Name: Hello Kitty.
Age: Fifty. Created in 1974, introduced the following year.
Appearance: Whiskers, pointy ears, cute.
Japanese, right? Hello Kitty, designed by Yuko Shimizu, was introduced as a character by Sanrio, an entertainment company that’s all about kawaii, which basically means cute. Hello Kitty first appeared on a coin purse.
Arrrrww! Originally known as White Kitten Without a Name.
Also without a mouth! Adds to the kawaii. Anyway, it – she – became British because Britain was fashionable in Japan at the time. Shimizu borrowed the name from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass. Alice, you’ll remember, has a cat called Kitty.
And Hello Kitty has been successful? Just a bit. By 2010, Hello Kitty, described by the New York Times as a “global marketing phenomenon”, was worth $5bn a year. She’s a tourism ambassador in Japan and a Unicef children’s ambassador, there are thousands of branded products, films, theme parks …
Not bad for a cat. Whoa, hold that right there. Who said anything about a cat?
Er, you did. You said White Kitten Without a Name and mentioned Alice’s cat. Plus I’m looking at other clues – the pointy ears, whiskers, the name Hello Kitty … Yeah, I know, but here’s the thing: Sanrio is now claiming Hello Kitty is not a cat.
What is she? “She’s actually a little girl, born and raised in the suburbs of London,” according to Jill Cook.
Now I’m really confused. Who’s Jill, and what does she know? Jill Cook is the director of retail business development at Sanrio. She broke the news on NBC’s Today show, as it was celebrating the brand’s 50th anniversary.
What else did she say? That Hello Kitty lives in a big pink house, enjoys baking cookies, has a boyfriend named Dear Daniel and her own pet cat called Charmmy Kitty. It’s not just Jill Cook saying this stuff, either.
Who else? King Charles! At a recent state banquet with Emperor Naruhito, the king toasted “one particular individual who turns 50 this year. Raised in a London suburb with her twin sister, a self-made entrepreneur worth billions of dollars … I can only wish a very happy birthday to Hello Kitty.”
So what I thought was a cute, welcoming, inclusive Japanese cat is in fact a spoilt London brat with a lifestyle that is out of reach for most of us? Pretty much.
Do say: “Well, when one has royal fans and marketing partnerships with luxury brands such as Grind Coffee and Cambridge Satchel, there are certain standards to keep up.”
Don’t say: “Yeah, but still no mouth. Oi, Dear Daniel, no kisses today!”
