An interesting study by Sharon Kinsella looks at the "kawaii" phenomenon in Japan - the "cute" craze that includes Hello Kitty and all that stuff.
Pretty fascinating, and reminds me of an essay called 'Cute Formalism' from a few years ago by the clever pop singer Momus (who appears to have a nice new website, and a a blog - I wonder if he writes less essays now that he has a blog?).
The interesting thing about Kinsella's research is that she finds that the cute thing was not a top-down, corporate-created trend, but began as a grassroots youth movement with 'cute handwriting', which was actually a rebellion against traditional japanese culture. Then later companies like Sanrio moved in and capitalized on the trend.
Posted by steev at Marzo 11, 2005 08:35 AM