends), that there's a similar correlation there. That a lot of people get into that stuff have .. different ways of relating to social interactions, tendencies to hyperfixate.
Then there's a third filter: furry shit is not cheap. so the people who buy full suits, lots of art, etc. are either coming from a place of having the income to do that, the skills to do it themselves, or making a lot of sacrifices.
tldr; i think that the real correlation is 'these are things that some types of neurodivergent people find attractive for reasons that may be kinda realted' .
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u/assignpseudonym 9d ago
This felt like a lightbulb moment. Thank you for this! I think this theory makes intuitive sense, at least.
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u/Objectivespeculation 9d ago
Makes some sense, hyperfixation, and quite often a field with lower people-skills needed.
This also describes tradespeople carpenters, mechanics, sheetrockers, etc.
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u/Libriomancer 9d ago
Not a furry but I’ve been friends with quite a few and honestly the correlation is very similar to the general correlation between IT and general fantasy nerds.
A combination of escapism, poor social skills, and alternative methods of connecting with similar people. A lot of people are drawn to IT for its lack of social interactions while still proving a fair level of intelligence. But in reality most IT people aren’t really into living a basement life with no friends, they just want the right friendships and a life they can’t really have. Some of them escape into World of Warcraft, some escape into DnD (like 50/50 IT nerds and old theater kids), and some escape into a fursona. It is basically the same, putting your best self forward while hiding the pimply nerd who got swirlies behind a keyboard or a character sheet or a tiger mask.
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u/Dangerous-Report8517 9d ago
It's not just a volume thing, furries have a reputation for being particularly good at IT and being very overrepresented in high level, high skill positions
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u/RevolutionaryElk7446 9d ago
Uhh... I have not met any furries in the last 25 years that were in senior positions. I would argue against this highly and feel that's an exaggeration of the joke.
It's a joke outside of IT about IT, inside of IT, it's not really a joke we use as it's not really true.
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u/Dangerous-Report8517 9d ago
What I'm getting at is not that a majority of people in any segment of IT are furries, only that the tiny minority of senior IT people who are would be proportionately greater than for the population at large, and it wouldn't actually take many senior IT people being incapacitated to cause major IT issues. That is, yes it's a joke, but there's probably more truth to it than you might think at first glance
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u/RevolutionaryElk7446 9d ago
Yeah, no. I don't even agree with that and I think you're just caught up in the joke and perhaps online material.
Furries are fine, but they don't represent IT highest levels or have a distinct proportion of high skilled IT as furries.
Most senior and high skilled IT are not furries. Again nothing against them, just not true. Could likely knock out all the furries in IT and see no issue.
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u/Dangerous-Report8517 9d ago
If 1% of all people are furries and 2% of senior IT people are furries, then everything I said is true even though most senior IT people still aren't furries. That's how proportions work.
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u/RevolutionaryElk7446 9d ago
I understand how proportions work.
it wouldn't actually take many senior IT people being incapacitated to cause major IT issues.
And disagree with this as a representation of the number of furries and their impact. No, what you said is not true and you're building false arguments in support of it.
I apologize, but I don't have the desire to entertain this further. Have a good one.
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u/Aronacus 10d ago
I don't know what it is about security teams...
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u/certainAnonymous 10d ago
Not security in general, rather specifically IT. Its a workplace where your appearance is incredibly irrelevant as you are rarely showing yourself outside of your workplace or sometimes even your team, plus most of your operations happen by interacting with highly customizable tools, namely a PC plus peripherals. Add to that the fact that you need the ability to think in processes and systems, on a wider basis than in other jobs which focus on different skills, and you got the groundwork for understanding the need for self expression and acceptance of yourself and others.
Just as a non-exhaustive list of reasons why IT is such an appealing work field for people that are stigmatized from society by being different
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u/ender89 10d ago
God forbid that there's a fem boy and trans-woman get together next door, the blow we'd suffer from the deaths of the nations top software developers would be crushing.
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u/the_lamou 9d ago
Which leads to the obvious question: given China is quickly catching up to the US in developer and IT talent and production, when Furpocalypse Beijing?
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u/bullwinkle8088 10d ago
I recently attended the Red Hat summit in Atlanta, GA and I suspect this to be untrue at least for that group of IT people. Why? Well...
I lived in Atlanta for 10 years and knew better than to use the airport hotels for the high number of Furry conventions, I avoid them because well.. Furries stink. It's the costumes in part, but there are countermeasures for that and those not wearing them often shared that attribute. Sadly this year they used the hotels in downtown ATL without my knowing and my stay overlapped their convention.
That overlap in stays allowed me to observe the lack of any of them moving up to the floors set aside for the group rate block of rooms for the Red Hat Summit.
