# How many furries are there?



## Klisoura (Jun 18, 2010)

Recently, someone said that there were "half a million" furries out there, and while this number sounds offhand improbably large I'm not sure what a better one is. The more common estimates I've seen centre in the quarter-million range, but it isn't clear to me where these really derive from â€” speculation, is my guess, with perhaps a bit of derivation from the userbase of places like FurAffinity. 

Here's my effort. I took the number of people in my "furry survey" reporting that they attended the five biggest American conventions (AC, FC, MWFF, FWA, and Furfright) and Eurofurence and used the real-number attendance figures of those conventions to provide an estimate for the size of the fandom overall. I took the last four years of attendance; beyond that, or using smaller conventions, results in growing problems with small-number statistics.*

The result is fairly normally distributed with mean population estimate 37,284 and standard deviation 4033. There are two caveats to associate with this: firstly, the percent of people describing themselves as a regular attendee of conventions has increased to 20%, a 5% increase over last year's figures. I don't know how much this is factual, how much of this is oversampling conventiongoers (which would provide a lower population estimate) and how much is changing response based on changed phrasing of the question. 

Secondly, while I described the data as normally distributed, it is in fact slightly bimodal, with a second peak representing a consistent undersampling of AnthroCon attendees (resulting in a higher estimate for the population). The reason for this is not entirely clear to me, but AnthroCon represents a >1 sigma undersampling for each of the last four years (FC09 represents the only two sigma variation, and just barely at that). The indications are that AnthroCon is being undersampled, not that all other conventions are being oversampled.

37,000 +/- 8000 seems a bit low at first blush. For one, it suggests that FurAffinity must by this point have something like total coverage of the fandom, plus a nontrivial number of non-furries who are also registered (only 83% of survey respondents said that FA was a website they "belonged to, participated in, or followed regularly". 

Does anyone else have any estimates? 

* A synchronic view, taking all the conventions indexed by the furry survey for 2009, results in an only vaguely normal distribution, with mean 33,600 and standard deviation 5900, this large spread driven broadly by small-number statistics associated with smaller conventions.


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## Smelge (Jun 18, 2010)

Too many, basically.


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## Kobu (Jun 18, 2010)

Klisoura said:


> Recently, someone said that there were "half a million" furries out there, and while this number sounds offhand improbably large I'm not sure what a better one is. The more common estimates I've seen centre in the quarter-million range, but it isn't clear to me where these really derive from â€” speculation, is my guess, with perhaps a bit of derivation from the userbase of places like FurAffinity.
> 
> Here's my effort. I took the number of people in my "furry survey" reporting that they attended the five biggest American conventions (AC, FC, MWFF, FWA, and Furfright) and Eurofurence and used the real-number attendance figures of those conventions to provide an estimate for the size of the fandom overall. I took the last four years of attendance; beyond that, or using smaller conventions, results in growing problems with small-number statistics.*
> 
> ...



That was quite a lot of information.  My brain hurts.  In all seriousness, a very interesting post.  Unfortunately, I don't have any new information on this topic (Sorry! ).


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## Akro (Jun 18, 2010)

Over 9000


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## Willow (Jun 18, 2010)

The fandom's always growing, not to mention you're using last year's survey, you'd have to check this year's


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## Kellie Gator (Jun 18, 2010)

Akro said:


> Over 9000


 _ugh_


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## Akro (Jun 18, 2010)

Kellie Gator said:


> _ugh_


 <3


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## Alstor (Jun 18, 2010)

>250,000 is my guess.


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## Machine (Jun 18, 2010)

Too many.


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## Atrak (Jun 18, 2010)

.1% of Americans are furries. That means over 300,000 in America alone.


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## Willow (Jun 18, 2010)

Kellie Gator said:


> _ugh_


 


Akro said:


> <3


 You both have been infracted for these posts

somewhere in the realm of 3-5k


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## Akro (Jun 18, 2010)

WillowWulf said:


> You both have been infracted for these posts
> 
> somewhere in the realm of 3-5k


 That's awesome


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## Klisoura (Jun 18, 2010)

WillowWulf said:


> The fandom's always growing, not to mention you're using last year's survey, you'd have to check this year's


 
I was using the 2009 numbers because some of the 2010 conventions haven't occurred yet. Using the numbers from FA: United, Furry Fiesta, Further Confusion, Furry Connection North, Califur, Rocket City Fur Meet, and FWA (which I track, and which have already occurred) I get an average of 30,800 -- the only substantial deviations being RCFM, indicating 22k, and CF, indicating 37k.


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## Tally (Jun 18, 2010)

Enough.


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## WolvesSoulZ (Jun 18, 2010)

You can't really count the number of furries there are. Many are probably not using FA, FAF, doing the Surveys, nor attending Cons.
Leading any statistic collect and other thing invalid.

All we can say is "Too many" or "Alots."


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## MrBlack (Jun 18, 2010)

WolvesSoulZ said:


> You can't really count the number of furries there are. Many are probably not using FA, FAF, doing the Surveys, nor attending Cons.
> Leading any statistic collect and other thing invalid.
> 
> All we can say is "Too many" or "Alots."


