The Brief: In online fandom communities, "kins" and "kinnies" are characters with which someone feels closely aligned.

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Kinning, kins, and kinnies all refer to kinship that people in fan communities feel to the characters they follow. In this context, kin can be used as a noun or a verb. These terms are popular in Tumblr fandom communities and on Stan Twitter.

Kinning can vary in intensity as some people use the term for characters they casually identify with while others may base their personality, appearance, etc. on someone they kin. People who take their kin relationships more seriously may go as far as to impersonate a character or believe that they are that character.