NEWS: The Cult of Hello Kitty

CULTURE: The Cult of Hello Kitty

No matter how hardcore you are, everyone has a weakness for Hello Kitty. The beloved feline is over 30, aging gracefully, and showing no signs of slowing down on her quest for world domination.

Originally designed by Yuko Shimizu in 1974, she is now on her third designer, out-careering her creators, who seemingly had quite good taste in literature and got inspiration from Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking Glass.”

Hello Kitty was apparently born on the outskirts of London, weighing the same as three apples, to a father who works in a trading company and a mother who is a housewife. She has a sister called Mimi, and has even had a boyfriend called Daniel, although their relationship status is unknown at the moment.

However, asides from that, Kitty’s private details are rather obscure. She is a bit of an enigma, and information is rarely released about this mysterious figure, adding to her elusive appeal.

Strangely enough, she was born without a mouth, and this is what is credited as her tool for global popularity. People of all emotional ranges can empathize with Kitty, who is neither sad nor happy...just emotionlessly adorable.

But, Kitty is more than just a sweet face. She is a force to be reckoned with. Superceding the Japanese obsession for cute things, her mouthless visage can be seen in over 60 countries -- aliens (?) have even made her the subject of a crop circle.

First making an appearance on a plastic purse, now you can see her bulbous white head on over 50,000 varieties of Hello Kitty products available on the market every year, such as fry pans, vacuum cleaners, toaster (that burn her face into the bread), to massagers (sold in the West as vibrators). She is a staple in the lexicon of tattoo imagery and even cuttings, it seems.

No one can deny that Hello Kitty is the ultimate corporate style icon. If a product has her face emblazoned on it, sales sky rocket. However, she does have her limits and you will not see Kitty on products such as knives, cigarettes and alcohol, although there have been non-Sanrio sanctioned guns available which would not please Kitty, being the children’s ambassador for UNICEF.

Alas, she isn’t without her enemies. She has been slated by anthropologists saying she is reflective of a sick culture that refuses to grow up. Or one that is obsessed with labels and corporate branding.

She even started brawls at the Singapore Mcdonald's in the year 2000, where limited edition dolls were given away with the Value Meals, necessitating riot police to control the unruly fans.

Bad kitty.

However, she does work hard. She costs her producers, Sanrio, 14 million dollars a year in copyright administration, but tirelessly earns it back, ostensibly accounting for half the Sanrio revenue -- in 2003 that was half of the $9.5 billion Sanrio made in total sales worldwide.

On X-mas day, she decided to make her video game debut.
Keep your eyes peeled for Kitty Vs. SEGA.
Play the game and visit her theme park if you are ever in Tokyo.

P.S. Happy New Year

my weakness on ebay is HK

I'm with you Moira...I personally like Batz-Maru much better

I think she's cute and all (the punker HK in plaid kil w/safety pin is my fave"), but I'm not a loyal fan.

Though I DO want a HK toaster. That would be rad.

I do so love Hello Kitty! Just wait until I get my Sanrio sleeves--

Batz-Maru

oh, i thought this thread was about the Hello Kitty MURDER.......

i'll be going now

Batz Maru

Pff, I better always love that little white fuzzball. I have her tattooed to my chest.

And they already have a HK video game..so I dunno where that "debut" part came from.

I hate Hello Kitty. I'm sorry, but I really do. It's a completely irrational hatred, too. It's hatred by association.

you have not lived until you have had to inventory thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of hk hairbows, pencils, erasers, etc. etc. etc. etc.

Haha I <3 Hello Kitty

Ya know, HK is some expensive ass-shit they have this jumbo kitty that costs 1300 yen! That's almost as much as my car!

I absolutely love Hello Kitty and her friends!

i <3 chococat, the rest of the characters are meaningless to me.
I'd tried to hate HK in the past cause there's something horrid in her face to me, now i realize is the lack of a mouth, anyway, even though i really dislike her, there's a strange fascination i have with her...

I have it, and it's not all that great as a toaster.... you practically have to burn the toast to get the face to show up properly. But it's still adorable!



And random thing, my sensei for my japanese class hated HK, because he claimed it was a conspiracy to get kids to commit suicide. Hello Kitty sound an aweful lot like harakiri which is a ritual suicide that samurai's would perform to avoid shame..... his theory was that it was a subliminal message....... crazy dude.