"Kitty can't spell, Kitty can't think, Kitty doesn't even have facial expressions for Cuddly's sake."

February, 2007

     Mother stabbing and father raping rappers are out. Cuddly fur balls are in. And I am not being facetious; cute is in all seriousness becoming one of Japan's largest exports. Hello Kitty and her tie-ins alone generate over three billion dollars for creator Sanrio Corporation annually. And as the Style Editor of the New York Times said in spring 2006, "Tokyo is the real international capital of fashion," spurning Paris, New York, and Milan as pretenders. So if Tokyo is into cute, in all of its kitschness, then who are we to argue?

     I can get the whole pre- and even teen girls surrounding themselves with all things cute and cuddly, but what is it that makes professional women in their twenties and thirties turn all gooey at the sight of a stuffed pink toy?

     Let's look at the icon of cuteness, Hello Kitty. Hands up if you own something branded by this albino feline? A quick in-house Citylife survey revealed that of 23 employees between the ages of 23 and 33, a whopping16 owned something - a sticker, a pencil, a hair band, a handbag - featuring Hello Kitty. (14 out of 15 women, versus only 2 of 8 men.)

     In 1974 Sanrio Corp, having successfully merchandised cutely decorated stationary to teenage Japanese girls since 1971, following the popularity of a new form of child-like handwriting which was invented by school girls in the early seventies, created Hello Kitty. I am sure that most of us, in Asia at least, will remember Kitty's earlier days when she would adorn a pencil case or purse accompanied by vacuous phrases such as 'OK! You are in my team,' or 'Life is sweet'. I recall being so frustrated at the lack of depth, and in most cases, grammar, of these phrases.

     We have since been told by Sanrio's web site that Kitty's surname is actually White (not Itchimoto!), and that she lives in London, loves to host tea parties, weighs as much as three apples (aww…) and has a motto of 'You can never have too many friends'. There is nothing much more to this cat. She has never been in a movie or a cartoon strip, she has never sung a song (because she doesn't have a mouth) and she has not achieved a thing since her birth over thirty years ago. Well, apart from global fame, that is.

     And this is apparently the crux of cute. According to a report on Cuteness by Reuters' Jessie Cohen, "Beauty attracts admiration and demands a pedestal; cuteness attracts affection and demands a lap." Kitty's innocuous phrases and bad spelling were all deliberate marketing ploys. Kitty can't spell, Kitty can't think, Kitty doesn't even have facial expressions for Cuddly's sake. Kitty is harmless. Cute is harmless.

     But is it?

     What do you think when you see women in their late teens and twenties, frilled up in pink, waving victory signs, hugging blobby fur balls, and giggling like school girls? Personally, I've always felt uneasy at the sight. It just doesn't seem natural somehow. And I never understood why students who graduate from university, students who can finally get out of uniforms and dress like adults, students who may be leaving home for the first time in their lives, exchange cutesy bears as graduation gifts! It's jarring, when noting the significance of the occasion. Some cute aficionados take things even further. Students of cute will not only dress and surround themselves with cute, but they can even be found to undergo complete personality metamorphoses to fit into the cute persona. In Japan, cute, or kawaii (by 1992 estimated to be 'the most widely used, widely loved, habitual word in modern living Japanese'), is adopted by women to alarming degrees. Cute equates innocence, therefore cute equates pre-pubescence. Japanese cuties will therefore always stand pigeon toed, bellies extended and with eyes peering up, as though a shy child looking up at an adult. They will adopt child-like voices and laughter. While Siam Square in Bangkok and to some extents certain teen-zones of Chiang Mai, may be the stomping grounds of these cuties, it is a rare sight to see things taken so far in this country.



     But it's not just Japan, and it certainly is not just Asia that worships at the alter of cute. Hello Kitty, a brand which has, amazingly, never advertised itself, is now sold in over 30 countries world wide, and is, believe it or not, enjoying a surge of popularity in Latin American countries, where Kitty's wholesome family values are, apparently, striking a cord. (Kitty has a twin sister, Mimi, who is shy, while Kitty is curious, and they are surrounded by a brood of relatives and friends, enough to keep Sario spinning off products well into the next century.) As a matter of fact, each year 600 Hello Kitty products enter the market, replacing 600 others, maintaining an equilibrium of over 22,000 Hello Kitty products that range from perky toasters that brand your bread with, yes, you got it, Kitty's face, to computer keyboards, telephones, red wines, surf boards, hand bags and…dare I say? Yes, I do. Vibrators. The mind boggles. (As a matter of fact, Sario aren't too bothered about what Kitty's face is plastered onto as long as its not sharp objects, drugs, guns, hard alcohol or cigarettes.)

