SLOHS Expressions advisor Scott Nairne tries out the furry style. Photo courtesy of junior Bob Meyers.

  There is no word in San Luis Obispo High School more controversial than the word “furry.” The word can send some students into a furious tirade, while having others rush to defend them, often with both sides not knowing the full scope and magnitude of what a furry actually is. So why is it that students have such strong opinions on a topic they know so little about?
  A common belief about furries is that they act like wild beasts, forgoing their human nature.
  “They’re people, not animals…they need to understand they’re not creatures,” said junior Mason Cortez.
  The act of behaving like a wild animal in civilized society is often frowned upon, thus bringing hate upon furries throughout SLOHS.
  “If they want to be acting like animals, they should be treated like animals,” said an anonymous junior.
  However, the belief that furries act like and think they are animals isn’t actually true. 

  “[A furry is simply] someone who anthropomorphizes everyday animals, adding human characteristics to them,” said junior and self-proclaimed furry Haley Sarabia.
  Does this mean all these other qualities have been merely misattributed to furries? Apparently so. 

  Someone who considers themselves literally to be an animal in at least some aspect is called a therian, not a furry, according to Sarabia. Therians are the ones who have had the negative atmosphere around them, and often for good reason too, as the infamous claim that furries have sexual relations with animals should actually be attributed to a small group of therians.
  “[The furry community] has a history of people who claim to be furries doing some not so nice things to animals, and that gets associated with the entire community,” said Sarabia.
  So all this hate is seemingly unfounded, becoming a stereotype used to dislike a group of people for taking an interest in anthropomorphized animals.
  If people do just a little research however, they can find out the truth about an assumption they have, and perhaps change their outlook of the subject for the better.