Furry, Explained with Finn the Panther

[LEGACY] Why Furries Tip Furry Artists and How Much the Tip Should Be

• Finn the Panther • Episode 24

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In this week's episode, we explain why furries tip artists in the furry fandom! Tipping for service is a standard practice in the United States, and tipping artists for their work is analogous to that idea. But tipping is not universal around the world, and for members of the fandom outside of the United States, it may seem like a foreign concept. And even if it is generally agreed upon that it is a good idea to tip, there aren't many good explanations on why  furries tip, much less so how much that tip should be. So in this episode, we take a look at the history and reasoning behind tipping for service, or in this case, the service of making art, as well as how much that tip should be, in order to properly show appreciation to the ever-important artists in the furry fandom!

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Welcome to Furry, Explained! I’m Finn, a big black cat from the internet, and Furry, Explained is my show about furries and their culture!

Let me start with a quick story for you. As you might have been aware, a few Sundays ago, June 20th, was Father’s Day here in the US, a small but important holiday that celebrates the fathers and father figures that people have in their lives. I’m lucky enough to still have a good relationship with my father so I usually get him something on Father’s Day. But this year, it fell on the day after my vacation and I basically forgot about it until that morning, which meant I had to think of something to get him rather quickly. So after bouncing around a few ideas with my mother, I settled on something new for me, something that seemed to be a pretty good idea. My family usually goes out to dinner at a nice restaurant on Father’s Day, and this year, I decided to buy my dad’s meal. It was quick, easy, and not another random gift from Amazon that he’ll never end up using. So, we went to the restaurant, ordered our food and ate it and all that, and I asked the waitress to split the bill, basically putting my dad’s order on a separate tab that I would take care of. Now in retrospect, that probably wasn’t the most efficient way to do that, but I wanted to kinda make a scene and surprise my dad with it. And it worked out just fine, I was able to use my card to pay for my dad's order while the rest of the bill went to my mom. But here’s where the whole point of telling this story comes into play. As I was signing my part of the bill, my mom looked over to see if everything was adding up or whatever and she gasped. “You’re giving her that much?” She exclaimed to me, as I was just finishing signing the bottom line. Of course, she was referring to the tip on the bill, which, for better or for worse as we’ll get into soon, is standard practice for service work here in the United States. However, my mom wasn’t surprised I was tipping in the first place, but more surprised at how much I was tipping. I gave our waitress 20% of my portion of the bill, which to me is the standard and honestly the lowest I’ll go in general (this waitress wasn’t anything spectacular, but she did everything that we asked in a respectful manner). But this 20% number seemed foreign and confuzzled my mother, who still tipped the, I guess more traditional standard of 15%. After we left, we got into a rather animated discussion about tipping, one that could have served as a perfect case study about the difference in the tipping culture amongst generations. My mom believes that servers need to earn their tip as something that is extra and 15% should be a satisfactory rate. Anything less than satisfactory, whatever that means, didn’t deserve the 15% rate and, while it doesn't happen often, she has no issue tipping lower than that amount. I have the opposite mentality; unless the server objectively makes it a point to be rude to me, I will start at 20%, and will often round up to the next dollar amount after that if I had a pleasant experience with service. And because I’m weird and always thinking about how the furry fandom relates to the rest of daily life, while this was happening, I remembered one of the unspoken rules of the furry fandom: always tip your artists. Which I totally agree with, don’t get me wrong, but despite some quick and dirty research I have never been presented with an outline of why you should tip artists, especially in the furry fandom. So, that’s what we’re going to discuss today! In this episode, we’re going to explain why you should tip not only artists, but anyone that makes you something in the context of the furry fandom. We’ll go over those reasons why and then we’ll tackle the second half of the tipping equation: how much you should tip, which again is not always clear depending on the context. Also, I’m weird and love talking about money, so I’m pretty excited to get into this one. So, welcome to Furry, Explained, and we’ll get started… right here.

