Sevenfold Silence

(for part 1, check the tags)

2) "Otherkin" is purely an internet phenomenon.

...wellllll...maybe.

A lot of people don't trust the whole otherkin subculture because it "exists only on the internet"--or, rather, wouldn't exist without the internet. Nobody, they say, would come to the conclusion that they were something otherworldly without seeing other people on the internet doing the same thing, and then going "cool, I guess I'm [x]."

I actually agree, ish. The decision that one is otherkin isn't a "natural" conclusion--it seems crazy and unlikely, especially when taken in a more literal way. (See part 1 for more.) Someone might feel odd, strange, unusual, and alienated from human society, but the answer that they're somehow otherworldly wouldn't occur to them--or it might come up as a fantasy, or childhood daydreaming. It's that crazy and that off-the-wall of a thing to think.

Unless you're enculturated into it.

If you know that the option of a self-identification as otherkin exists--say, if you found it out on the internet--you may accept and cultivate that part rather than rejecting it, and Awaken. It doesn't mean you weren't otherkin before, necessarily; it just means you didn't call yourself that. Identification as otherkin is a meme just like any other social identifier is, and it can spread--and right now, at this early stage in its history, it's spreading across the internet.

There are sources that suggest that the otherkin movement is older than the internet; check out Vashti's excellent article on the subject (which I probably ought to add to the links section), which traces it back to '60s counterculture. Another perennial favorite to bring up is shape-shifting and/or part animal or divine kings, priests, et cetera through human history.

The notion of otherkin is presently tied inextricably to the internet, because the internet's such an easy place for a novel meme to spread. And it's happening now in human (!) history because minds--specifically in the occult, pagan, and New Age communities--are open in a particular way, to consider the option. (Or the Veil's parting--take your pick.) When belief in mythical creatures was widespread, notions like but not identical to otherkin flourished.

Pretending like the idea's invalid just because it's mainly internet-based is silly. It's much more fruitful to consider why it's on the internet at all, and why the notion surfaced.