With a revelation that has shocked the animated animal community, Hello Kitty’s parent company, Sanrio, has just announced that the globally known cat is not, in fact, a cat.
The company’s Retail Business Development Director, Jill Cook, made the confusing revelation on NBC’s Today morning show during the celebration of the Japanese creation’s 50th anniversary.
After the cheerful host of the show asked the seemingly obvious question of whether Hello Kitty is a cat or not, Cook immediately reined her in. “So Hello Kitty is not a cat,” she said. “In fact, she is a little girl who was born and raised in the suburbs of London.” Cook then described Miss Kitty’s nuclear family structure, which consists of “a mom and a dad and her twin sister Mimmy.”
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A well-off middle-class girl
Images accompanying the report showed an aerial photograph of Miss Kitty’s home, a large pink building in an area of London that appears to be affluent. Cook declined to comment on the details of Miss Kitty’s location, apparently due to safety concerns.
However, indications suggest a green neighborhood in southwestern London, likely Merton or Kingston-upon-Thames. Combined with the fact that Miss Kitty fills her time with leisurely activities such as “baking cookies,” it is safe to assume that the Kitty family enjoys a prosperous, middle-class lifestyle, unattainable for the average Londoner.
Personalized wishes from the King of England are something entirely reasonable when you have a privileged upbringing
Charles wished her well
For many, Hello Kitty’s urban trends are not surprising. She often spends her free time making outrageous trips to distant places, such as the jungle, and has a number of lucrative marketing partnerships with companies like the Cambridge Satchel Company and Grind Coffee.
Cook also notes that Miss Kitty’s family has given their child “her own pet cat, Charmy Kitty,” and everyone knows that having pets is a middle-class activity.
If that wasn’t enough to confirm suspicions, at an official symposium at Buckingham Palace with Japan’s Emperor Naruhito, King Charles said, “Perhaps you will allow me to note a particular individual who turns 50 this year. Raised in a suburb of London alongside her twin sister, a self-made billionaire entrepreneur […] I can only wish a happy birthday to Hello Kitty.”
Miss Kitty would also do well to remember that there is no such thing as a moral billionaire
All wrong
Personalized wishes from the King of England are something entirely reasonable when you have a privileged upbringing. Miss Kitty would also do well to remember that there is no such thing as a moral billionaire.
“But – after all – the fact that a self-proclaimed ‘Kitty’ is not a cat at all speaks to the systemic, top-down failures within Sanrio’s corporate machine. In the future, company executives must disclose the types and social trends of all their animated characters as a matter of public trust,” comments a related article in Dazed Magazine.
*With information from dazeddigital.com