Kin to the Future: The Cyborg, Cybernetic Animism, and Otherkin
The girl began to touch her face timidly, recoiling from the feel of her own features. Her curled fingers brushed the mark on her forehead, and she closed her eyes and gave a thin, stabbing howl of loss and weariness and utter despair.“What have you done to me?” she cried. “I will die here!” She tore at the smooth body, and blood followed her fingers. “I will die here! I will die!” (Beagle, 1967)When asked to consider the concept of a digital subjectivity, one of the first places that my mind wanders to is the Otherkin, who are one of the better examples of a self that expands beyond how we commonly construct the self. The Otherkinity is a community of people who describe themselves as somehow “other-than-human.” In some spiritual or mental way, they feel that they are in some way an animal or other non-human species such as wolf, lion, dragon or angel (Laycock, 2012). The Otherkin community predates the internet but it, like the neopagan community, expanded greatly with the advent of the internet and capacity for global communication (Laycock, 2012).
The working definition that Lupa, a Wolf Therian, Chaos magician and Neoshaman, gives for Otherkin is:
… [a] person who believes that, through either a nonphysical or (much more rarely) physical means, s/he is not entirely human. This means that anyone who relates internally to a nonhuman species either through soul, mind, body, or energetic resonance, or who believes s/he hosts such a being in hir body/mind (Lupa, 2007, P26).
I use this definition, as Lupa notes herself, because the Otherkin community is a very heterogeneous community and finding a good “blanket” definition is hard to find (Lupa, 2007). Other umbrella terms to use with regard to an individual include Otherkin, and the term Alterhuman, which started to appear around 2014 as an alternative term (Otherkin Wiki Contributors, 2025). One of the few things agreed upon is that there exists a sense of otherness. There is something about Otherkins that on a profound level are not the same as other humans. By a process of elimination, the only solid basis for a definition and a community emerges (Lupa, 2007). This is also different from practices like Shamanism because although there is an overlap in interest regarding the embodification of the spiritual power of the nonhuman, Otherkin is focused on identity first and foremost (Robertson, 2013).
There are subsections beneath this umbrella. For example, among the larger ones communities are the Otherkin, who have an affinity with beings like dragons, fae (fairies), griffons, and orcs. The Therianthropes align with animals like wolves, snakes and earwigs that actually exist. A third subsection are the Fictionkin, who are somehow ontologically connected to or are characters or species from some form of media, e.g., someone who claims to be Harry Potter or one of the Na’vi (Baldwin et al., 2023). These categories are the most controversial of all the communities historically, though perspectives on them are shifting as the terminology and tone of the ongoing discussion shifts (Laycock, 2012). There are vampires as well and while there is crossover, some would say they fall under the umbrella of Otherkin. Moar of those who perceive themselves as vampires reject participation in the Otherkinity and instead consider themselves to constitute a different group. Regardless, in this constantly evolving environment, vampires are considered to be adjacent (Laycock, 2012). Similarly, there are Therianthropes, who are aligned with animals generally, do not considered themselves to be part of the Otherkinity title but only adjacent, However they are still generally viewed as part of that larger group (Laycock, 2012).
The first claims of an identity of this nature were the pagan group, the “Elf Queen’s Daughters,” who in the 1960s claimed to be elves, unlike other groups that simply had Fae-focused or inspired beliefs and practices (Laycock, 2012). That is not to say that the concept of the animal-human is new. Stories of people who could shift between two animals or are a hybridization of them almost certainly have existed for as long as humans could imagine. Famous examples include the werewolf, the minotaur and the selkie. In the context of the modern Western world, these examples and others served as the rough beginning of the animal-human and other-than-human, now as understood as Otherkin. This group and similar ones like The Church of All Worlds and Feraferia manifested out of the same milieu as the occult and neopaganism movements of the era and share many points of reference. A case in point is Psychic Self-Defense, a book by Dion Fortune, that the Otherkin cite has having one of the earliest references to them (Laycock, 2012). Over the next twenty years, the ideas that would arise to formally define Otherkin floated through and gestated inside broader pagan and spiritual movements and communities (Laycock, 2012). The community itself emerged in the 1990s with online mailing lists, from which the term Otherkin comes. In-person events, called kin-ventions, were similarly created via online mailing lists (Laycock, 2012).