 EVERY TIME YOU FUCKING POST, I FEEL GAY BECAUSE I LOVE YOUR AVATAR >:[  


But yea there are gazillions of furries if you include the actual animals out there :U


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## ChickO'Dee (Jun 18, 2010)

Akro said:


> Over 9000


 damnit you stole my reply


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## Kellie Gator (Jun 18, 2010)

ChickO'Dee said:


> damnit you stole my reply


 Be glad he did, that way he loses dignity and not you!


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## ChickO'Dee (Jun 18, 2010)

Kellie Gator said:


> Be glad he did, that way he loses dignity and not you!


 lol true. but i have no dignity to spare XD
sadly, many of the people who post that meme don't even like DBZ D:


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## Akro (Jun 18, 2010)

ChickO'Dee said:


> lol true. but i have no dignity to spare XD
> sadly, many of the people who post that meme don't even like DBZ D:


 I love DBZ and watched 98% of the DBZ and DB GT series


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## ChickO'Dee (Jun 18, 2010)

Akro said:


> I love DBZ and watched 98% of the DBZ and DB GT series


 then i say your dignity loss should be revoked


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## Akro (Jun 18, 2010)

ChickO'Dee said:


> then i say your dignity loss should be revoked


 I didnt lose any dignity to start out with, because I took nothing from any of the responses personally


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## Kobu (Jun 18, 2010)

Akro said:


> Over 9000


 Hahaha.  That made me giggle.


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## Wolfen Wolf (Jun 18, 2010)

Quarter million seems like a good estimate.


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## Kreevox (Jun 18, 2010)

Enough for the largest, most perverse furpile in the history of forever, speaking of which, everybody turn on SpikeTV at 6:00 EST tonight

I jest, furpiles are fucktarded


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## Kobu (Jun 18, 2010)

Doomsquirrel said:


> Enough for the largest, most perverse furpile in the history of forever, speaking of which, everybody turn on SpikeTV at 6:00 EST tonight
> 
> I jest, furpiles are fucktarded


 What exactly is on at 6:00 EST? 

Just found it actually:  CSI - The "Furry" Side of Vegas.  Sounds interesting.


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## WolvesSoulZ (Jun 18, 2010)

Kobu said:


> What exactly is on at 6:00 EST?
> 
> Just found it actually:  CSI - The "Furry" Side of Vegas.  Sounds interesting.


 
If you post ANY thread related to this, I can guarantee you will be FLAMMED and TROLLED to the max. Well in short, you will be hated as a newfag posting shitty thread.


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## Willow (Jun 18, 2010)

WolvesSoulZ said:


> If you post ANY thread related to this, I can guarantee you will be FLAMMED and TROLLED to the max. Well in short, you will be hated as a newfag posting shitty thread.


 Brb, making CSI thread

:V


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## Stargazer Bleu (Jun 18, 2010)

I can believe over 250,000 in the U.S. alone.  More world wide.
Wouldnt surprise me if it close to a million.  Half a mill at the very least easy.


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## Tewin Follow (Jun 18, 2010)

WillowWulf said:


> Brb, making CSI thread
> 
> :V


 
I lol'd at the white.


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## Willow (Jun 18, 2010)

Harebelle said:


> I lol'd at the white.


 Did I win


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## Alstor (Jun 18, 2010)

Doomsquirrel said:


> Enough for the largest, most perverse furpile in the history of forever, speaking of which, everybody turn on SpikeTV at 6:00 EST tonight
> 
> I jest, furpiles are fucktarded


 It was on at 1:00 today. Willow and I watched it. It was mind-numbingly disturbing.


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## Willow (Jun 18, 2010)

Alstor said:


> It was on at 1:00 today. Willow and I watched it. It was mind-numbingly disturbing.


 It's on twice


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## Jashwa (Jun 18, 2010)

Over 9000!

(hi ben c: )


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## SnowFox (Jun 18, 2010)

Jashwa said:


> Over 9000!


 
If you were anyone else, I'd tell you to [stop posting]

*insert button I can't be bothered to link to above*


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## Ames (Jun 18, 2010)

Interesting.

I love statistics, by the way.  I find it somewhat magical!


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## Klisoura (Jun 18, 2010)

Stargazer Bleu said:


> I can believe over 250,000 in the U.S. alone.  More world wide.
> 
> Wouldnt surprise me if it close to a million.  Half a mill at the very least easy.



That's a number that comes up pretty frequently. It's generally my go-to number, and it has a couple of things going for it â€” for one, Alexa suggests that around a quarter of a million people visit FurAffinity, although I don't know how Alexa derives these figures. I also don't know what the "official" user statistics are for FA. 

On the other hand, there are two problems with this. 

The first is that, presuming furries are evenly distributed (which is not completely indefensible), that suggests that there should be around 6k people in the SF Bay Area. That implies that, even if it draws no outsiders, Further Confusion only needs to get a 50% conversion on the local population to meet its attendance figures. 

