>>76871 (OP)
>When
Probably with the internet's creation, where you could now connect with others who share your strange obsessions rather than being alone with your thoughts in the real world.
Furry art dives into fiction far more than, say, anime or anything involving monsters. The latter two keep the human traits of a character while furry art rejects it either partially or entirely. You are more likely to make anime characters become real than furry ones.
The lack of a furry alternative to the anime industry also doesn't help with retaining normal and sane individuals within the fandom. With minimal normalfag appeal, very little is stopping people from being weird as hell, which you can see on e6, and when a normalfag does somehow end up in these places, they either get weirded out, or they accept the new normal (because they weren't truly normal).
Not a single furry discovered their interests through innocent means.