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Hello Kitty cropcircle. Photo credit: Circlemakers.
This week I have been thinking about Sanrio's supernaturally-popular Hello Kitty, partially because lately I have stumbled onto an unholy amount of crazy Hello Kitty-related products and about six hojillion Hello Kitty superfans. Hello Kitty was born in 1974, three years before me, which means I cannot remember life without her beloved, vapid face.
I do remember discovering her at an out-of-town mall while on a family vacation when I was about six years old. I walked in and was hit with the glorious Sanrio Smell. How to describe it? Plasticky, to be sure, but also indescribably pink. If anything can smell "pink," a Sanrio store does. If you ground up a batch of the tiny pens, erasers, and cel phone charms, and the other dozens of doodads they sell, you could juice it all and sell it as perfume: Sanrio's Eau de Chat Blanc. Ooh la la!
Hello Kitty and her little doodads competed with all the other paraphernalia of my childhood: Barbie, Transformers, Star Wars dollies, Rainbow Brite, and Strawberry Shortcake. When I hit the "tween" years I rejected all the usual childish pastimes, like dolls and other role-playing toys, and I dutifully turned my Barbies into a punk-rock zombie prostitute army, complete with blue mohawks and dead eyes. And poor Ken. I'm not sure what horrified my mother more, the safety pins stuck into Barbie's head, or the improvised pen-cap penis my neighbor (I swear!) taped to Ken's perma-briefed crotch. After this, my mother knew I was transforming into some new creature.
But I never let go of Hello Kitty. During my teen years, I carried the occasional Hello Kitty notebook. In college, Hello Kitty was too childish, too unsophisticated. So I turned to Badtz-maru, the "evil" penguin. Watch out, world! I was "edgy" now, and Sanrio was there to help me express myself. Then I was pregnant with my first child. We watched the ultrasound and saw the girl parts. True confession: As I walked out of the doctor's office I thought, "MWAHAHA! She will love Hello Kitty as much as I do!"
Now my oldest is almost seven, and her two-year-old sister is, at this moment, covered in Hello Kitty stamps that she anointed herself with after sneaking into her sister's art supply drawers. As a mother and a feminist, I have made a choice to beat back the Wave O' Disney, and Barbie has no place in my house, but why is Hello Kitty okay? After all, as many have pointed out, she doesn't even have a mouth.
My only thought about why I still embrace that little cat and why I feel okay with my daughters doing so is because she carries no message about evil stepmothers, or breast size. She just is. You can love her, or not; she will continue to stare blankly and cutely forever.
I started to think that other people might feel the same way as me, because Sanrio has successfully taken Hello Kitty to places where other beloved childhood products have not gone. For example, into your, um, pants. I'm sure many of you have seen the Hello Kitty vibrator. Can you imagine Barbie getting up to these shenanigans? I didn't think so. There is also a Hello Kitty airline, a Hello Kitty themepark called Harmonyland, and a Hello Kitty SARS mask.
I also started to wonder if there was any kind of Hello Kitty backlash. A Hello Kitty Resistance, if you will. What I found delighted me: A chronicle of married life with a Hello Kitty fanantic, called Hello Kitty Hell. If this is the resistance, I'll take it. It's so darned cute!
Finally, a Hello Kitty wedding. Kind of makes me want to do it all over again, know what I mean?
What is it with that cat? Please tell me I'm not the only one.