One of the most annoying things about growing up, is that when someone told you to do something, you were discouraged to ask why. You were typically met with a response like “because I said so,” or “that’s just the way we’ve always done things.” And I feel for many people, tipping has slipped into that grey area of when someone reasonably inquiries about why they should tip, they are countered with a certain level of scorn, as if they should know better or  should accept that is just how things are done.
But that’s not what we do here, we like diving in as deep as possible into what makes the furry fandom tick, and tipping is definitely a major cog in the machine that keeps the community humming. But with that being said, tipping is not a universal practice when scaled outside of the furry fandom. In fact the idea of tipping for service today is very American; it’s a nice surprise, not the expectation, in many parts of the world. And, like most things regarding how people are paid in the United States, tipping has a rather… unpleasant beginnings.
The idea of tipping, which originated in the aristocratic homes in feudal Europe, was not very welcome when the idea spread to America in the mid-19th century. In fact, in the 1860s, there was a large anti-tipping movement in the United States, as giving someone more than what was asked to pay for goods and services was seen as undemocratic, and subsequently, un-American. But that movement came to a pretty sudden halt for a very malevolent, but also, unfortunately, a very predictable reason. You see, another big event happened in mid-19th century America: the slaves were emancipated. Which meant, in theory (in fact, almost purely in theory), they were free to do things like start working for wages like the rest of their fellow Americans. But if you know anything about the history of the United States, you know that just because the slaves were free, didn’t mean they were seen as equal. And there’s no better place to look for proof of that idea than the restaurant industry, which saw a rise in applications for employment from newly freed slaves. They argued, successfully by the way, that these humans were still valueless, and to get around the technicality of not being able to have slaves work for nothing, they decided that they only deserved to be compensated for their service from tips from customers, no wage or salary required. So yes, in short, the first ever tipped service workers in the United States were former slaves, and because of the power that the restaurant industry had in that time, the infamous tipping exception that the US is known for was coded into law in 1938, as part of the New Deal. The country went from having a $0 minimum wage, to one to the tune of $2.13/hour, which for service workers, did not need to go up with the rise of inflation. So even today in 2021, where at the time of this recording, the federal minimum wage is still $7.25 an hour, that service worker exemption is still in the minimum wage code, so if you work at a restaurant, by federal law, your hourly wage starts, and usually stays, at $2.13 an hour, and the rest of your income on a daily basis comes from customer tips. And while different states across the country have their own minimum wages for services workers which are higher than that, almost all of them are still under the minimum wage for basically any other type of work. So, if you take a look at all of that in context, you would be technically correct in saying that, in this great country of the United States of America, we still treat workers in the service industry like barely freed slaves.
Even today, tipping is still controversial, mainly due to the various generational gaps that we have in this country. The story that I shared with you at the start, about the difference between my mom and my ideas about the amount waiters and waitresses should be tipped is a common dispute between generations. For my generation, 20 is the new 15, but for some people in older generations, delving out 15% of a bill on a meal is seen as a burden, not a courtesy. And that’s just for food service. As technology has allowed the flourishing of new service industries, tipping in those contexts has been a jumbled mess as well. I still get into debates over people on whether you should tip at a restaurant if you are only coming in to take the food out. There’s no agreed-upon standard on what you should tip your Uber or Lyft drivers, partly because those companies go back and forth on how much they actually give to the drivers themselves. Same goes for delivery drivers for things like DoorDash and Instacart; should we tip someone that we might not even see if all they’re doing is dropping off a box of food? If so, why don’t we tip Amazon delivery drivers? And even in well-funded academic studies, Americans are not consistent when they say that they want to help contribute to the end of tipping, by doing things like paying more for something if the workers are paid at or above the minimum wage from the start. There are numerous studies that have shown that Americans say that, if gratuity were not needed and just added to the price of the food at a restaurant, they would be happy to compensate for service that way. But when those same restaurants raise their prices, their number of customers drop significantly, because consumers just see the higher price and decide to go somewhere else. Now there are exceptions to every rule, service workers at high end restaurants may end up doing very well with just tips, but in aggregate, being a service worker sucks in this country, and it all comes down to everyone having a different answer to why. Why do I tip for service?
Okay I’m done ranting on tipping in this country, what does this have to do with artists in the furry fandom? Well if you think about it, artists in the fandom perform a very similar task to what service workers do. They provide you with something that you enjoy, only they not only create it, but deliver it to you as well, with usually those two being coupled in the digital environment that the fandom is built around. There are other similarities too, most artists in the fandom are not paid an hourly wage or salary at all, they are all essentially independent contractors for themselves, whose sole income comes from direct sales to customers. Now this is of key importance because the furry fandom is unique insofar that artists are the lifeblood of the fandom. I won’t get into too much detail as to why in this episode, listen to the episode specifically on how to get art in the fandom for that, but because artist are so entwined with how this fandom operators, they are also a great barometer of what I like to call the economy of the furry fandom. If prices for art are up, and if there are many new artists gaining traction online, then that means demand is high, and the fandom as a whole is flourishing. And vice versa, if the opposite is happening, that means the fandom might be going through some relatively tough times. Also, because of the artistic nature of this fandom, furries are known to tip, and tip well. It’s not unheard of for some, more well-off furs to tip exorbitant amounts to not only artists, but other content creators like YouTubers and Twitch Streamers. They may not be artists per se, but they serve the same purpose of providing something enjoyable that people are willing to pay for. But again, we still haven’t gotten to the end goal here, we still haven’t completely discovered why we should artists in the furry fandom.
So, at long last, here is why you should tip artists. Or at least, my research-and-experienced-backed, educated reasoning why you should. First of all, if you’re American, this should be nothing new or surprising. Just like your barber or hair stylist, waiter or waitress, Uber or taxicab driver, making art is a service, and tipping for service should be the expectation. But even if you’re not from the US, tipping for art in this fandom is almost a mandatory practice. One of the more subjective reasons is that, in the grand scheme of things, many artists actually undervalue their art. This is usually something that happens to smaller or lesser-known artists, and again is rather subjective, but there are enough data points in the furry economy that show that customers are willing to pay a lot more for art that many artists charge for them. And giving them a tip is a great way to compensate for that underestimate of perceived value. Secondly, tipping an artist helps intrinsically build a relationship between the customer and the artist themselves. Artists remember their customers, for better or for worse, and if you are known as someone who not only tips, but tips particularly well, that helps build your credibility as a customer which in turn, makes artists happy to work with you on a repeated basis. Which in this fandom, is no small feat; if you get into a good relationship with a good artist, you’ll never be starved of new art of your sona as long as you’re in this fandom. And finally, and this is probably the most fundamental reason, artists are running a business, which means, in many cases, the artists themselves don’t keep all of the revenue from their sales. Businesses have business expenses, artists need supplies, advertising, cloud storage, software, and other miscellaneous items that are needed to keep their small business running smoothly. So, when you tip, more of that revenue actually goes directly to the artist as profit, after other business expenses are accounted for. All in all, tipping is more than just a good thing that is done to show support artists. When you tip, you not only are supporting the artist, but because of the role artists have in the community, you are also contributing to livelihood and the wellbeing of the furry fandom as a whole.

