POPSUGAR Inadvertently Discovers Furries

Look, we get it. With the social distancing protocols in place across the world, it's tough to find good, lighthearted content if you're a media company that doesn't peddle in hard news. So our sympathies go out to POPSUGAR for trying to post a gallery of sexy furry Lion King fan art as if it were a brand new thing that people make on the internet.

On Thursday, POPSUGAR posted a gallery of Lion King art drawn by Los Angeles freelance artist Marco Bernard. The drawings feature humanoid depictions of Mufasa, Scar, Nala, Rafiki, etc, the lot of them looking muscular and weirdly sexy. Bernard says he was inspired in part by Beastars, a hit anime series which shows humanoid animals in a high school drama.

While the art itself is fine, what made the story noteworthy was the blatant thirst POPSUGAR displayed over the characters. The title of POPSUGAR's piece reads, "An Artist Transforms Lion King Animals Into Humanlike Characters, and I'm Shook by the Results." Author Victoria Messina wrote, "Putting "sexy" and 'The Lion King' in the same sentence may feel somewhat sacrilegious, but one artist has made it feel so, so right." What really drove the story home was POPSUGAR's tweet, which bragged, "We can guarantee you've never seen The Lion King characters like this before…"

Now, if you've been on the internet for more than 30 minutes or if you've visited this very website, then you have definitely seen The Lion King characters like this (or worse) before. Twitter users were more than happy to let POPSUGAR know that sexy animated character fan art was not exactly groundbreaking internet territory.

Welcome, POPSUGAR, to the furry fandom. You have a lot to learn.