Hello, Kitty!

I never really thought too much about Hello Kitty, except for the times when I saw something really adorable and really wanted it. But I was on my way to campus today, and I noticed that the car to the right of me had these white blobs on their windows. (No doubt, the parental units gave their child free range to embellish their back windows.) They were the backing of the stickers, but I instantly knew that it was Hello Kitty's silhouette. So I started to think about her and how much of an impact she's made since her arrival in 1974.

I learned that Hello Kitty is more than just a Sanrio character from Japan. In Asia, Hello Kitty is likely the equivalent to the combination of Mickey Mouse and Barbie. She's unbelievably cute, and super stylish through her many personas. She sells everything in the world, too. You can literally find Hello Kitty wherever you look; she's in clothes, jewelry, furniture, bedding, accessories, toys and plushies, purses, school supplies, DVD's, make-up, wedding dresses, electronics, cookware, cars, credit cards, guitars, sewing machines, motorcycles, lunchboxes, and the list can just go on! But she's more than a money-making mogul. I bet you didn't know that Hello Kitty is Japan's tourism ambassador. Also, in Bangkok, when officers are late to work or park in the wrong parking space, they are forced to wear bright pink Hello Kitty armbands with hearts on them for several days as punishment. They thought that even these minor offenses should never be ignored and that this would be an effective way to limit such behavior of their police forces. Even celebrities like Mariah Carey and Dakota Fanning have love and endorsed her in the past. She's even got contracts with Tokidoki and Bathing Ape's Baby Milo to produce even more absurdly cute creations.

But when I think about it, she's just a 2D cat with a head too big for her body and no mouth. Her earlier incarnations were rather plain, with just a red bow on her ear and blue overalls over a red shirt. Basically, she was just another character to add to the world of Sanrio. I doubt that the group of designers who created her would have ever dreamed that she would become this big. After all, she was just a tool to sell a few items. Yet somehow, she grew and grew into this marketing phenomena. I'm not sure what happened along the way, and why Hello Kitty is still the most popular character after 34 years, but what those designers at Sanrio really hit the jackpot when creating one of the most recognizable characters of our time. I can only hope that one day I'll be part of a team that can achieve something this successful. This little cat sure is something, isn't she? Oh, and she has a theme park, too.


(Top-Bottom, L-R) The two mugs and three cellphone accessories are from the Novala Takemoto Hello Kitty Pour Lolita collection--my personal favorite and available only in Japan. The stickers really do make my phone and flashdrive much cuter!


(Top-Bottom, L-R) A spinning pen holder with scissors, a ruler, and other misc. items, a really old address book, a notebook, a pack of stickers, and two really old jewelry boxes from the 90's.


(Top-Bottom, L-R) A pen holder, Y2K special edition Hello Kitty astronaut from McDonald's Hong Kong, VHS's, and Dear Daniel from the same McDonald's campagin.

I'm positive I have some really old items lying around or packed away somewhere, but this was probably a good amount of items to display.