It is true that there are instances of 4chan trolling via kin and making up genders but reading this thread I'm sort of scratching my head because kinning existed long before then and it feels a bit disingenuous to treat it as such. Like, from what I vaguely remember kinning has it's roots in people identifying as elves and then otherkin was coined to refer to non-elfkin. Kinning in reference to fictional characters is relatively new. I remember when the wider otherkin community considered it a bastardization of the culture (and maybe they still do but I wouldn't know, I dont go there anymore). IDK what the catkin thread is about but dear god people have seriously been thinking of themselves as kitty cats with 100% sincerity for decades now.