Happy 50th to Hello Kitty, the cat who is actually a little girl – Deseret News

When I was in elementary and middle school, I couldn’t walk down the school hallway without seeing Hello Kitty.

She was sitting on T-shirts, binders, pencil cases, folders, calendars, socks, backpacks and water bottles. She was on stickers, purses and shoes.

And apparently, she was also in the hearts of every preteen girl around the world.

We didn’t know much about Hello Kitty. All we knew was that she was cute, always wore a red bow and that her head was too maybe too big for her body.

We vaguely knew she had friends – a frog perhaps? – and that she was a cat. That much was a given.

You probably also thought Hello Kitty is a cat. I really hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we are both very wrong.

In 2014, the Los Angeles Times interviewed Christine R. Yano, an anthropologist at the University of Hawaii and author of “Pink Globalization: Hello Kitty’s Trek Across the Pacific.”

Yano revealed that when she was researching her book, she was corrected “very strongly” by Sanrio, the company that produces Hello Kitty, when she said the character was a cat.

“Hello Kitty is not a cat. She’s a cartoon character. She is a little girl,” Yano told the LA Times. ‘She’s a friend. But she’s not a cat. She is never depicted on all fours. She walks and sits like a two-legged creature.”

Hello Kitty – a little girl who may be dressed as a cat, but definitely just looks like a cat – turns 50 on Friday.

In honor of Hello Kitty’s 50th anniversary, here’s a look back at how she came to be – and her legacy.

What’s the story behind Hello Kitty?

According to The Associated PressHello Kitty “didn’t start out as a cartoon.” Yuko Shimizu, a young illustrator working at Sanrio, “drew hair in 1974 as a decoration for stationery, carrier bags, cups and other small accessories.”

Hello Kitty made its debut on wallets across Japan in 1975 and was “an instant hit,” the article said.

As Hello Kitty became more popular around the world, Sanrio expanded its “personal profile,” according to AP.

According to the LA TimesHello Kitty has “a complete backstory.”

As Yano told the publication, Hello Kitty’s real name is Kitty White. Kitty and her family – including her twin sister Mimmy – live outside London. The twins are in third grade. Apparently Kitty likes apple pie.

Coincidentally, according to the newspaper, she is also ‘five apples tall’ AP – a metric that raises more questions than answers. (She’s an 8-year-old girl who’s the size of a toddler? Okay, sure.)

Hello Kitty was born on November 1, the same day as Shimizu.

“The main theme of Hello Kitty is friendship,” Shimizu told the BBC earlier this year, per AP. “When I first made it, I created a family that included Kitty.”

According to Yano, Hello Kitty’s Anglophile background reflects Japan’s cultural obsession with Britain at the time it was created.

“It’s interesting because Hello Kitty emerged in the 1970s, when the Japanese and Japanese women came into Britain,” Yano told the LA Times. “They loved the idea of ​​Britain. It represented the typical idealized childhood, almost like a white picket fence. So the biography was made exactly for the taste of the time.”

The cultural impact and legacy of Hello Kitty

Hello Kitty has been a world hit for decades.

According to Business standardshe has made Sanrio a profit of more than $84.5 billion. For reference, Pokemon and Mickey Mouse, the “world’s most profitable media franchises,” have generated $119 billion and $83 billion, respectively.

The embodiment of “kawaii” — which, according to The Associated Press, is “Japanese for ‘cute’ but also connotes a loving or adorable essence” — Hello Kitty has inspired several musical artists (including Lady Gaga and Avril Lavigne), the subject of many animated TV shows since 1987 and of course adorned the backpacks and folders of girls all over the world.

But Hello Kitty is not just any cartoon. In 1983, she was appointed United States UNICEF Children’s Ambassador Business standard. She was also “appointed as a Children’s Goodwill Ambassador by the Japan Committee for UNICEF” in 1994.

Even King Charles III has recognized the impact of Hello Kitty. During a speech in June to mark “Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako’s visit to Buckingham Palace,” he said Tokyo WeekenderCharles gave Hello Kitty a shoutout on her 50th anniversary.

“Perhaps you will allow me to mention one specific person who is turning 50 this year,” he said. “Growing up in a suburb of London with her twin sister, a self-made entrepreneur worth billions of dollars, and a UNICEF children’s ambassador to boot. So I can only wish a very happy birthday to… Hello Kitty!”

Although Hello Kitty is somewhat of a mystery, how can she be an eight-year-old girl who looks like a cat and is also the size of a human baby? – according to Joyce S. Cheng, art historian and associate professor at the University of Oregon, all the uncertainty contributes to her appeal.

“She’s supposed to be Kitty White and English. But this is part of the riddle: who is Hello Kitty? We can’t figure it out. We don’t even know if she’s a cat,” Cheng said AP. “There is an unresolved indeterminacy about her that is so astonishing.”