In a single North Carolina college district, college students could quickly discover an uncommon new directive of their college’s costume code coverage: a ban on “furry” costumes.

Officers within the Iredell-Statesville College District, which serves a suburb of Charlotte, North Carolina, seem like endeavor a wierd response to a social media hoax. In accordance to Queen Metropolis Information, a neighborhood information station, the varsity district was not too long ago inundated with emails alleging that college students figuring out as “furries” had been coming to varsities dressed as animals and bringing litter containers into college loos. Whereas officers decided that the experiences have been false, some college board members seem to imagine there may be some hazard to the hoax. In consequence, board members have proposed an modification to the district costume code to formally bar college students from carrying “furry” costumes to highschool, “together with tails, gloves, ears, or collars.” 

Nonetheless, the proposed modification will seemingly act to stoke overblown tradition struggle fears, not calm them. Not solely is a ban on animal costumes an overzealous response to a nonexistent drawback, however it should additionally finally give ammunition to feckless tradition warriors searching for proof, nonetheless flimsily, that an web rumor of wokeness gone awry is true.

Rumors of scholars figuring out as “furries,” or animals with a cartoonish animal alter-ego, and utilizing litter containers at school loos started to flow into in late 2021, with the earliest acknowledgment of the phenomenon by a college district coming in October of that 12 months. The hoax gained widespread traction in January 2022 after the Twitter account Libs of TikTok tweeted a video of a lady at a Michigan college board assembly who claimed that she “heard that not less than one in all our colleges, in our city, has in one of many unisex loos a litter field for the children that determine as cats.” The submit obtained over 4,500 retweets and quote tweets and spurred nationwide protection of the hoax.

To this point, all experiences of faculties offering litter containers for “furry” college students have confirmed to be false, however that hasn’t stored officers on the Iredell-Statesville college district from falling prey to baseless panic, even when they acknowledge that the net claims aren’t true.  

Throughout a latest college board assembly, Iredell-Statesville College District officers stated that an unspecified TikTok video spurred rumors that the district was offering litter containers for “furry” or in any other case animal-identifying college students. Board members famous that these rumors, like different related claims, are baseless. “The kitty litter containers within the loos, that is not occurring,” stated Board Member Mark Web page. “I am so uninterested in listening to feedback. It looks as if it is at one and possibly two of our excessive colleges that these youngsters are simply beginning these items up.”

Regardless of acknowledging the hoax, the board launched a proposed modification to the district’s costume code that might ban “a dressing up or a part of a dressing up together with tails, gloves, ears, or collars.” The coverage comprises exceptions for spirit weeks or theatre productions. The brand new coverage seems meant to quash rumors that the varsity district helps “furry” college students by explicitly banning animal costumes. “We’re attempting to deal with it earlier than it turns into a significant drawback,” board member Bryan Shoemaker instructed Queen Metropolis Information. The board will vote on the modification subsequent month.

Moderately than forestall a “main drawback,” the district’s response appears much more seemingly so as to add gas to furry-rumor flames. In spite of everything, why would a faculty ban animal costumes if fursuit-wearing youngsters weren’t rampant? As Web page notes, “The costume difficulty could be very small. It is only a small group of the children which are jerking the chains of adults.” Nonetheless, by suggesting this coverage change, it seems that Iredell-Statesville College District officers have allowed a small variety of contrarian youngsters to seize their consideration—and certain hold rumors in regards to the scourge of “furries” in excessive colleges alive.