There are several theories about how and why this otherness exists. Such theories include strange ancestral DNA, bizarre neurology, mental illness, reincarnation, past lives or having a “walk-in” soul — a situation where the original soul left the body and a new one stepped in (Baldwin, et al., 2023; Laycock, 2012; Proctor, 2018b; Robertson, 2013). Some of these are proposed by the Otherkin community themselves. Some are suggested by others who have written about them. The Otherkin tend to err to the metaphysical or the mental, espousing that there is something about their essence is other-than-human and because of this, their mind and how they experience the world, their own existence and the phenomenon of sensation is different. Otherkin will talk about “M-Shifts” or “mental shifts,” where their state of consciousness is altered to be more alike with what they consider to be their kin, perhaps a unicorn or a tiger (Proctor, 2018b). The Otherkin altered state with sensation can include events like the sensation of phantom limbs or cravings for unusual food such as raw meat. These interludes can be intentionally brought on or triggered by heightened emotion. Some Otherkin live in a state of being in a near constant shift (Robertson, 2013).
The sense that body shape can alter and become different than how Otherkin usually feel it or functions differently than it should leads to an immense sense of dysphoria. Sara the Earwig Therian discusses her own dysphoria as “fantasies of splitting down her back or chest, to emerge “unencumbered by the moist constriction of flesh,” She wears fetish gear but not as an additional layer to her skin. Rather Sara does so in an attempt to replicate “what’s a layer down.” Sara speaks of her skin and body as feeling as if her muscles are exposed and that she has “weak and wet” chitin (the precursor of an insect’s shell) that cannot be hardened (Robertson, 2013, P20). She describes the experience as “absolutely maddening (Robertson, 2013, P20). Others will talk of feeling the need to navigate around phantom wings (Robertson, 2013). A Unicorn otherkin I knew spoke about the sensation of a horn jutting from their forehead. Clearly, from descriptions such as Sara’s, such experiences can be visceral, difficult and isolating.
Similar to other communities, like Furries, Otherkin tend to be treated as a joke by many people, commenting online and off, for their perceived strangeness or calling Otherkin at be “special snowflakes.” This is a derogative term, used only in this context, that started online and has moved into mainstream usage to mean someone who is so fragile they will do or say anything to appear special or unique (Proctor, 2018b). Regardless of ever-present derision, the Otherkin community continues because this is their reality and not an attention-seeking ploy. Considering the harassment and animosity directed at them (which can go so far as telling them to kill themselves), Otherkin point out that their lives would be easier if they could simply stop being as they are (Laycock, 2012; Proctor, 2018b). But this other-than-humanness is not something that they can abandon; it is inherent to their being.
It is difficult to gauge how many people are a part of the extended Otherkin community. Using the metric of otherkincommunity.net’s (now defunct) membership in 2018, there were about 5,500 members (Proctor, 2018a). Looking at the subreddit r/otherkin as a similar barometer in 2025, there are 14,000 people who have some investment in this community. In the estimation of those people examining the Otherkin space, the Otherkin population could be double if the rest of the Internet and social media are included (Proctor, 2018a).
Why this is? There are likely many reasons for this unusual social evolution. For those of us who have spent most if not all of our lives with an Internet world, conceptions like Haraway’s cyborg or Proctor’s cybernetic animism, both of which taking cues from Haraway, recognize the ways that these identities (much as Otherkin) blur boundaries and engage in a radical tension against the current nomos, the meaningful order imposed on the world (Berger, 1967) , that cannot find a way to successfully impose itself on a mixed reality existence. This tension creates both backlash and an opportunity to recreate both the self and society.
