Why do so many people feel bothered about this? It's not like the comunity is associated with a political party or something due to this. Also it's a meme comunity and this is a meme, what did you expect?
Eh. Furry is one of the few punching bags that people feel it's safe to attack nowadays. I've seen some people say that that attitude just a modern expression of homophobia.
I feel if you're still making fun of furries at this point and not just ignoring them and moving on with your life, you need to pull yo ass out of 2005 and get new jokes. That Vanity Fair article was like almost 20-fucking years ago.
Edit: I take that back after looking it up, it was OVER 20 fucking years ago.
The people who are into this were always there amongst the nerds. They just never spoke up out of fear and social ostracism.
Furrys are not a new "Internet" thing, the fandom has been active since like, the 70s when it branched off other fantasy fandoms. It was all started by a small group of people going to scifi cons.
The greybeards are the Linux-Boomers now, the nerds with glasses became the new greybeards and trans people, gays, furrys and femboys are the new nerds with glasses. The circle seems to close.
That's how it all starts. First, you just find anthropomorphic characters "hot". Next, you realize you were gay all along. Everything afterwards happens in a flash. Before you know it, you've picked a side in the systemd wars, you swear by ZFS, have memorized ESC :q! by heart and changed your 'sona into a FOSSa
Meanwhile, my gay ass is just sitting here thinking about a chubby bearded nerd with a kind face, and how nice it would be to cuddle together under a blanket and watch an underpowered laptop compile Gentoo.