The unbearable cuteness of Hello Kitty
Tuesday, 17 August, 2004
Read Loobylu's entry on cute (via Deb) and she had, among other things, some interesting links to stuff on Hello Kitty:
- How Hello Kitty Came to Rule the World (Edward Gomez): I thought this bit was interesting: “Sanrio has tended to keep the personality profiles of its characters relatively vague—the better to allow consumers to imbue them with their own emotional values and energy.”
- Hello Kitty: The Remarkable Story of Sanrio and the Billion-Dollar Feline Phenomenon (looks like interesting reading!)
I was given my first Hello Kitty when I was about four or five. We visited Hong Kong and the stuffed toy was a present from a relative or family friend whose name I don't even remember. Back then they didn't have plush but a kind of shag fur thing which really looks dated. But I loved Hello Kitty—eve when her nose fell out in the washing machine and my mother had to sew a button in its place—even when her fur started to deteriorate—and yes, I still have her, even now.
I can't say that I'm like those women who had become “servants to their salarymen husbands who brought home the bacon but rarely saw their kids. Stuck in new, remote bedroom communities [outside big cities], women wanted comfort, and Hello Kitty, with her soft features and homespun story, was just the kind of nurturing creature to help them escape the hostile, industrialized urban world.” I don't think she was escapism for me, though, I guess, as a child, I used to make up stories about her when I played—that she lived on a farm with a sheep, a cow, a pig (and her piglets) and tended the farm with her best friend, Rabby (who was, funny enough, a rabbit!), or that she ran a sweet store ... but I don't regard any of that as being escapism—it was all play and fun and imagination.
So what is my attachment to Hello Kitty now? Why did I snap up the keyring of her in baseball attire, bat in hand? Why do I feel that every little girl should have their own Hello Kitty and promptly gave one to Matthew and Evelyn when their little daughter was born? Why have I gotten rid of most of my toys (not soft toys—I've kept most of those) but not my Hello Kitty toys?
I really don't know. Perhaps I'm just obsessed?
Blinks:
A way of funding writing in the future: pitch and idea and get people to support it.
Place where you can hire play equipment for parties, etc.
How to recalibrate the home button on your iPhone.
Unsolicited manuscripts accepted by Pan Macmillan with certain conditions.
Thought Balloon is a group blog in which the writers tackle a new theme every week? month? with one-page scripts. This URL is for their Phonogram ones.
How to sew a zipper on a knitted garment.
Issues organised by tale.
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Oohhh!! My sister went to Sanrio land in Japan in 2001!! Best time ever she says. But she didn’t take a camera :(
Wow, I didn’t even know such a place existed!
Here’s a link to another Hello Kitty site.