But we’re not done yet. We’ve only discussed the why about tipping artists in the furry fandom, that’s the more abstract side of this story. Now we get to the concrete aspect of tipping, which is actually tipping, where we dive directly into a different dilemma to decipher. How should we tip, or more specifically, how much should we tip an artist? And again, this is not a straightforward answer. There are many factors that go into the actual amount for tips, even if it’s generally agreed upon that tipping is something that should be done. And again, going back to my Father’s Day story, that was more of an example of discourse about how much to tip, not so much the act of tipping in the first place.
And to be honest, there’s no straightforward answer here, since at the end of the day, everyone’s financial situation is unique. We all have our own economies to take care of. Whether it be loans, rent, car payments, food, entertainment, or any other expenses, we all should have some idea about our spending habits, and with that, know what we’re comfortable setting aside for discretionary spending.
Which may bring up the first counter against tipping in the first place: someone may not be able to afford it. They may have done the math and for whatever reason, have determined that they just can’t squeeze in any kind of reasonable tip for, in this case, a piece of art from an artist in the furry fandom.
Which is a fine, reasonable explanation, though it has an even more reasonable counter: never take the price of a piece of art at face value. For any art that you get in the fandom, whether it be a small icon or a grand full-body piece, you should always expect to tip the artist on top of what they normally ask for compensation. Basically, if anything over the asking price for a piece of art is too much for you, hold off until you have the means to tip properly. And I’ll get to what I mean properly in a second, but I mean something more than 1% or 2%; some artists might actually find that low of a tip more insulting than you turning down their price for a piece of art until later on.
But when I say, “tip an artist properly,” what do I mean by that? Well, it really depends because again, there’s no official rules on how much you should tip an artist. In fact, to make up for this, and because I crave structure and order in my life, I have my own scale of tips for any art or other creative work that I pay for. Now again, let me preface this that everyone’s financial situation is different, and I am very fortunate and thankful to be in the financial position that I am in today. But for most art that I get, my floor, or the lowest that I will tip for a digital piece of art, is 25%. And that scales up as the price goes down. For art under $100, especially if it’s really good, I might scale that up to around 50%. And for really inexpensive pieces of art, things that are around $15-$25, I’ll usually give a 100% tip, basically doubling their asking price. And if it’s something that I thoroughly enjoy, I’ll tip even more. In fact, the most that I have tipped from a percentage standpoint, not strictly dollar amount, was 400% for a beautiful poem that was written about my sona that I now have hung up on my wall. But, in the pursuit of transparency, I will scale my tipping scale down as well, but usually that’s as the price of the actual art goes up. The least I’ve ever tipped was 20%, but that was for something that cost north of $1200, so the actual dollar amount just in tips ended up being the highest I’ve ever given.
But again, that’s just me, and even if you take inspiration from my scale, tailor it to what makes sense for you and your situation financially, and what kind of art or other creative work you like to receive.
If I had to give my suggestion on limits, I would keep your floor parallel to what is considered standard in today’s society: about 20%, 15% at an absolute minimum. But you should always tip something in that range, and not try to circumvent the tipping process as a whole. There is essentially no wiggle room when it comes to finding other ways to tip an artist. The only way that I guess does work in this context is as a full-on art trade, but that is a completely different transaction between two artists, not so much an artist and a customer. And just in general, you should never haggle, barter, or negotiate a price with an artist, and that includes whether you give them a tip or not. Now I understand the mentality of not wanting to be a pushover, and in the rare, and I mean rare, occurrence that the artist you are working with has been absolutely egregious in their treatment of you as a customer, then it might not be appropriate to tip anything extra, with the explanation being that the way that this artist conducted business with you was below even the worse of standard operating procedures. And if you are ever in doubt on what to give, there’s two things that you can do. One is to just ask the artist. It might be a rather awkward conversation, since talking about finances is still rather taboo for some reason, but having good communication with your artist about compensation for their work is just good to have anyway. And you don’t have to directly ask “how much should I tip,” I think a fair, appropriate question is more along the lines of what the average tip that artist has received in the past is. Now they could straight up lie or inflate that number a bit, but at that point it’s up to you to have good judgement on what you believe is an appropriate tip based on how much you end up enjoying the piece of art. Secondly, if the actual amount is still in question, I’d heir on the side of generosity. It’s almost always a pleasant surprise if you tip more than what is commonly expected. And in most cases, it’s a scientifically backed fact that giving feels good, and at the end of the day, you’re showing appreciation for the art or other creative work that they labored to create just for you.
Tipping an artist, especially in the furry fandom, can be complicated. It’s an idea that’s dynamic, unstandardized, and has a controversial past, and present. But it’s something that you should still do when paying for art in the fandom. Many artists do in fact make art for a living, and we’ve talked nonstop about how they are the lifeblood of the fandom and more or less dominate the furry economy. Whether it be to help cover their business expenses, or to make it apparent that you really enjoy their work, there should always be a good reason behind why you do it, and it doesn’t have to be as abaretiy as “it’s just tradition.” But no matter what your personal reason may be, in this community at least, you should always be prepared to provide a tip for artists in the furry fandom.

