New belief among teenagers. What do you think?

This seems to be a mutation of the previous era ideologies.

So that's not entirely new.

Marlena Telep said:

Good morning, what do you think about the rather disturbing belief that's currently trending among young people on platforms like Tumblr, TikTok, and Reddit, in which members believe they are animals and record themselves walking on all fours on TikTok?

They call themselves Therians, and they truly believe they are animals, most often dogs, cats, or other popular mammals. Many of them believe they have "species dysphoria" and that their souls are not human souls but animal souls. I even heard of a case of a teenager who wanted to rip off her skin because she felt she was a dog, and dogs have fur.

Am I the only one who finds this a bit terrifying? Not to mention the large number of children and teenagers who follow this trend. Even ten-year-olds are posting about it on TikTok and even creating special masks to sell on platforms like Vinted or Etsy. I've even seen adults walking on all fours in the mall or barking at strangers or howling.

-Marlena Telep.

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People can believe all sorts of crazy ideas. It's harmless.

Marlena Telep said:

Good morning, what do you think about the rather disturbing belief that's currently trending among young people on platforms like Tumblr, TikTok, and Reddit, in which members believe they are animals and record themselves walking on all fours on TikTok?

They call themselves Therians, and they truly believe they are animals, most often dogs, cats, or other popular mammals. Many of them believe they have "species dysphoria" and that their souls are not human souls but animal souls. I even heard of a case of a teenager who wanted to rip off her skin because she felt she was a dog, and dogs have fur.

Am I the only one who finds this a bit terrifying? Not to mention the large number of children and teenagers who follow this trend. Even ten-year-olds are posting about it on TikTok and even creating special masks to sell on platforms like Vinted or Etsy. I've even seen adults walking on all fours in the mall or barking at strangers or howling.

-Marlena Telep.

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Take one of the "believers" to the vet for spaying/neutering...and let's see how firm their belief is.

Read Romans 1

Go to the bookstore too. Half the books seeem to be celebrating witchcraft.

I’ve swung in the direction a lot of things billed as “innocent” & “for children” are designed to suck people away from Christ…..
This is all the intended end fruit of that

There’s a spiritual component behind everything. & nothing happens in a vacuum.

By Gods grace many will “grow up”, some the damage may be done

I think it’s a thing a relative few number of teens do to get the goats of a relatively large number of adults who want to get wound up about something and don’t know any better.

It’s not common. It’s not widespread. The number of people I have seen that claim it vs the number of people who are upset about it is 1-to-10. There’s nothing to see here.

DragonFox91 said:

Go to the bookstore too. Half the books seeem to be celebrating witchcraft.

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As somebody who has been shopping in that section since the 90s, those books have always been there. You’re only just now noticing them, apparently. Frankly, the selection is not what it once was unless you go to a place that sells such things. More tarot cards, maybe, but that’s about it.

Aldebaran said:

A minority are gay, trans, criminal, sexual predators, etc., and yet they're the ones who pervert the minds of children at schools and insist upon doing so.

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I am confident those gay and trans individuals reading this will be deeply moved by the Christian compassion that causes you to place them in the same category as criminals and sexual predators.
/deeply saddened sarcasm

This is a spawn of trans ideology; you are what you identify as.

Aldebaran said:

"Therian Lives Matter!"

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Wait, isn't Therian a Klingon nerve gas?

Trans people getting stale? This the new hotness for getting people wound up?

Latest moral panic.

Yawn. Seriously, this was around 20+ years ago.

Wait until they find out about the more out there otherkin, or some of the moe and musume variants. Or, like, ANY of the fetish/kink stuff.

I met and had some very fun times in the late 90s/early naughties with people who identified as elfkin and pixiekin. One is now a daytime television presenter with three kids, and another is a former M&A lawyer now turned wine maker.

Relax. The kids (don't) know what they're doing. But if it's upsetting people, they're only going to do it more and harder. As William Gibson wrote (in the early 80s): "Don't let the little ... generation gap you".

Aldebaran said:

Being a small number or a minority of the population doesn't mean much anymore. A minority are gay, trans, criminal, sexual predators, etc., and yet they're the ones who pervert the minds of children at schools and insist upon doing so. Even the elite colleges have taken to promoting this stuff to the point that they become breeding grounds for violent protests.
But yeah, nothing to see here....until they want to be seen, and then they don't give you a choice. "Therian Lives Matter!"

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Except there aren’t a small number of gay or trans people… And this isn’t criminal so comparing people who do this to criminals is kind of a leap.

These are furries, but by a different name. This isn’t a widespread movement. It’s a hobby engaged in by a small group of people. It’s LARPing. And the only people getting upset about it are people prone to be riled up or afraid of what they can’t understand or are led by conspiracy theories dressed up as news who want to use this as a back-door to promoting anti-LGBTQA+ ideology. It’s nothing to be hysterical about, unless we want the government to start mandating what people’s hobbies should or shouldn’t be.

When they start drinking from the toilet, that is when I will begin to worry.

Tropical Wilds said:

I think it’s a thing a relative few number of teens do to get the goats of a relatively large number of adults who want to get wound up about something and don’t know any better.

It’s not common. It’s not widespread. The number of people I have seen that claim it vs the number of people who are upset about it is 1-to-10. There’s nothing to see here.

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This. I've been hearing about this "widespread trend" since at least the mid-late 2000s. And the fear/angst/anger in response to it always seems incredibly disproportionate to the reality on the ground.

Are there people who engage in what I'd view as weird subcultures? Sure. I saw a couple, early 20s I'd guess, walk around Costco where the boyfriend had a leash and dog ears. I thought that was weird, I feel like that's probably a sexual kink they have, and I don't know that making one's sexual fetishes so public that one involves everyone else is exactly appropriate. But I also think it's pretty inappropriate when someone acts belligerent in public. Again, at Costco, I saw an elderly gentleman walk through the door, the people at the door asked him to come back so his card could get scanned, and he became belligerent all because he didn't want to do what everyone else has to do. That was pretty inappropriate of him. And I see more of that, then I do the other. But I don't think either are "trends" or a widespread problem. People are people and people are weird.

This becomes especially more true when we talk about adolescents who are in the deep and complicated process of discovering who they are.

Name a time when teenagers weren't weird. Just because the internet exists and so we can broadcast all our weirdness to the world doesn't mean it's new to be weird.

What's actually important, it would seem to me, is to recognize that teenagers will go through phases, they will do weird things, they will do stupid things; and the point isn't to box them in and tell them to be perfect carbon copies of their parents--but to set boundaries for their own protection, to give them the room to express themselves and discover who they are, because it is always doubly keeping children safe and also giving them the environment to grow and mature. I do admit that I'm not a parent, so I remain on the outside of that dynamic--but it seems to me that healthy environments with good boundaries but also plenty of space for children to grow and thrive are just good advice in general.

There are so many reasons to be worried about kids, about others, about the state of the world--we really got to prioritize.

-CryptoLutheran