Pictures

Language +Influence

There isn’t a universal language otherkin speak. Thought those who claim to be elves speak various forms of a fictional language called elven tongue.

They haven’t influenced mainstream society at all. They exist on the fringes of mainstream society because they are not taken seriously. Other kin are largely regarded as a joke.

Symbols

The theta-delta is used, T or theta representing therian, and delta representing change or shift.

A regular heptagram known as the Elven Star or Fairy Star is used by some members of the otherkin subculture as an identifier.

Values & Beliefs

Otherkin are a community of people who see themselves as partially or entirely non-human. They contend that they are, in spirit if not in body, not human.

This is explained by members of the otherkin community as possible through reincarnation, having a nonhuman soul, ancestry, or symbolic metaphor. 

Scholarship has framed this identity claim as religious because it is frequently supported by a framework of metaphysical beliefs.

History of Otherkin

The otherkin subculture grew out of the elven online communities of the early-to-mid-1990s. 

The oldest Internet resource for otherkin is the Elfinkind Digest, a mailing list started in 1990 by a student at the University of Kentucky for "elves and interested observers".

Also in the early 1990s, newsgroups such as alt.horror.werewolves and alt.fan.dragons on Usenet, which were initially created for fans of these creatures in the context of fantasy and horror literature and films, also developed followings of individuals who identified as mythological beings.

On 6 February 1995, a document titled the "Elven Nation Manifesto" was posted to Usenet, including the group’s alt.pagan and alt.magick.  On Usenet itself, the document was considered to be either a troll or an attempt to frame an innocent party. However, enough people contacted the original author of the Elven Nation post in good faith for a planned mailing list to spin off from it.