Alright, that concludes this episode of Furry, Explained! Thank you so much for turning in and listening, I still hope you enjoyed it and maybe learned something new today. As always if you want to continue the conversation about tipping, or have any other feedback for the show, you can find and follow me on Twitter! I’m @FinnThePanther, and a link to my Twitter is down in the show notes, along with some other resources about the history of tipping in the US that you might find interesting to check out. As always, if you like the show and want to support it, the best way to do that is to follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts! If you’re on iTunes or Apple Podcasts, make sure to give the show a rating and a review as well. You can also just tell people about the show, and if they don’t know where to start looking, you can point them to our little corner of the internet: furry-explained.com. Oh, and we also got a new link that also connects directly to the podcast: pod.link/furryexplained (no hyphen this time, the slug is all one word). So, you can choose either one of those and they will basically point you to whatever source you want to listen to the show. But anyways thank you so much for doing so and we’ll be back in two weeks for another episode of Furry, Explained, but until then, stay wild out there. Peace!

I didn’t have any other place to put this, so I’ll put it here. We just went on this escapade about tipping people who provide a service that you enjoy, and on more than one occasion, members of the community have asked how they could tip me, since, for many of you, I technically provide a service that you enjoy. And I’ve thought about this, in fact it’s been in the back of my mind ever since this show started because I’m not opposed to the idea, and not for the reason you might think. I still need to flesh my thoughts on this out some more, but basically, as someone who has studied the I guess “market” of content creation, I am confident that in the next five to ten years or so, two things are going to happen. One: everyone is going to become a creator. Some are going to create content that ends up being bigger than others, but eventually, everyone is going to join what I like to call the “creator economy” in some way in the future. And two, the way that people enjoying that content are going to show their appreciation for it is by tipping the creator directly. Right now, most people support content creators indirectly, primarily by watching or listening to ads on whatever platform the content is being served to. But based on the way the market is shifting, I think there’s going to be a point where we want to have more direct control over how we support each other as creators, including how much we want to support. We’ve already seen this in the rise of Patreon and, sure laugh if you want to, but the economy behind OnlyFans is a great example of consumer-to-creator support. So, as the show grows and the projects that I want to take on get more and more ambitious, there will be a time where I may launch a Patreon or a Ko-Fi or something similar where listeners have the opportunity to tip me directly. However, in my humble opinion, I don’t think this show is there yet, it’s growing every month and the number of listeners returning every week is growing as well, I’m just not comfortable with asking for money and not having it go anywhere at this moment. But that won’t be the case forever, so if you ever did think about tipping me in some way, hold off for a little while longer, we’ll get there eventually. Anyhow, sorry if that was a lot, did I mention that I like to talk about money? But that’s it, I’m out, I’ll get back to y’all next week. Bye!