     So, what is it about cute that seems to be crossing both the generation and, to some extent, the sexual divide? If you look at a range of cute icons, you will notice that most are helpless, almost childlike. The innocent, unconscious and natural states of childhood are recalled in the sentiments of cute. It is a common sight, I have been told, to see Japanese road workers vibrating away on busy highways, hands gripped around pink drilling machines. Even the grumpy Thai traffic police, have cuted up their image with the adorable traffic boxes roofed by giant cartoon police hats.

     Cuteness is a global commodity these days. It cuts through the BS. It holds no complexities, no layers and just asks for one thing, "love me please!" (Think of the word cute in Thai - narak - which literally means lovable.) This crowd-pleaser is therefore becoming more and more popular with advertisers and product designers. Think of the Beetle, a car whose hood was originally designed to resemble German helmets during Hitler's regime! Today's popular Beetles hold no memories of their warring past, but are instead designed to resemble a smiley face, and admit it, they are cute. Advertising firms world wide are jumping onto the cute bandwagon. Look at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and the controversy over the mascots. Majestic dragons are out, the Five Friendlies - "designed to express the playful qualities of five little children who form an intimate circle of friends" - are in. This is mankind's greatest sporting event where stiff competition, taut muscles and sweat are the name of the game! Even our recently departed Royal Flora Rachaphreuk's mascots were all cute as buttons. Most of my friends know each and every little cuddly Flora mascot's name by heart. When I asked them what they liked about these mascots the answer was simply, "narak".

     According to an article in the New York Times, "Today, it's not enough for a company to use cute graphics in its advertisements. It must have a really cute name as well…Companies like Google and Yahoo! leave no question in your mind about the youthfulness of their founders…" Maybe we should rebrand ourselves 'Cuteylife'!

     So let's take a look at Thailand's cute factor. According to Associate Professor Dr Chalidaporn Songsamphan, Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Social Science Thammasat University, "the cute trend is not new. It has been around for a few decades. While you may raise your eyebrows at the fact that older women are still purchasing cute merchandise, you also must remember that these women grew up with things like Hello Kitty, so it is only natural for them to continue to enjoy them." It is not that Hello Kitty is penetrating new markets as much as her market is maturing. "These fans also have more spending power than they did a few decades ago," she added. When I shared my derision of the exchange of cuddly toys during graduation, she chided me, "if you go to a shop to buy a graduation gift, this is what you will find. Everywhere in the world you will find cute cards and cute gifts, it is nothing new, nor strange. We all have the little girl or little boy lurking inside us somewhere, we are not snakes that shed our skins."

     "What I find interesting is not cute, it is the new trend of sexy-cute," Dr. Chalidaporn, who is an expert on women's sexuality, continued. "I don't see anything wrong or demeaning in this. Some women choose to be blatantly sexy. While some may be exploited or demeaned by this stance, others gain power from it. Cute is simply another choice. If a woman wants to be cute, or sexy-cute, she can interpret it to be whatever she desires. Tata Young was one of the first women in Thailand to really imbue the persona of sexy-cute, and look at her success."

     While sexy-cute may sound to some like an oxymoron, or to take it even further, a disturbing taboo, a Lolita complex, it is, as Dr. Chalidaporn insists, simply another choice for women. Tata Young's persona of sexy-cuteness was a shrewd move, one made not by vulnerable innocence, but by the study and anticipation of market forces.

     So will cute take over the world? I doubt it. Especially because the campness of cute is inherently cheerful, I simply can't see youths on the street of Birmingham exchanging stuffed bears instead of punches on a Friday night. I can't see Canadian truck drivers swapping bouncy boobs for bouncier bunnies (even though apparently Japanese truck drivers love kawaii and their dashboards are adorned with Hello Kitties). I can't see the cynical west, with its be-cool values, resorting to pigeon-toed, giggling girls' haut couture. In lands where bad-ass rappers rule the roost, where bitchy reality television personalities are idolised and where society is riveted by tales of corruption, sex, gore and greed, I simply can't see Pamela Anderson deflating her triple Ds and putting on a pot belly and wide-eyed pout. But then what do I know? Most of my staff own Hello Kitties and read cartoon porn for Cute's sake!