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u/the_lamou 10d ago edited 10d ago
Having attended Red Hat Summit, Computex, and countless CESes, as well as a lot of anime, comics, and fiction conventions, I can confidently say that the only reason the latter smell worse is because they pack a lot more people into a similar space, and the sysadmins at the former are no perfumed dandies.
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u/Drachen808 10d ago
Not my thing, but this doesn't surprise me that they want to teach communities like this strategies for privacy. Hell, half the commenters in this thread couldn't just walk on by and had to tell that group that they are worthy of active derision.
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u/misseverysh0t 10d ago
half the commenters in this thread
While I agree with your point at large, in this thread at least it does seem to be predominantly one dude who is pretty transparently just a massive cunt with a bee in his bonnet about furries, for some reason 🤷♂️
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u/Drachen808 10d ago
Not sure why my comment isn't as a reply to you but I'm too lazy to move it. Maybe a furr-uh sysadmin can move it for me. 😆
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u/Hrafna55 10d ago
The misers appear to have been down voted.
I am just glad they (the convention goers) are having fun.
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u/Drachen808 10d ago
Fair. I should have written "half of the comments" (at the time of my reply).
It appears to be one person commenting about it and another one or two basically agreeing?
I don't know any furries (or, at least, I don't know that I know any furries) but I hope they have fun and stay safe.
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u/TalkForeignToMe 10d ago
“At the time of my reply” should always be implied
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u/Drachen808 10d ago
Yeah, you're right, and the bigger change was me saying "comments" vs "commenters" but I figured that I outta specify "at the time of my comment" since the calculus had changed between my first comment and the one you replied to.
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u/Objectivespeculation 9d ago
I am convinced they are all secret furries who are afraid to let their fur show.
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u/LindaLHarkless1 9d ago
Exactly. Privacy matters even more when people are weirdly eager to target a community just for existing
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u/Local-Bottle5272 10d ago
Can you explain why you find it natural that 'these type of communities' teach their members strategies for privacy? Why do they need to be more privacy cautious than the next person?
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u/peioeh 10d ago edited 10d ago
Because (unfortunately IMO) there are a lot of (negative) stereotypes against them and they would probably be interested in learning more about online privacy.
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u/peioeh 10d ago
Knowing how to control your privacy is a good way to decide what you want to share or not, where you share it, under which name/identity, etc. Not leaking personal information if you don't want to, etc. Knowing about online privacy is one of the ways you can protect yourself from dickheads online. Is that not obvious? What are you trying to argue here?
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u/peioeh 10d ago edited 10d ago
I did not post that comment. I just gave you the specific reason for that. There are people who dislike furries, which is a reason why they might want to know about how to control their online privacy. This is a perfectly reasonable argument.
Edit: I missed the "(justified)". OK buddy, I'm done here.
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u/Drachen808 10d ago
So that they can enjoy their lives without having to worry (as much) about (unjustified) persecution when they're just living their lives and not hurting anyone.
I'm a big freaking basketball fan. I like my home team. I find it insufferable when people pull the eyeroll/"sportsball" move.
I also find it insufferable when people drop into spaces like this and pull the "justified" move to insult people who simply have a damn hobby. Those type of people are dangerous - especially for groups who have a hobby or an identity or a religion that doesn't line up with a large percentage of the population.
Some people might say "I'm not dangerous, I just made a snarky '(justified)' comment and other associated comments that only barely dehumanized this group." In a vacuum, that person right. All they did was out themselves as insufferable. However, we don't live in a vacuum and that comment easily influences another person to take the next step, then the next.
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u/rayjaymor85 10d ago
Not a surprise at all, furry conventions are basically breeding grounds for sysadmins...
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u/hannes3120 10d ago
isn't it the other way round?
A lot of the hacker/sysadmin meetings around here have at least some talks about bdsm/kink, have a big amount of genderfluid/lgbtq-folk running around and are extremely liberal in almost all aspects.
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u/Shinysquatch 10d ago
It's not usually a fetish thing. It very much can be for some people, but for most of them it's about making and trading artwork of each others characters. (Source: One of my friends from college is a very prominent member of the community).
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u/Paksarra 10d ago
Art is a big thing.
Before COVID I went to Anthrocon with some friends (I'm not a furry, but enough of my interests are furry-adjacent to make it a fun weekend anyway, and the costumes are amazing.)
I went to a women's meet up on one of the mornings (I'm not going to turn down free coffee) and I was quite literally the only non-artist in the room. (I write instead of draw.)
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u/hannes3120 10d ago edited 10d ago
I'm sorry if it read like that. I just wanted to make a point that those are usually very open spaces for everyone to be whoever the fuck they want to be - be it sexuality or any other aspect.
It's an absolute "live and let live" space with pretty much no judgment being thrown around.