However, Further Confusion doesn't just draw on local furries, so the actual total is somewhat lower than that. What's a reasonable conversion rate? I'm not sure. The Denver metro area, for instance, ought (at a ~.08% American furry population) to have around 2k furries, which implies that Rocky Mountain Fur Con has only achieved a 20% conversion presuming no travel from outside the area. 

The second problem is that it implies that, say, only 1.5% of furries attend Anthrocon. Again, this isn't an indefensible position to take. Furry conventions don't have as much overlap as you'd think â€” although for any given convention, somewhere between 10% and 50% of the attendees have also been to Anthrocon that year. So "the percent of furries who attend any convention" is larger than "the percent of furries who attend Anthrocon" â€” but not hugely so. 

Kyle Evans didn't ask people whether or not they attended conventions, but the UC-Davis poll that kicked around a few years ago had 40% of its respondents say they attended conventions, and the Furry Survey has ranged between 15%-37% over its three-year run (this range is due in part to a change in how the question was worded between 2008 and 2009). 

Too, if you take the percent of convention attendees who took the survey, the number is remarkably consistent at around 9.5%; what variance there is is generally well under +/- 1%. This suggests that it's not just one or two conventions that are conspicuously pushing people to surveys like mine and UC-Davis'. For the number of furries to be much larger, it would imply that there is a whole group of homogenous convention-going furries and a second group of people who a) don't go to conventions and b) don't let themselves be polled. However, the only evidence for this seems to be circular. 

How did you arrive at your figure of a quarter million?


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## Stargazer Bleu (Jun 18, 2010)

Klisoura said:


> How did you arrive at your figure of a quarter million?


 
Just a guess.  Of conventions around the nation, forums, art sites.
There is many out there who dont deal with the fandom a lot but still consider them selves a furry.
So from those who are into the fandom at a very small amount to those that are majorly I can belive that a quarter of a mill could be a good guess.


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## Kobu (Jun 18, 2010)

WolvesSoulZ said:


> If you post ANY thread related to this, I can guarantee you will be FLAMMED and TROLLED to the max. Well in short, you will be hated as a newfag posting shitty thread.


 Right.  Noted.

It's reassuring to see big numbers in our fandom.  Represent, right!?


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## freezethewolf (Jun 18, 2010)

OVER NINE THOUSAND!!!!!!


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## Delta (Jun 18, 2010)

freezethewolf said:


> OVER NINE THOUSAND!!!!!!


 You're late, go home.

I'd shoot for about 450,000 - 500,000 proclaimed furries world wide with maybe 30,000 who don't know about/too scared to admit/in denial about being a fur. It actually seems kind of small when you compare it to fans of anime or some shit of similar reputation.


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## Fenrir Lupus (Jun 19, 2010)

Not enough to finish reading that post.


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## mystery_penguin (Jun 19, 2010)

Akro said:


> Over 9000


 your signature fits perfectly for that


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## Slyck (Jun 19, 2010)

Quite a few, my good man.


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## greg-the-fox (Jun 19, 2010)

At least 100,000, less than a million. Who knows.


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## Blue bayou (Jun 19, 2010)

more than 1 less than 1 trillion........actually my guesstimate would be between 500k and 1 million, which I know seems a bit high but you get a lot of people like me (until recently) tend to stay in the shadows but still love the fandom, and consider themselves furries.


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## Bittertooth (Jun 19, 2010)

I'd guess that about 10 million people could be in the fandom if there wasn't the fandom's perversion that scares 9/10 of them away.


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## RayO_ElGatubelo (Jun 19, 2010)

Tori Belliachi said 100,000 worldwide.


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## Allamo Fox (Jun 19, 2010)

Everyone is a furry, there are those who dmit it and there are those who don't know they are one. So there are ~6,800,000,000 furries on Earth


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## Kellie Gator (Jun 20, 2010)

Allamo Fox said:


> Everyone is a furry, there are those who dmit it and there are those who don't know they are one. So there are ~6,800,000,000 furries on Earth


 No, you're just lonely and desperately hoping you're not the only one in your neighborhood with a fetish for cartoon animals.


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## Willow (Jun 20, 2010)

Kellie Gator said:


> No, you're just lonely.


 Kellie...do I wanna know what the full picture is?


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## Kellie Gator (Jun 20, 2010)

WillowWulf said:


> Kellie...do I wanna know what the full picture is?


 NO YOU DON'T LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE


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## Klisoura (Jun 21, 2010)

RayO_ElGatubelo said:


> Tori Belliachi said 100,000 worldwide.



Hmm. This figure, so near as I can tell, appears to be unsourced. Talking with Kathy Gerbasi, who has written about the fandom before, a similar estimate of around a couple hundred thousand in _Who are you people?_ is also unsourced. This appears to be a trend. 

I've contacted some other people who might have information on what percent of their convention's attendance is local. This being said, without any substantiated countering proposal, I think the numbers at this point suggest a number of around 40,000. I'd accept that number as being off by a factor of two or so, but I'd think 100,000 is on the far edge of what is likely, and 250,000 is not really defensible with any rigour.

What's FA's active userbase?


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