I recently saw a video by TurkeyTom concerning an online sub-community that imo very closely resembles the abuse side of our fandom. Obviously, our abuse is fictional and nobody here (at least I hope not) takes delight in hurting or seeing other people hurting real animals, but I felt it was worth pointing out since the “Monkey Haters” use very similar jargon to describe the Monkeys (e.g. “shit rat”) and also seem very fixated on the Mother/Infant relationship and in causing harm to baby monkeys in particular. Sorry if this is off topic, but it sort gets back to an idea that has been floating around this community for a while, namely: that cruelty towards creatures we see as beneath us is sorta ingrained into the human psyche. We can usually supress this instinct or even override it with our tendency to anthropomorphize animals and treat them as if they were our own infants, but we throw those safeguards out the window when we partake in fluffy abuse, and I find that very fascinating.
I don’t know if I should watch your vid or not. I can’t stand real animal abuse, how explicit is it?
Also equating fluffy abuse to real animal abuse is never fair because fluffies aren’t real.
I actually theorized about this myself, but eventually decided that it’s different.
Fluffies can talk, which is the main reason that they’re targeted for abuse. If they couldn’t talk, they would just be cute but dumb creatures with a serious dark side. More creepy than anything honestly. But since they do talk, you anthropomorphize them, evaluate them as people, and find them loathsome. If an animal crushes it’s child to death because it doesn’t like it’s color or smell, that’s an unfortunate aspect of nature. If a human did that, then told you to eat shit when you complained about it, they’re an unrepentant monster. Imagine if you could just bash them to the ground and fucking curb stomp them right then and there. It would be pretty cathartic right? That’s abuse. Seeing stupid, selfish, worthless creatures get fucked over for being stupid, selfish and worthless.
Of course, abuse is different for everyone, and maybe some people here would be into baby monkey hate as well, but it’s probably a small minority. I just can’t imagine any of the abusers here being into fluffy abuse if the fluffies were just regular animals.
I’m gonna say the usual again
Fluffies are no worse then Happy Tree Friends or ( torture porn) gory horror movies.
They are all nothing but fictional and should stay that way.
Million pity concerns actual real life animal abuse though.
And no amount of expletives can convey what should happen to those deranged motherfuckers.
And on that note I wil bow out of this conversation.
I gott nothing more to say on the matter.
Good analysis there! It’s something I both love and hate about human characters overlooking such a simple, yet crucial detail!
And I agree, great part of smarty abuse-justice in particular comes from the fact that the offending smarty happens to behave in a way that simply makes your blood boil, because, since it talks, you are inclined to compare it to a schoolyard bully/ignorant fuckwit you’d love to punch.
Just want to reiterate that I’m well aware that Fluffy abuse enjoyers are not automatically animal abuse enjoyers. I love Fluffy abuse myself. I didn’t mean to stir up controversy, I just couldn’t help but make a comparison when watching the video essay and I needed to share my thoughts with someone, and there is no better place than this one to do that lol.
I don’t understand the hate and memes here so imma skip that
Jackie has an amazing theory, I think one more difference is (in my opinion) some fluffies are so much cuter and adorable that some abuse is made with that in mind. Not ‘too cute, gotta torture it’ but ‘i must hug and pinch and prod and pet with all my strength’
Plus, something about the possibility - I’d never abuse an animal, but the idea of something living you can legally hurt and kill is somewhat alluring
I think it’d be great if we have a psychologist who’d be able to explain all of this
See, this is why I actually enjoy hellgremlins. I can’t go out and beat the shit out of humans who treat other humans that way, both for safety reasons and because it wouldn’t actually solve the problem, but there’s a certain catharsis in stomping horrible fictional beings.
I feel like R. Sapolsky’s work might fit the bill, he’s a neurobiologist that studies stuff like stress and aggression, and has a great lecture series on the Stanford University youtube channel about Human Behavioral Biology. He’s actually educational AND hilarious to watch.