Digging Deeper
Irony is about humor and serious play. It is also a rhetorical strategy and a political method, one I would like to see more honored within socialist-feminism. At the center of my ironic faith, my blasphemy, is the image of the cyborg.(Haraway, 1985, P5)We need to play, and Otherkin allows us to express that within safe boundaries. […] And yet being able to play with our identities is not only fun, but it also answers a deep-seated need within us. Among other animals play is simply a test run for more serious actions; young predators play to practice their hunting skills, […] [f]or Otherkin, some of what may seem to be games to the outsider—things like creating costumes that reflect our ‘kin-selves, writing stories centered around our memories, or collecting images that remind us of ourselves—are tools that we use to become more comfortable with who and what we feel we are. (Lupa, 2007 P27-28)These statements convey the sentiment that there is an agreed-upon desire to use play and a nimbleness of mind to explore and build. The human is decentered but not forgotten and remains part of the experience. A cyborg cannot be a cyborg if there is no biomatter. A wolf that is not also human is just a wolf. From this blending emerges one of the “fruitful couplings” that can come from the “imaginative resource” that is the cyborg (Haraway, 1985, P7).
The very nature of Otherkin demands an eradication of the strict sense of self as previously conceived. One might not even be one kind of kin but instead may be legion. With seemingly no connection between them, an individual can be a Therian, otherkin, vampire and fictionkin, all at the same time and experience it in a kaleidoscope of ways.
I have certain ‘set’ theriotypes: horse, cat, mongoose, and (possibly) avian, as well as being human, and I fluidly change throughout each day and from day to day within those boundaries. I’m a cat, a horse, a human, a mongoose, and avian, and yet I’m also a humancathorsemongooseavian . . . or a horse or mongoose with cat ears, a feliquine (cathorse), horse with wings, and the list goes on to extents I can’t even describe. (Robertson, 2013, P19)
As an essentialist concept, Otherkin interacts with other academic concepts but does not engage using terms as they have been used in other academic circles. Otherkin’s time spent gestating inside Neopaganism imbued it with a willingness and capacity to incorporate elements from every sector. Otherkin drew on science and religion and fiction to form a different self, and a community in which it could survive and thrive. Partridge coined this coalescence to be a “popular occulture, ” that is to say, “a melting pot of Paganism, Esotericism, Jungian psychology, folk medicine, modern superstitions, and paranormal theories”(Robertson, 2013). The occulture’s boundaries are intentionally blurred, sometimes destroyed, and quantum physics, auras and warrior cats are all spoken of within the same bricolage explanation. As Lupa put it, it is the play of creation, of comprehending and exploring and finding the vocabulary to explain the unexplainable, to explain the soul.
An Other-Than-Human identity is an inherently faceted identity, an identity of boundary blurring and awareness that breathes and grows in unpredictable ways. In several ways academic literature has tried to conceptualize this identity in terms of a religion based in fiction, neurological abnormality and an alternative epistemology (Proctor, 2018a), However, the cyborg and cybernetic animism speaks more accurately to what Otherkin are.
When Haraway proposed the idea of the cyborg, she suggested blurring the boundaries of human/animal and the man/machine and suggested that this had already occurred. She was right and the explosion of Otherkin alongside the Internet is a testament to that blurring. Improvements in communication, and artistic and playful technologies have allowed Otherkin to experiment with new ways of connection and self-expression. It allows for the formation of community and also the fermentation of a new sense of reality that Otherkin individuals, perhaps making them among the best suited to be the pioneers of cyber-reality. And the Otherkin are not just limited to identity politics as the very nature of their existence leads them to politics, as actors but also as scapegoats. Inside the Otherkin community, at varying levels, predominantly left leaning ideologies have emerged to express a vocal desire for community and progress (Otherkin Wiki Contributors, 2023; Valens, Ana, 2024). Proctor notes that the Internet is a different space than is usually considered in the Post-Enlightenment West. Proctor sees the Internet as putting the user in a similar experience to the animist. He envisions a meeting-space with others, separated by physical space and time, including entities like bots, exerting limited agency and impersonating human-ness (Proctor, 2018a).
Animism is not just a religious idea, but a means of viewing reality as well. Inside Animism are concepts of the human and the not-human-person. It decenters the idea of the human as a solely unique creature and allows back into society more than just flora and fauna; Animism embraces that which we consider “not-living,” like stone. As Bird-David and Proctor put it, animism is a “relational epistemology,” meaning that non-humans are not personified in order to socialize with them, but that humans see human-likeness in them because we already socialize with them (Proctor, 2018a). This perspective fits in well with similar ideas by Haraway about aspects like the human-animal and animal relationship. For Proctor, “animism is seen in the contextual experience of human and other-than-human persons, following Ingold’s argument that animism is a lived experience of Heideggerian “Being-in-the-World” (1986)” (Proctor, 2018a, p278).
