I don't know why I love hello kitty.

In my paper I am exploring Hello Kitty. I am looking into why she is as cute as she is. I also want to figure out why she has gotten so popular in the world (although this might be impossible I will try my best).


This is a older picture of Hello Kitty.

Compared to this new version of Kitty.

Currently I have a very rough outline of what I want to discuss in my paper. It is as follows.

1. The History of Hello Kitty
2. Why is she so popular?
   
3. What makes her so cute?
4. The success of making her be able to go anywhere

Also, remember that discussion board we all made (or were supposed to make) accounts for? Well I made a thread asking for your opinions on what part of Hello Kitty was the cutest. It is here. I would greatly appreciate your help on this.
More Images

★☆ 私 の 好きな かわいい 物 ★☆ (The cute things I like, with stars surrounding it :D )

V W X Yellow Elephant Underwear, H I J Kiddy Elephant Underwear
Chinatsu Ban
2005
I actually saw this sculpture in real life, and somewhere I have a picture of me standing next to the bigger Elephant with children swarming all over them. (You can't quite see it from this picture- but there is a little dung heap in the back too, which incedentily is my favourite thing in this peice.) When I first saw these two statues I thought, okay they are cute... but not "squee! I want one for myself!!" cute. I was confused by all the eyes, and I still am to an extent. But this sculpture is a very quintessential example of what cute has become.
First, allow me to define cute: As google puts it, cute means "attractive especially by means of smallness or prettiness or quaintness" which is something we all agree on. Something small is usually cute, so that explains the little elephant to the right. But many people also would find this statue attractive because of it's simplicity. You see no wrinkles in the skin like real elephants, instead you get a elephant that has been simplified to it's most famous charcteristics- it's long trunk and big ears. But all of it's other features have been deformed. (Like it's tail, this is what a real elephant looks like) As you look at the real elphant scroll up to see the statue again, you can see how there are no tusks- that is because the sculpture is to remind you of childhood, or innocence because baby elephants have no tusks. (Remember Goolge also defined cute as "Possessing physical features, behaviors, personality traits or other properties that are mainly attributed to infants and small or cuddly animals".)

One thing that I think is cute, but Google does not nessicarily agree with me, is that silly things can be cute too. I believe this because people do silly things by accident or on purpose because they want to portray innocence. That is why I think this dung in the back is cute, it is silly and makes the piece a bit morelikeable. (Also the hearts on it make it pretty cute as well... Hearts are just cute, because of what they stand for and what they look like) And I have to say I am digging the underwear with the pictures of underwear (my mom's favorite thing about this sculpture), again is it silly but you can't help but want to see what other types of undies were painted on...

The second "cute" thing I found is a video that I am sure many of us have seen already. It goes along with the "Possessing physical features, behaviors, personality traits or other properties that are mainly attributed to infants" definition of cute that our lord Google has granted us (a joke please don't hurt me).


(Real video can be found here)

So, as you can see this video is a small clip in time focusing on two brothers who are (probably a little) bored. Their innocence and behavior calls out to us and makes the viewer smile at their antics. And that the video is humourous also makes us feel a little more attached to it. I have found that cute things usually give you a good feeling, thus so why you become attached to it. If not for attachment then why else would we get things like this, this, this, and this? (yeah... the last two kinda freaked me out too)


--- Since Sensei wants us to do something Japan related for our second image- I am changing the Charlie Bit Me video to this one.
(Again, the original video can be found here)

In this video, we see inanimate objects become subject to something that almost always is cute. Anthropomorphism. For some reason, seeing objects come alive and act out things is just so unbearably cute! For example here, here, here, and here.

There is something also that is very cute about having very simple shapes for an object. As mentioned with the elephant statues, simplifying a object down to the very basics makes it easier on the eyes, and so more cuddly. For example- the cute, and kawaisou, Tare Panda looks nothing like the real thing- only the colors and basic body shape tell you that it is a panda (the name also helps).

This also relates back to children- babies look like their adult counterparts- only with smooth skin and with disproportionate body shapes. In this video, the pizza and the toppings have come to life and are all happy- they are dancing and singing. The pizza slice is so energetic and filled with passion- which is a cute characteristic that is displayed much more in children than adults. And then the toppings do something funny- and we see a kawaisou moment which cements our attachment to pizza. How much cuter can you get?

But really I just like the song. :)