Furrend = A Story of Stories
I’ve had the idea for Furrend in my head for years, mostly because my cats remind me every day how magnetic animals are. One day on Reddit, I ended up in a livestream where 2,000 people were watching a cat take a nap. A cat. Napping. Something in my brain just clicked.
People love animals. They care about them and show them off like priceless heirlooms.
Furrend started as a place for animals and the people who love, create, rescue, research, and obsess over them. At first, that meant building a platform where creators could share their work. Then we started asking questions, talking to people, digging through archives, and following interesting stories wherever they led us.
It turns out animals are everywhere humans are. They live in pubs and bookstores. They go to work in museums, firehouses, government buildings, theatres, libraries, train stations, and shops. You can find them in paintings, photos, wars, scientific studies, family histories, internet memes, and stories that have been passed down through generations.
That’s how Furrend became what it is today. We still work closely with creators, but our world has grown around them. We speak with artists, rescuers, researchers, historians, museums, pubs, shops, and people whose l lives happen to include a very interesting animal. Sometimes we get stories as they happen, and sometimes we have to dig through old newspapers from the 1940s.
Our Story Archive follows animals through history and culture. Animals with Jobs looks at the surprisingly long list of roles humans have given to animals. Animals in Residence features the cats, dogs, and other residents who became part of a place’s identity. Animals at War tells the stories of animals caught up in human conflicts. People and Their Animals explores the relationships between artists, writers, musicians, and the animals they shared their lives with. Then we have the stories that don’t quite fit anywhere, which often end up being our favorites.
We’ve spoken with the people behind internet-famous animals like Ethel the OIIA cat, followed the lives of working and resident animals, and asked the people who care for them what the internet usually misses. We’ve talked with creators about what happens behind the camera and with institutions about the animals woven into their histories.
These stories also started turning into other things, too. We built Atlas so you can slide through time and watch animal stories appear across the map. Cat’s World became a collaborative exhibition showcasing everyday spaces through the eyes of cats. Purr Break offers one minute of soothing purring because sometimes one minute is all you need. We’ve made interactive summer projects, raised money through charity events, built a web app, and eventually got the Furrend creator app on the App Store. Some of these projects are super handy, while some are just a bit quirky. We enjoy both.
In our early days, builder communities like Cronos, Base, and Solana helped us get the first version of Furrend out the door and gave us space to figure out what this little idea wanted to become. In 2024, we somehow ended up talking about it at SXSW. Since then, most of our growth has happened through stories, searches, emails, DMs, conversations, and people recommending things by saying, “You might like this.”
Why animals? Because they've always been a big part of how we live, work, create, remember, and make sense of everything around us.
Why people? Because the animal side is just one piece of the whole story.
Why stories? Because curiosity has a way of connecting things that seemed totally random just a few minutes ago.
Why Furrend? Good stories. Great furrends.
Furrend is now part publication, part creator platform, part archive, and part collection of things we thought should exist.
We’re still figuring out where this all leads, but we know what keeps us here: following an interesting animal story until we find the people, places, history, and culture around it.
There’s almost always more there than you expected.