Proctor cites indigenous cultures like the Ojibwe when discussing these concepts and their evolution in Western Anthropology. Due to my own associations, I immediately think of Japan and Shintoism, which are themselves indigenous and animist. There is an entire category of yokai — spirits which can be good or bad and can transition between the two — that are objects that have “lived” long enough to come to life. It is not so much that after 100 years they are gifted, like Pinocchio, with a soul and a chance to become a real boy but that their “beingness” consolidates into a personhood after years of collecting like sediment. There are also stories similar those noted by Proctor of the Runa and the idea of the non-human-shapeshifting-predator-person, most famously the Kitsune — a magic fox which can possess and mimic humans for good or ill. There are even those thought to have been descended from these non-human persons, like Abe no Seimi a famous Onmiyoji or court diviner, and this non-human ancestry is cited as a source of his immense power and skill in legends.
Haraway and Proctor both examine cybernetics and find interesting fodder in it. To Proctor, autopoiesis, which arises when the system is closed but remakes itself based on information available outside the system,“ represents a prototypical Western Self. That is to say, we are bounded individuals who make our own decisions based on internal processes and learn from past actions” (Proctor, 2018a, P281). Haraway moves beyond autopoiesis into sympoiesis,“ which applies to collectively-producing systems that do not have self-defined spatial or temporal boundaries. Information and control are distributed among components. The systems are evolutionary and have the potential for surprising change” (Haraway, 2016). The human body is already not a singular creature but a sympoiesis of human cells, atoms and subparticles in which the person exists and must function along similar lines.
What is Cybernetic animism? Proctor defines it as “the practice of interacting in digital spaces within an ecology of non-human and/or non-bodied elements and the process through which this interaction makes open-bodied identification available as a way of being-in-the-world” (Proctor, 2018a). To be Otherkin is to have an open-bodied identification and allow for an expansion of perspective and reality that others can struggle with as it denies simplicity. The Internet is not “fake,” just as offline is not “real”. Each exist and impact the lives of people with equal intensity. For me, the Otherkin are the early adaptors, exploring the cybernetic animism of the Internet and the growth of other groups such as posthumans, multiple systems, transhumans and the generally queer. Each are a sign of that growing expansion. I can speak to my own experience as someone who experienced the Internet since I was a child as having “organic-ness” and “amorphous-ness” that leads one to explore. That exploration can lead to deeper self-comprehension and anxiety about challenges to the current paradigm. Donning the hat of the technopagan for a moment, as one navigates the Internet, the keyboard becomes a spirit board, mediating communication with a manifestation of the collective consciousness and mirrors a vast, untidy multitudinous “us” that promises to be both immensely rewarding and immensely terrifying.
To steal a page from the Otherkin, I will turn to fiction to help build my mythos. In the novel Episode Thirteen, Reality TV paranormal investigators go to the old location of a group of 1970s paranormal researchers to do a show and find more than just proof of the paranormal. By the end of the drama, they are all dead or insane, save the non-believer physicist, who’s entire reality has been shattered by the realization that there is more to our heavens than she realized. She has been burned down solely because of her need to know and in the process she is burned clean of her humanity to become a being who exists beyond time and space, life and death, at one with everything and nothing all at once.
Perhaps overly dramatic, it’s not an unfair comparison to both the experience of realizing the messy sympoiesis of “real” life, the cybernetic animism of “online” life and the experience of hunting for the self in a digitally-connected collective. One in ten Americans now identify as queer in part because of the younger “digital native” Gen Z. The Internet did not make these people queer, just like it did not make them Otherkin, but it, in its vast seething, allows one to play, to challenge, to become. The Internet is both the dangerous digital landscape we are forced to explore and a place of creation, creating wonder. At the beginning of this paper, I quoted from The Last Unicorn when the unicorn is transformed into an other-than-human in order to save her life. I end with some of Claire’s final words as she forsook her humanity to become a not-human-person.
These few will believe and make their own wishes upon a star. The spirits will answer them, like moths drawn to the same light. Intent and response. Mystery and testing. Perhaps we will find another human willing to shed themselves to know us.(Episode Thirteen, p368) References
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