A Socio-Marketing Analysis Of The Concept Of Cute And Its Consumer Culture Implications

Cute has become the favored language of (the predominantly female) popular consumer culture. This paper examines the roots of “cute” and its evolution with reference to its relevance to marketers. We follow the cultural appropriation of Japan’s “Kawaii” by the Western “cute”, and introduce a social, marketing-oriented description and analysis of the concept. We present its socio-cultural, experiential, symbolic, and ideological relevance to consumption in general, and to consumer culture theory in particular. This examination steers clear of scientific generalizations prevalent in consumer behavior research and aims, instead, to illuminate the cultural dimensions of the consumption cycle, and allow a better understanding of what it is like to form social attachment and loyalty in the context of cute consumption and consumer culture theory. Especially interesting questions arise regarding the trans-social acculturating elements of cute, as well as the apparent mainstreaming (cultural appropriation) of the cute Asian subculture into the dominant Western consumer and material cultures

Circling the cute-kawaii: following a fugitive affect through planetary modernisms

Emerging out of three current critical trends in literary studies broadly and modernist studies specifically, this dissertation intervenes in the scholarly discourse surrounding the distinctly modern aesthetic-affect of the cute-kawaii. Firstly, drawing on Susan Stanford-Friedman’s conception of modernisms as decentered and disjunctive “planetary” phenomena, it situates the cute-kawaii neither entirely within the 20th century English and American, nor Japanese contexts but attempts to articulate cute-kawaii as affect obtaining in both. Secondly, its methodology participates in the “post-critical” turn in literary studies. Rather than deploying a “suspicious” hermeneutics it attempts what Anne Cheng calls a “hermeneutics of susceptibility,” in which analysis is not dispassionate, but intensely invested in its object. Lastly, the dissertation is theoretically grounded by the affective turn in literary studies, and in particular Brian Massumi’s conception of “affect” as fundamentally ethical in its orientation away from a subject and towards others. Its trajectory tracks iterations of common cute-kawaii tropes as they appear in Japanese, British, and American modernist novels which either explicitly invoke the cute-kawaii, as with James Joyce’s cute rats, or are implicated in the media ecosystems through which those tropes circulate as in the case of Junichiro Tanizaki’s Naomi. Ultimately, the aim of this dissertation is to demonstrate that the cute-kawaii, which has previously been understood as an insidious commodity aesthetic, is better understood as an affective experience with ethical import. In particular, the cute-kawaii is an experience of the ambiguity of the human and non-human, self and world, and significance and signification

Selling Kawaii in Advertising: Testing Cross-Cultural Perceptions of Kawaii Appeals

Kawaii (cute) culture has become a major global consumer culture. Advertisers in Asia have adopted kawaii appeals to attract attention and promote product images. From a cultural value perspective, this literature review proposes that culture not only affects ad content and appeal, but also influences consumer attitude and ad effects. While kawaii appeals are culturally specified, the effects of those appeals across distinct cultures might be systemically predictable. Today, the concept of kawaii and its effects still remains vague to Western academia. This thesis provides a deeper understanding of kawaii examining the rich origin of kawaii culture in Japan and its expansion and globalization as a dominant consumer culture. Online surveys using specifically designed stimuli were administrated to respondents from both individualistic and collectivistic cultures. The thesis thus develops a theoretical definition for kawaii within the advertising appeal context and a measurement scheme for utilizing its multidimensional composite constructs. Based on the self-congruity hypothesis, it is argued that culturally shaped self-construals affect responses to ads employing kawaii appeals. Kawaii appeals which stress interdependence should be more persuasive among consumers with self-construals congruent with the message. Findings suggested that kawaii appeals were perceived to be friendlier in both United States and China, while consumers with domain interdependent self-construal expressed stronger self-brand connection, more favorable ad attitude and purchase intention toward the kawaii ads

Consuming Hello Kitty: Saccharide Cuteness in Japanese Society

Cuteness is an aesthetic response between a viewer and an object. There is a spectrum of cuteness that allows the viewer to feel a variety of emotions based on the object they are interacting with. What is the power behind these objects that makes the viewer develop feelings for them? Cute items in Japanese society are closely associated with the feminine and the vulnerable. The largest consumer of cute products in Japanese is the shōjo (young lady). The shōjo uses cute objects to create an atmosphere around herself, allowing her to be empowered in the patriarchal society of Japan

Three Essays on the Impact of Cuteness on Consumer Behavior

Over the last decade, the world has seen a rise in the popularity of cute stimuli. Adorable baby pictures, fluffy puppy videos, and whimsical emojis seem ever-present in social media news feeds and friends’ posts. In addition, products marketed toward adults that feature cute characters drive sales worth billions of dollars. The growing presence of cute stimuli in our daily lives is accompanied by emerging research on their social and behavioral impacts. Correspondingly, the current dissertation consists of three essays that contribute to the literature on cuteness by empirically testing the impacts of cuteness in the marketplace. To extend the literature on cuteness, the first essay examines the effects of exposure to cute images on risk-seeking behavior, the second essay tests the effect of salespeople’s cute facial features (i.e., babyface) on online consumer engagement, and the third essay proposes a novel construct that induces the perception of cuteness through auditory cuteness cues: cute voice

