Twitter has decided that the People’s Daily (the Chinese Communist Party’s main public news source) is too pure for the internet after the paper assumed visitors in fetishistic animal outfits were simply wearing them to keep warm.

The Communist Party’s largest news organ posted a photo of some “tourists in funny animal-like hats” walking the streets of the Northeast China’s Heilongjiang province with a caption explaining that the visitors had simply donned the full-body fur-suits “to withstand the cold.”

Brrr! Tourists wear funny animal-like hats to withstand the cold in Harbin, Northeast China's #Heilongjiang province, on Feb 12, when temperatures fell as low as -22C pic.twitter.com/338jMremlV — People's Daily, China (@PDChina) February 15, 2019

Who’s gonna tell them — Maerwen (@bunnytierlist) February 15, 2019

The paper’s Western social media audience, however, couldn’t help but see the fur-clad foreigners as members of the world-wide “furry” community, in which hundreds of thousands of people around the world celebrate anthropomorphic cartoon animals… often in R-rated ways. While not exclusively linked to sexual-fetishism, the connection in the public mind is fairly immediate.

No doubt they'll find a way to warm up. — AJ (@moltare) February 15, 2019

The leash that one of the costumed figures is using to lead the other by the neck, for instance, is a lot more erotically suggestive than it is preventative of frostbite.

is the leash also a cold protection measure? — gabriel (this ott dispenses the SNUGG) (@round_otter) February 15, 2019

Lol “hats” ... explain the leash and paws. pic.twitter.com/zKSi8PGmxB — Deanna Rilling 🌹🌈👩‍🎤🏒🎧 (@DeannaRilling) February 15, 2019

Most people, however, couldn’t bring themselves to spoil the paper’s more innocent interpretation of their guests’ motivations.

please preserve this innocence, I wish to live in a world where there are still people like that — monika full stop (@leszy_) February 15, 2019

That is definitely what's happening and why they are doing it. — Queer Heads and Odd Bodies (@artboypolitico) February 15, 2019

While it is easy to pass judgement on adults who spend their free time walking around (at a minimum) in eye-catching cartoon animal costumes, one person offered a suggestion that their motivations may have actually been to NOT attract attention.

Maybe they are just trying to avoid being tracked by China's ever present facial recognition surveillance system by wearing unique fursuit heads. — 󠁵󠁳󠁡󠁫󠁿SeaWolf 🏴 (@SeaWolfFan) February 15, 2019

Please tell me social credit score is affected by being a furry. — Practical Nationalist (@practnational) February 15, 2019

Although certainly not comparable to the unusual hobby’s popularity in the West, the “furry” community’s growing popularity in China may soon have reporters making the same associations as their audience. China hosted its first full-on furry convention in 2015, and has had one every year since. With the country still riding the fence on non-traditional forms of sexual expression, it remains to be seen what the future holds in its paws for the animal-human hybrid enthusiasts.

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