How Hello Kitty Commodifies the Cute, Cool and Camp

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Abstract
Asked about Hello Kitty, respondents judged those interested in this ‘character good’ within a framework of freedom/self-autonomy versus coercion/compulsion. The former is associated with what may be termed ‘consumutopia’ (a counter-presence to mundane reality fueled by late capitalism, pop culture industry, consumerism), while the latter is connected to ‘control’, a critical view of self/collective relations that also comments on Japanese ethno-identity. Hello Kitty also demonstrates the need to focus not just on different tastes within a society, but also on ambiguous and diverse attitudes within the same individual. Such diversity allows Sanrio, Hello Kitty’s maker, to link within one individual different modes of self-presentation, chronologically corresponding to girlhood (‘cute’), female adolescence (‘cool’), and womanhood (‘camp’). Thus, as people mature, appeals to nostalgia encourage a reconnection with the past by buying products united by one leitmotif; same commodity, same individual, different ages/tastes/styles/desires.

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