Definition of otherkin broadens; semantic drift, or misuse?

[frameacloud]

Content warnings: none.

A therianthrope on Tumblr.com, Theangrylionshark, observed a new trend among otherkin on Tumblr. Some of them have started to call themselves otherkin in regard to things that they identify with, rather than beings that they identify as. Theangrylionshark sees this as misuse of the word, rather than semantic drift. Theangrylionshark wrote about all this in the article "Let's get something straight."

Examples of "identify as" include people who say "I am an elf," as otherkin have done for decades now. Examples of "identify with" are people who recently started saying they are otherkin because they feel a connection to a topic such as outer space, the ocean, or forests. These two things might be different enough from each other that it might be confusing to call them both "otherkin." I haven't heard them propose a word to call themselves by instead.

Some others on Tumblr have talked about this trend. Malchior (user-name Phasmovore) and Ash (Fuinseog) made a list of links to some of their writings about it in this conversation thread.

Source

Theangrylionshark, "Let's get something straight." 2014-07-10. Theangrylionshark (informal personal blog). http://theangrylionshark.tumblr.com/post/91364114706/lets-get-something-straight

Orion Scribner (frameacloud) and Malchior (phasmovore). Untitled conversation thread. 2014-07-14. Orion Scribner (informal personal blog). http://frameacloud.tumblr.com/post/91797968391/by-the-way-if-you-would-like-to-see-a-discussion-about

All above writings are linked here according to permission from their writers.

[Edit 2014-07-13: Changed article title, because I'm going to collect views on this topic from more than one author. Added a paragraph of my own observations on this new trend.]

[Edit 2014-07-14: Added a paragraph about some more perspectives.]

Comments

[spacehawk.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting this.

[of-salfarro.livejournal.com]

I think though that the author is a little harsh on "phase-kin"... sometimes that's just part of learning and growing.

[zeeth_kyrah]

I'd happily call such persons totemists, rather than otherkin. I'm pretty sure that's the form of relation as it has been known; Western society simply hasn't got the animism of older cultures properly embedded to say "I identify with the spirit of the ocean."

[arethinn]

Yeah, something like this. Or perhaps these people need to hang around more pagans/magicians/whatever? I hear a lot of otherwise vanilla humans saying things like "Well I have a lot of fire energy, I feel really connected to flames and I usually embody that in our circles" in that context, which sounds not too far off from the tone of this sort of crowd.

[citrakayah.livejournal.com]

I'd say that "feeling a connection" to an environment is not sufficient to call oneself otherkin or therian, and I'm somewhat irritated to see it.

That being said, I think that saying, "I identify with X" and "I identify as X" can be... pretty similar in practice. And I'm generally inclined to attribute it to semantics. Idiotic semantics, perhaps, and I don't doubt that it can cause misinformation, but I'm not sure that the people themselves are necessarily that different in experiences.

I don't understand identification all that well, though, and don't know that much about the people who are using the phrase "identify with" instead of "identify as." So I suppose I could be wrong.