The herbivore and the salaryman - new and old masculinities in Japanese idol productions

In this study I have examined the representation of masculinity in several recent Japanese media productions through a qualitative content analysis with a focus on discursive practices and the hegemonic and subordinate masculinity theories established by R.W. Connell. The focus of the study is Ninomiya Kazunari, an established Japanese actor and member of the five man idol group Arashi, produced by the large Japanese idol production company Johnny's Entertainment. Four main productions with Ninomiya in a main role have been studied: The Inner Chambers, GANTZ, A part-timer buys a house (for his family) and I will fly to the sky in my wheel chair (English translations). Additionally, comments and opinions on various 2-channel forums in regards to Ninomiya's perceived masculinity, or lack of same, have been studied and interpreted through a reception analysis in the cultural studies tradition. The goal has been to identify resistance and/or re-enforcement of traditional Japanese masculinities through recent depictions of a popular Japanese male idol in the media, especially in relation to hegemonic Japanese masculinity constructions like the samurai warrior and modern day salaryman. Ninomiya has played several seemingly masculine stereotypic roles, and the study attempts to identify resistance within his presentations of dominant-hegemonic masculinity, as well as his portrayals of alternative masculinities and how they risk getting incorporated into the hegemonic structures. The study shows that the soft values of Ninomiya Kazunari's persona largely translate into all the Japanese productions he features in. Messages and values presented by Arashi and Johnny's Entertainment get intertextually transferred to his story productions, attaching certain values of gentleness, sincerity and vulnerability to the face of Ninomiya regardless of which role he plays. The audience reception showed that Ninomiya as an idol and as a man is important to the way the audience perceives him in various roles. Fans and anti-fans love and hate him for the same features, showing a strong disagreement of what a ”real man” is and should be. This relates to various researchers' conclusion that contemporary Japanese hegemonic masculinity is changing and unstable, the hegemony and dominance of the modern day salaryman lifestyle called into question

Kawaii culture in Japan: A bibliometric analysis and text mining approach based on pop-cultural diplomacy and transmission into global values

This research aims to develop a discussion framework for Kawaii cultural study based on a bibliometric analysis and text mining approach. First, a bibliometric analysis is conducted on literature pertaining to ‘Kawaii and Japanese pop culture’ extracted from the academic database; from this standpoint, the current research topics in the field of Kawaii study are discussed. Second, we aim to provide direction for future research by mining the text data disseminated by three special exhibitions launched by Japanese museums on the theme of ‘Japanese Kawaii culture’ and planned by Kawaii cultural experts and curators. From the results of these two studies, the present research develops a discussion framework containing key dimensions and factors for researchers in this field of study

Maiden’s Fashion As Eternal Becomings: Victorian Maidens and Sugar Sweet Cuties Donning Japanese Street Fashion in Japan and North America

Lolita fashion is a youth street style originating from Japan that draws on Victorian-era children’s clothing, Rococo aesthetics, and Western Punk and Gothic subculture. It is worn by teenage girls and women of a wide range of ages, and through the flow of related media and clothing aided by the Internet, Lolita style has become a global phenomenon. Wearers of the style are known as Lolitas, and local, national, and global communities can be found around the world outside Japan from North American to Europe. This study is a cross-cultural comparison of Lolita fashion wearers in Japan and North America, examining how differences in constructions of place and space; conceptualizations about girlhood and womanhood; perceptions of beauty and aesthetics; and formation of social groups and actor-networks have bearing on how an individual experiences the fashion. This work deconstructs Lolita style by using Japanese cultural concepts like shōjo (‘girl’ as a genderless being), otome (maiden), kawaii (cuteness) to explore the underlying framework that informs Japanese Lolita’s use of the fashion as a form of subversive rebellion, creating personal spaces to celebrate their individuality and revive the affects and memories of girlhood that are distanced from gendered social expectations. English-speakers, not having the same social and cultural knowledge, attempt to recontexualize Lolita fashion along the lines of feminism, sisterhood, personal style, and escape from the ‘modern’ to give meaning and purpose to their involvement with the fashion. Lolita fashion allows wearers to travel in between the lines of becoming-girl and becoming-women by offering a way to access girl-feeling and its associated happiness objects

What Is Beautiful?: Analysis of Japanese beauty ideals in cosmetics advertising

The purpose of this study was to analyse beauty standards constructed and represented through Japanese cosmetics advertisements. The chapter of literature review firstly explored the past researches on Japanese beauty norms in the scope of race and gender studies. In addition, different types of beauty concepts including those which are peculiar to Japanese beauty cultures, were also introduced before this study moved to the research of the present beauty ideals. This research was done by studying in total eight still advertising images published in 2017, selected from four different Japanese cosmetics brands, for which the methodological approaches of semiotics and encoding/decoding were applied. Based on the data analysis and interpretation of signs representing beauty ideals in these advertisements, this study has discovered certain distinguishing characteristics of each branding tactic to offer definitions of beauty. The findings indicated that the process of representing Japanese beauty ideals through the act of cosmetics advertising are consequently intertwined with race and gender discourses