Word otherkin will be 22 years old
An upcoming anniversary in the otherkin community:Β On July 9, 2012, the word βotherkinβ will have been coined 22 years ago. It was coined in the Elfinkind Digest, a mailing list which is active to this day. On that date in 1990, one participant, Torin, used the word βotherkinβ as a variation on the earlier word βotherkind.β Both phrases were casually improvised as an abbreviated way of referring to people who identify as other kinds of creatures. Β
(Source: Elfinkind Digest #71. The archive of this document is still extant, and I have read it. Thanks to the mailing list moderator Rβykandar Korraβti for making this primary source available to me while I was researching our communityβs history book, theΒ Otherkin Timeline. Thanks to Torin for permission to share this information.)Β
Right now, the word βotherkinβ is nearly 22 years old. That means that any otherkin who are currently in their teens werenβt even born until after the word had been coined. There are lots of otherkin who have considered themselves to be otherkin, of a kind, even years before the word had been coined. Detractors sometimes claim that otherkin is merely a passing fad popular among youth, but this is evidently not the case.Β
Any thoughts on the significance of this passage of time? Where were you at, as an otherkin, 22 years ago? Anybody want to make plans for the 9th, to set it aside as a day for thinking about otherkin things? Maybe a party for reminiscing, maybe even with costumes and artistic βglamour-bombsβ?Β