Goodbye, Kitty

 

The interwebs are all abuzz today with the news that Hello Kitty is not, in fact, feline. As Alexandra Petri writes,

Sanrio, Kitty’s manufacturer, corrected the curator of an LA exhibit on this ubiquitous icon when she tried to label Hello Kitty a cat, according to the LA Times. Curator and Hello Kitty expert Christine Yano said the company informed her that “Hello Kitty is not a cat. She’s a cartoon character. She is a little girl. She is a friend. But she is not a cat. She’s never depicted on all fours. She walks and sits like a two-legged creature. She does have a pet cat of her own, however, and it’s called Charmmy Kitty.”

Hello Kitty is, in fact, according to Yano, a “perpetual third-grader.” She has a twin. “She lives outside of London. I could go on.”

My first reaction was that this is another example of the war on childhood imagination. Can’t Bert and Ernie just be 10-year-old roommates, fercryinoutloud? Can’t we live with the same inconsistencies that give us a bipedal Porky Pig who wears no pants, a bipedal Mickey Mouse, and whatever species Goofy belongs to? Mollie Hemingway tweets that her children are taking the news particularly hard, and it’s not surprising. I have two girls of my own, who were both Hello Kitty fans back in the day.

But then I noticed the truly bizarre aspect to this story. Hello Kitty lives outside London?! She doesn’t in fact come from the land of anime, samurai, green tea ice cream, and bizarre game shows? She eats fish ‘n’ chips, rather than sushi? Now that’s just wrong.

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  1. Matede Inactive
    Matede
    @MateDe

    Why was it necessary for the company to put this out there? Have their sales gone down for some reason and they need the publicity?

    • #1
  2. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    This changes everything.

    • #2
  3. Casey Inactive
    Casey
    @Casey

    I’m taking the poster down from my bedroom wall.

    • #3
  4. Nanda Panjandrum Member
    Nanda Panjandrum
    @

    Hello, Kitty has feet of *play*?  I’m shocked, shocked!

    • #4
  5. Albert Arthur Coolidge
    Albert Arthur
    @AlbertArthur

    sitting athwart saying meow

    • #5
  6. Fake John Galt Coolidge
    Fake John Galt
    @FakeJohnJaneGalt

    Any indication what her gender choice is, because as we all know that is what is really important.

    • #6
  7. Susan in Seattle Member
    Susan in Seattle
    @SusaninSeattle

    How can she eat fish ‘n chips when she has no mouth?

    • #7
  8. user_339092 Member
    user_339092
    @PaulDougherty

    Casey:

    I’m taking the poster down from my bedroom wall.

     Hello Kitty?

    More like……..(wait for it )……..

    Goodbye- Kitty!

    • #8
  9. Hartmann von Aue Member
    Hartmann von Aue
    @HartmannvonAue

    Maedel says that Ms. Yano is wrong.

    • #9
  10. user_1029039 Inactive
    user_1029039
    @JasonRudert

    Susan in Seattle:

    How can she eat fish ‘n chips when she has no mouth?

     See, I was confused by this, too, because I always thought that the founding myth was that there really was a kitten, born without a mouth, who died after just a few days. The guy who owned her and her mom memorialized the kitten as the cartoon. 
    Also, she has whiskers and cat ears. That’s a kitty.

    • #10
  11. user_1938 Inactive
    user_1938
    @AaronMiller

    Son of Spengler: But then I noticed the truly bizarre aspect to this story. Hello Kitty lives outside London?! She doesn’t in fact come from the land of anime, samurai, green tea ice cream, and bizarre game shows? She eats fish-’n’-chips, rather than sushi?

      by way of Pakistan…

    muslim-cat

    • #11
  12. Son of Spengler Member
    Son of Spengler
    @SonofSpengler

    Aaron Miller:

    Son of Spengler: But then I noticed the truly bizarre aspect to this story. Hello Kitty lives outside London?! She doesn’t in fact come from the land of anime, samurai, green tea ice cream, and bizarre game shows? She eats fish-’n’-chips, rather than sushi?

    by way of Pakistan…

    muslim-cat

     This cat probably eats fish-‘n’-chips too.

    • #12
  13. user_1029039 Inactive
    user_1029039
    @JasonRudert

    where does this end? Japan has a bullet train called the Shinkansen. And Sanrio has a character who’s alittle smiling bullet train named Shinkansen. Is that not a bullet train at all but a fifty-year-old claims adjuster from Winnetka who likes to steal peoples’ tuna sandwiches from the fridge at work?
    #twilightoftheidols

    • #13
  14. jmelvin Member
    jmelvin
    @jmelvin

    Perhaps the concept of anthropomorphism is lost on Yano (maybe on the Japanese).  It sure would seem this way since she was perfectly content to call Hello Kitty both a cartoon character, and a perpetually stuck 3rd grade girl, but could not make the connection to the character as a cat.  Or course she’s a cat, but of course she is also a girl, as Goofy is as much a cartoon dog as an adult man.

    I will be interested to see how this revelation impacts the understanding of the darling little girl cat character and the resultant change in sales and marketing.  It seems to me that this Sanrio representative may not understand all of the implications of this revelation.

