By Zara Khan, CNN
(CNN) — A fluffy, doe-eyed kitten adorned with a rainbow and a unicorn horn might, at first look, fire up photographs of childishness or innocence. However, this cute creature is extra highly effective than it might first seem.
From pets to kids to wide-eyed toys, social media filters, emojis and web memes, “cuteness” is without doubt one of the most outstanding aesthetics of our digitally saturated age, and a veritable business in itself. Made widespread by its seemingly unthreatening nature, cute’s quest for world domination suggests there’s extra to the phenomenon than its charming exterior would possibly indicate.
How cuteness has taken over our world — and why — is a topic being explored in “Cute,” a brand new (and the primary ever) exhibition dedicated to the motion at London’s Somerset House.
“By creatively unpacking cute’s many guises, we can not only understand something about ourselves … but also about how we relate to each other and the world around us,” mentioned Somerset House’s director of exhibitions, Cliff Lauson, on the present’s opening.
The origins of cute
It began with cats. When Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the web, was requested to call one use of the web he didn’t anticipate, he answered with a single phrase — “kittens.”
It’s evocative of how Claire Catterall, senior curator at Somerset House, described cuteness in a speech to open the exhibit: “Like a tiny kitten waiting to pounce, its power and influence has slowly crept up on us.”
Cats, naturally, characteristic prominently in “Cute,” from the famed and colourful Nineteenth-century drawings of artist Louis Wain — credited with altering the best way the Edwardian British public felt about felines by portraying cats as lovable, playful creatures doing issues people did, reminiscent of having tea or celebrating Christmas — to artist Andy Holden’s up to date assortment of eclectic feline collectible figurines left to him by his late grandmother (titled “Cat-tharsis”). Both seize the important thing tenets of cute: being unthreatening and lovable.
Joshua Dale, creator of “Irresistible: How Cuteness Wired our Brains and Conquered the World,” believes there’s an innate psychological purpose we’re drawn to those qualities. Seeing one thing cute, “gets the brain ready for certain kinds of behaviors associated with caregiving,” he informed CNN.
There’s a sociological drive, too. The roots of the widespread adoption of cuteness lie within the Nineteenth century, when reducing youngster mortality and a decreased delivery charge meant childhood got here to be thought to be a cherished expertise and one thing to be extended. The Industrial Revolution and the rise of mass manufacturing allowed cuteness to be unleashed on the world — toys, books and illustrations might, more and more, be made simply and cheaply.
Cute started being marketed to American adults within the Fifties, notes Isabelle Galleymore, a poet and advisor for the exhibition. American ladies, then newly geared up with jobs and disposable revenue en masse, turned a part of the buyer class. Products reminiscent of “soft toys or blankets with cute designs on them” had been designed to “supposedly tap into women’s maternal instincts,” she informed CNN.
The ‘kawaii’ impact
Integral to the worldwide phenomena of cute, the exhibition asserts, is “kawaii,” a Japanese phrase which accurately interprets as “cuteness.”
According to the exhibition, fashionable kawaii tradition was born in 1914 when artist and illustrator Yumeji Takehisa opened a store in downtown Tokyo promoting equipment and stationery with Western motifs reminiscent of mushrooms and castles designed to attraction to schoolgirls.
For Simon May, a professor of philosophy at King’s College London and creator of “The Power of Cute,” kawaii is simply a part of a narrative which entails the nation of Japan extra broadly. “(It’s) the first and so-far only country to present itself to the world as cute,” he mentioned of the nation, a stance he attributed largely to the “peaceable, unthreatening image,” Japan sought to current to the world after 1945, repudiating militarism and energy.
Of course, no exploration of kawaii could be full with out the worldwide phenomenon and “ambassador to cuteness,” because the exhibition affectionately calls her: Hello Kitty.
Born of turbulent instances after Japan’s first oil disaster within the Nineteen Seventies, Hello Kitty was created as a personality to assist promote new merchandise. And promote she did, showing on every little thing from sneakers and paper towels to chopsticks, airplanes and panini makers. In 2015, analysts estimated Hello Kitty accounted for roughly 75% of dad or mum firm Sanrio’s $142 million annual working revenue, and that it introduced in many of the firm’s yearly $600 million in income.
So rigorously protected are her now-classic options that, the exhibition notes, a uncommon model of the mouthless doll produced with an open mouth was sufficient to spark controversy amongst followers. However, the Japanese cute phenomenon has not at all times been as saccharine as it might at first seem. As the twentieth century progressed and cute’s energy grew, the motion additionally started to discover darker, extra crucial themes. Take the explosion of rebellious streetstyle in Tokyo — so-called “Harajuku style” — typically seen as a pushback towards Japan’s strict societal norms. “(There is) something really empowering about the kawaii-inspired fashions of Japan” mentioned Galleymore, as they’re not simply candy however typically include combos of “cute and grotesque imagery.”
An escape from life’s realities
Cute can also be touted as a response to life’s complexities. The exhibition set up “Sugar-coated pill,” which options cuddly toys produced by banks and pharmaceutical firms, explores how cuteness is usually deployed to melt the unpalatable — monetary challenges, for instance, or sickness.
Scottish artist Rachel Maclean’s 2021 blended media piece “!step on no petS Step on no pets!,” in the meantime, depicts distorted unicorns dancing amongst flames in an unsettling but harmless fairytale world. Embracing this duality is a part of what makes the exhibition distinctive, mentioned Maclean, including: “It offers the chance to explore the complexity and ambiguity embedded within the seemingly simple and charming.”
Cute’s energy to offer the workaday some escapist glitz can be seen on an individual stage on daily basis through cellphone filters that flip us into squishy avatars, glossing over our grownup options, enlarging our eyes, pinking our cheeks and altering our on-line identities on the contact of a button.
While cute would possibly, in some ways, nonetheless be seen as trivial, what’s fascinating about it’s the way it maintains such a maintain on our fashionable world. “It’s fascinating as a window into the zeitgeist,” May informed CNN, “For what it tells us about who we are.”
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“Cute” is displaying at Somerset House in London till April 14, 2024.