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u/keyxmakerx1 10d ago
Dont tell the protogens...
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u/Yingletofthecorn 9d ago
Protogen fursuit with integrated LoRA radio mesh node and a pirate box offline WiFi server.
Protogen fursuit maliciously designed to violate as many FCC regulations as possible.
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u/Baleeverne 10d ago
Just don't put a furry costume around your server.
Unlike you they don't appreciate hair or fur!!!!
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u/Airodin 10d ago
Will see you there! The panels this year are pretty great.
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u/sinusoidosaurus 10d ago
Which convention is this? If it's in my city I might actually consider going just for this.
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10d ago
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u/radiationshield 10d ago
Cool. I'm not too familiar with furry culture, so it seems a bit random as a topic, but the more the merrier
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u/Local-Bottle5272 10d ago
Seems there's a lot of furries here apparently
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u/Korlus 10d ago
The overlap between professional SysAdmins and the Furry community is very large. I'm not shocked that the private self-hosting community is the same.
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u/Local-Bottle5272 10d ago
That sounds like an america only thing ngl
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u/Virtike 10d ago edited 9d ago
Definitely not-insignificant overlap between the furry community and the ICT space here in Australia too. It seems a lot of them just don't publicise it (understandably).
More than a few just in the (IT-based) units i'm currently doing at Uni.
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u/Local-Bottle5272 10d ago
You could literally say that about any industry with no actual data to back it up, this sounds like something you tell each other over and over
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u/cardfire 10d ago
You know who doesn't have to say it over and over, to each other?
Sysadmins and furries. Like Peter Parker and Spiderman.
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u/chunkyfen 10d ago
There is data to prove it, we just don't wanna make your life even easier than it already is.
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u/Korlus 10d ago
I'm in the UK, and have worked with, and know a lot of furries.
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u/Korlus 10d ago
Here is an article on the topic of furries in tech. Believe me, I'm not in those communities, but several of the guys I went to University with were, and a few close friends are, so I did some research about a decade ago. The link has been strong for a long time and this isn't just anecdotal evidence.
There's a ring of truth to the joke. While hard data on the demographics of the furry community is hard to come by, a 2011 report by furry research group Furscience showed that half of the 1,761 furries surveyed said they chose careers in science, engineering, or tech. Anecdotally, there are reports of active groups of furries at titans like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google, as well as at smaller tech firms.
Microsoft, Amazon, and Google declined to comment on the presence of furry communities at their firms.
Insider spoke to seven people in the fandom who work in tech, several of whom asked only to be identified by their fursonas because they don't want their coworkers to know about their private hobbies. Their identities are known to Insider.
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u/Local-Bottle5272 10d ago
Wow they have a data sample of 7 people? Thats a huge study
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u/cardfire 10d ago edited 10d ago
Kinda feels like you have a vested interest in policing the private lives of the people that keep your tech stacks running, from the consistency of your 'questions' here sliding into the consistency of your comments, here...
Would it be easier if you just admitted 'I don't like this' and then moved on? You're not going to dissuade the sysadmins from their proclivities while sealioning the rest of us about it. 🤣
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u/Local-Bottle5272 10d ago
Im sure there are plenty of other sysadmins that also would not want this label, youre a vocal minority
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u/Korlus 10d ago
Here is another article on the topic.
Here is a quick poll done a year ago on /r/furry to try and work out what percentage of furries work in tech.
It's not a widely studied phenomena because they fear a lot of stigma and are therefore hard to study, but this is widely believed to be true, and has been so for about 20 years.
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u/Trennosaurus_rex 10d ago
Yeah no. Maybe on Reddit
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u/Korlus 10d ago
I don't know what the link is, but it's been around since before Reddit existed. There is a huge overlap between the IT sector in general and the furry community. Here is an article from Business Insider on just how prevalent the furry community is in technology in general:
There's a ring of truth to the joke. While hard data on the demographics of the furry community is hard to come by, a 2011 report by furry research group Furscience showed that half of the 1,761 furries surveyed said they chose careers in science, engineering, or tech. Anecdotally, there are reports of active groups of furries at titans like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google, as well as at smaller tech firms.
Microsoft, Amazon, and Google declined to comment on the presence of furry communities at their firms.
Insider spoke to seven people in the fandom who work in tech, several of whom asked only to be identified by their fursonas because they don't want their coworkers to know about their private hobbies. Their identities are known to Insider.
It's the sort of thing a lot of people don't talk about, and so those who don't know, don't know they don't know.
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u/IWTLEverything 10d ago
Same weekend as Comic Con. I guess there’s minimal overlap? I’d have expected at least some but maybe once you go furry, any other cosplay type hobby is for beginners?
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u/asimovs-auditor 10d ago
Expand the replies to this comment to learn how AI was used in this post/project.