Trigger warnings: violence, crime, trolling (harassment). Not described in graphic detail. The following post uses excerpts from my newly updated free e-book,
Otherkin Timeline, as well as excerpts from earlier posts on Otherkin News. This isn't a complete overview of everything on Otherkin News in 2011, just a selection of relatively significant events. During the latter half of this year, I became very active with researching current events in or related to the otherkin community, and began posting regularly to the Otherkin News blog. As a result, I have more information about events during the latter half of 2011 than the early half. Would you please help fill in some events from the first half of 2011?
During this year, an otherkin community blossomed on the blog-hosting site Tumblr.com. This includes the creation of a blog called
’Kin Speak, which people can post to anonymously. In the last couple of months of the year, the otherkin community on Tumblr came to be frequently
vandalized and trolled (harassed), but the otherkin there didn't falter in their high level of activity. Meirya wrote about how
the otherkin community on Tumblr differs from any before.
2011-01: Someone claiming to be from a casting department spammed the otherkin and therian forums to search for someone to interview for a purported documentary TV show about otherkin that
would air on the Animal Planet channel. So far, nothing has come of it, but members of the
WereList forums are researching it, with
trigger warnings for that link: adult topics. Currently, it looks like it's a genuine casting call, not a phishing scam, but the show would also feature some adult topics.
2011-08-14: The first annual
Mer-Con 2011, the world’s largest mermaid convention. Some of the attending self-proclaimed mer-people described a lifelong desire to become real mer-people, or assert that they are now real mer-people. Recently, a participant called
Mermaid Shelley reflected on this and other events in the mermaid community during 2011. The mermaid community isn’t connected with the otherkin or therian communities, and is news to me and to the rest of the otherkin I've talked to.
2011-08-13?: A
vampire crime. Lyle Monroe B., 19, broke into a stranger's apartment and injured the woman living there, and then told the police that he was a 500 year old vampire, but denied it later, claiming that he’d been under the influence of a drug. I haven’t found any follow-up articles explaining what the authorities concluded about him.
2011-08-29: Media. A polite article introducing otherkin to outsiders is published in a Polish-language women’s online magazine,
We-Dwoje, which is otherwise mostly about fashion and health. The article is “
Otherkin – a quirk, or a fantastic way to live?”
2011-09: A vampire/werewolf crime. Stephanie P., 18, was charged with accessory to the murder of Jacob H., 16 in July. One of six suspects for involvement in the murder, Stephanie told the news station that she believes herself to be part vampire and part werewolf.
Later, she was ruled mentally unfit to stand trial. For a collection of all news articles on this topic, see
the Atlanta Vampire Alliance (AVA) Media Center forums, with
trigger warnings for what the articles describe: murder, rape, violence, blood-drinking, teenagers in a cult, animal sacrifice, some of which is described in graphic detail.
2011-10-04: Media. On Sweden’s channel 5, a TV series titled
Outsiders aired an
episode about the furry fandom. This includes at least one furry fan who is also a therian.
Later, in acknowledgment of this episode, a newspaper editor publicly blogged a joke about killing a child who comes out as trans-species.
2011-11-13: Media. A TV documentary airs on
Channel 4 about the Crimson Blood Wolf Pack in Texas, some of whom identify as werewolves, some as vampires. Soon, the vampire community
condemned it for showing unsanitary and dangerous blood-drinking practices.
2011-11-17: An early group of elf people called the Silver Elves
return one of their books to print:
An Elfin Book of Spirits: Evoking the Beneficent Powers of Faerie. 2011-12-05: Ashlyn Nafina prints
To Dream, Perchance to Soar, an urban fantasy novel
with intentional themes of the otherkin experience.
2011-12-20:
The Forest Voice, an independent magazine “for those among us who are nonhuman in nature,”
releases its first issue. -
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