After Helping a Furry, He's Accused of Being a Popufur

Hello Papa Bear,

I have a question. When I chatted with a fur he told me I’m a popufur. How is that? I don’t own a genuine fursuit. I’m not like the other popufurs. But I do lots of chats. He told me I helped him. Then he tells me I’m a popufur; I’m a popufur if I do this:

1. Chat with other furs and makes him or her feel good. 
2. Work as a fur. 
3. Own suits that are mass made. 
4. Help others.
5. Not being stuck up. 

Please help me on this answer. What’s the true meaning of “popufur”? Am I one of them? Please answer.

Brownee Bear (The Friendly, Caring Bear)

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Hi, Brownee,

Hmm, I’m not sure if this furry meant it as an insult of some kinds (which is how it is usually meant) or if perhaps he or she was just saying that you are popular? 

“Popufur,” as mentioned, is usually a derogatory term. I have been accused of being a popufur, or of trying to be one. Popufurs are people who deliberately do things to try to get attention and gain a following because it satisfies their egos. They wish to be noticed. They are attention hounds. The reason this is bad is because they are doing things (fursuiting, for instance, and spending a lot of money on cool furry stuff) not because they care about being furry so much as because they want to be admired, which indicates someone with a real self-esteem problem. 

Popufurs also like to be bossy; they like to define the fandom and what it means to be furry; a classic popufur statement would be something like, “You’re not a real furry because fill in the blank,” and, of course, they meet the artificial guidelines they have set up so they can declare that they are the real furries. It's a way to put down people—often because those people don't have as much money so they can't get expensive fursuits or whatnot. 

Another way to put it is that popufurs are elitists.

I was accused of being a popufur because a small number of furries think I write this column solely to get attention and because I have a pathetic need to be admired by the community. Not true, of course, but hard to disprove. What are you gonna do?

Some furries accuse other furries of being popufurs—even though they are not—out of jealousy. They actually may admire you for being paid to be a mascot, for instance, and that makes them jealous because they feel they can’t do that themselves. So, in order to alleviate their jealousy, they try to make you feel bad, hoping that they will discourage you enough so that you will stop doing what you’re doing, bringing you down to their level. It is a sick and twisted mindset. 

I have a general rule about this: if you’re obviously just trying to hurt me to get some sort of cheap thrill, I have no respect for your opinion and will ignore it. For example, the person who declared I was a popufur by submitting a form online on my site did not leave any contact information and did not leave his or her real name. Therefore, that furry is a coward, and I don’t respect cowards.

What’s really annoying about your situation is that this guy was supposedly a friend and, on top of that, someone you were trying to help with friendly advice. They even admitted you helped them and then they accuse you of being something bad? So, I am hoping they didn’t mean it in a malicious way, especially since they say you are not stuck up.

Papabear