    • #14
  15. skipsul Inactive
    skipsul
    @skipsul

    Oh nos!  Meh wurld iz endeded!

    • #15
  16. She Member
    She
    @She

    Oh.  She’s not a cat?  She’s  a little girl with forward facing ears on the top of her head, and whiskers?

    That makes a lot of sense.

    I’m inconsolable.  Where do I turn in my Hello Kitty Visa Rewards Card?

    • #16
  17. She Member
    She
    @She

    Son of Spengler:

    Aaron Miller:

    Son of Spengler: But then I noticed the truly bizarre aspect to this story. Hello Kitty lives outside London?! She doesn’t in fact come from the land of anime, samurai, green tea ice cream, and bizarre game shows? She eats fish-’n’-chips, rather than sushi?

    by way of Pakistan…

    muslim-cat

    This cat probably eats fish-’n’-chips too.

     Someone, somewhere, sometime, is going to pay, bigtime, for that photo.

    • #17
  18. Susan in Seattle Member
    Susan in Seattle
    @SusaninSeattle

    She:

    Oh. She’s not a cat? She’s a little girl with forward facing ears on the top of her head, and whiskers?

    That makes a lot of sense.

    I’m inconsolable. Where do I turn in my Hello Kitty Visa Rewards Card?

     Perhaps to Eva Airlines?

    • #18
  19. Son of Spengler Member
    Son of Spengler
    @SonofSpengler

    Susan in Seattle:

    She:

    Oh. She’s not a cat? She’s a little girl with forward facing ears on the top of her head, and whiskers?

    That makes a lot of sense.

    I’m inconsolable. Where do I turn in my Hello Kitty Visa Rewards Card?

    Perhaps to Eva Airlines?

     Do they have Hello Kitty barf bags?

    • #19
  20. Susan in Seattle Member
    Susan in Seattle
    @SusaninSeattle

    Son of Spengler:

    Susan in Seattle:

    She:

    Oh. She’s not a cat? She’s a little girl with forward facing ears on the top of her head, and whiskers?

    That makes a lot of sense.

    I’m inconsolable. Where do I turn in my Hello Kitty Visa Rewards Card?

    Perhaps to Eva Airlines?

    Do they have Hello Kitty barf bags?

     You know, that’s a really good question.

    • #20
  21. user_352043 Coolidge
    user_352043
    @AmySchley

    She:

    Oh. She’s not a cat? She’s a little girl with forward facing ears on the top of her head, and whiskers?

    That makes a lot of sense.

    I’m inconsolable. Where do I turn in my Hello Kitty Visa Rewards Card?

     How about Hello Kitty Hell?

    • #21
  22. I. raptus Member
    I. raptus
    @Iraptus

    Two possible responses:

    Finally, this is proof that we are living in a simulation.

    Or:

    Fine, fine.  I can let go of Hello Kitty gracefully.  But I’m putting my foot down. Keroppi really is a frog.

    • #22
  23. douglaswatt25@yahoo.com Member
    douglaswatt25@yahoo.com
    @DougWatt

    kai in costume (225x300)We never went through the Hello Kitty phase. Although my grandson went a little crazy as a Musketeer on Halloween with a plastic sword. I asked my son, why would you give a sword to a kid who is part Japanese, Scots, and Norwegian? He appears to be the paragon of innocence in this photo, don’t let that mislead you.

    • #23
  24. 3rd angle projection Member
    3rd angle projection
    @

    I could go on.

    Good heavens. What else could be behind the kitty curtain that she “could go on” about?

    • #24
  25. 3rd angle projection Member
    3rd angle projection
    @

    Casey:

    I’m taking the poster down from my bedroom wall.

     I don’t know slugger. Looks more than just a poster problem.

    Hello-Kitty

    • #25
  26. James Lileks Contributor
    James Lileks
    @jameslileks

    I mentioned this story to my daughter, who had an intense HK phase at the apt age for such things, and she regarded the news with incomprehension, as if someone had told me when I was 14 that Tom Swift was a Venusian Llama. Wait, what? No. 

    It’s a bizarre story. It’s like someone from Disney producing documents that show Walt thought Mickey was a fifth-grader who lived in Toronto – which they would never do, even if it was so, because they understand what it would mean going forward. Everything would be questioned, and nothing would be settled, and the confusion would hang over the entire cosmology. 

    There was an old goat who drove the bus in some Hello Kitty cartoons. Was he not a goat? Was he a 62-year old man who happened to have prominent horns and cloven hooves?

    • #26
  27. user_357321 Inactive
    user_357321
    @Jordan

    Sometimes I wish creators of beloved things would just keep quiet and leave their creations to the people who enjoy them.  Seems like more than a few creators undermine their creations with post-facto revelations which only make them worse.  Perhaps we can call this tendency to undermine your own creations the George Lucas Syndrome.

    • #27
  28. gts109 Inactive
    gts109
    @gts109

    Strictly speaking, Hello Kitty is a drawing. Or a man sweating under a costume. Or a piece of plastic. So, yeah, not it’s not a cat. 

    In other news, Santa Clause is not a man, and the tooth fairy is not a fairy.

    • #28
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