According to Google Trends, searches for “therian” have increased by 5,000%. Why? Mainly, the viral spread of their gatherings and the news coverage in mainstream media. Their bodies are human, but their identity is animal. Wait a minute: as wild as it may sound, completely insane even, we’re witnessing a genuine teensploitation phenomenon. Wherever they go, therians become a sensation: they run, jump, sniff, and sometimes even bite (please don’t, therians). But what are therians, why are they making headlines, and why might they become a symbol of cannabis liberation?
According to the International Anthropomorphic Research Project (IARP), a group of scientists who study the furry fandom, “therianthropy is the phenomenon of individuals who identify as a non-human animal species and can often manifest through shifts, which are changes in mental state or perceived physical sensations.”
Here’s the thing: therians went viral because they evoke something in others that’s difficult to decode. It sparks laughter, anger, curiosity, disdain, discomfort, love, even ignorance. Perfect fuel for the TikTok algorithm.
As such, these days therians are receiving unprecedented attention. And while they are a young community, born in the early heat of the internet, on Usenet forums in the early ’90s, they’ve even surpassed the more established furry community in popularity, a subculture with a deep interest in anthropomorphic animals and common figures at otaku and other fandom events. Technology has changed, but the need for a pack remains.
And, if you’ll allow me (please do, we’re inviting you to think), the connection between therians and cannabis liberation is not arbitrary: both share a root in bodily sovereignty and perception. Cannabis culture fought for decades for the right to alter perception and mental states without being criminalized. Through their “shifts” (the aforementioned changes in mental state in which they connect with their animal identity), therians do something similar, but endogenously. Their experience is both mental and sensory.
So, if cannabis users seek expanded consciousness to see the world “differently” (yes, I know, they also seek so many other things), therians claim the right to inhabit a non-human consciousness. And, in that sense, both groups are labeled by a predominantly “normative” society as “crazy,” “immature,” or people who are “escaping reality.” They share, let’s say, a stigma: “This is right, this is wrong.” And for them, in this clash of prejudices, the ball falls squarely on “what’s wrong.”
And as happened with one of the main slogans of the feminist revolution, the one that established the idea of “My body, my choice,” the cannabis movement also embraced that notion. But, but, but, therians take that postulate to the extreme: they embody a rebellion against their own biological species and carry out an aesthetic disobedience. In short: they crawl around on all fours in public places and wear dog masks that look like your French bulldog Charlie.
So, like all these ruptures born from youth culture, which is the main driving force behind irreverence throughout history, just as smoking weed in a public square was a political act 20 or 30 years ago, today “behaving like an animal” challenges public decency and the behavioral norms imposed by the production system. The system that wants us quiet, consuming industrial waste, ultra-processed food, and AI-powered doomscrolling material. Their mere presence disrupts the system’s productivity contract.
So, at the risk of exaggerating (I encourage exaggeration), therians can become a symbol of rebellion for this liquid 21st century (the term is Zygmunt Bauman’s, not mine), which needs new ways of addressing cries and creating cultural ruptures. And just as there was a fight to prevent cannabis use from being seen as a mental illness, at this very moment, therians are in the “shock” phase against the psychiatric manual. They are navigating a kind of embraced difference. We’ll see what happens to them. In the end, what happens isn’t so much what matters. What matters is the gesture. What remains of all this when all this is over.
And just as they go against the grain of society (a therian recently told me: “I don’t want to fit into this society that imposes all these rules on me”), they invoke a return to nature: “We are not machines,” they seem to shout, enthroning a fierce critique of hyper-technological capitalism from a profoundly primitive place. And if cannabis proposes a return to the earth, here lies another point of connection: woof, woof, meow, meow, with their feet in the grass.
All of that anger, all that discomfort, everything you’re probably feeling while reading this (it’s okay, I understand, really), is the same as what hippies generated during the ’60s, or punks in the ’70s, or those who danced to Tecktonik in the ’00s (probably you). And while the cannabis movement navigates a sea of legality, shops, and ultra-high-end celebrity brands flaunting their privileges, therians represent a new kind of marginality. One that doesn’t ask for permission. Sorry if it bothers you. The truth shouldn’t offend.
Therefore, if “coexisting means accepting others,” perhaps the comparison with therians may feel over the top (it probably is; again: exaggeration is fine, even awesome), but within their existence lies a new form of rebellion, one that doesn’t ask permission to feel, to perceive, or to act outside the norms.
That’s why they stand tall, as if their essence were a spiritual version of that old autonomy the cannabis movement has always tried to defend. Here’s a gentle (dog’s) ear tug to keep us from becoming complacent and to remind us that the fight continues. And that it needs us to be rebellious, resourceful, and disruptive, like a wet cat, like a bat at midday, or like a therian in the Senate.
Cover photo created with Gemini AI.
