Hello Kitty isn't a cat

[Waist of Thyme]

Saw this on another site.

Hello Kitty not a cat, company says

Published August 28, 2014FoxNews.com

For 40 years, her face has adorned backpacks and lunch boxes, jewelry and theme restaurants, TV shows and even laptops.

Hello Kitty has long been a staple of Japanese pop culture, but for decades, one expert says, the world has been under a false impression.

Hello Kitty -- despite having a name that's 50 percent devoted to the term that refers to a young cat -- is no feline.

She is, rather, a little girl, the Los Angeles Times reports.

"She's never depicted on all fours," Christine R. Yano, an anthropologist with the University of Hawaii who is curator of a Hello Kitty retrospective at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles in October, told the newspaper. "She is a little girl. She is a friend. But she is not a cat."

Say it ain't so!

It's not a matter of opinion, either, Yano said. When she was preparing written texts for the museum's exhibit, she made the mistake of referring to Hello Kitty as, well, a cat.

Wrong answer.

"I was corrected -- very firmly," Yano told the Times. "That's one correction Sanrio (the company that owns the character) made for my script for the show."

Some other facts about Hello Kitty, according to Yano:

• She's British.

• She is a Scorpio.

• She loves apple pie.

• She has a twin sister, and is a perpetual third-grader.

• Her actual name is Kitty White.

"Hello Kitty emerged in the 1970s, when the Japanese and Japanese women were into Britain," Yano told the Times. "They loved the idea of Britain. It represented the quintessential idealized childhood, almost like a white picket fence. So the biography was created exactly for the tastes of that time."

Wikipedia, for what it's worth, refers to Kitty as a Japanese bobtail cat, though her species isn't made clear on Sanrio.com, where a page devoted to the character's 40th anniversary says she was created "to inspire happiness, friendship, and sharing across the world."

But regardless of whether she's a girl or a cat, she remains vitally important to the Japanese identity, Yano said.

"In talking to Japanese Americans who grew up in the 1970s, they say, 'That figure means so much to us because she was ours,'" she told the Times. "It's something they saw as an identity marker. This is why the exhibition is being held at the Japanese American National Museum. It's about reconnecting her to this community. It gives the whole thing a certain poignancy and power."

[littleheartsofjoy]

I feel like my childhood was questioned with learning that she isn't a cat!

I say that half seriously, I loved her and her friends. :/ So if she's not a cat, does that mean that her friends are not animals either, or are they?

[Squirrel Combat]

Hello Kitty must die!!

Anyone ever read that book? I haven't.

[binary suns]

[Guest]

Hello Kitty is a kitty.

[SorryNotSorry]

Around 20 years ago, some smartass writer created a parody in the LA Weekly or the Reader---I don't remember which---and named him "Hell Kitty". THAT one got yanked FAST.

[CNGB]

. . . What just happened?

[RK800]

My whole life is a lie.

But in all seriousness if she isn't a cat then she must be living in some type of animal crossing-like world because she's friends with a bunch of bi-pedal animals. Or perhaps they're all people too. :P

[Kelly]

*takes a good look at Hello Kitty*

She has whiskers and cat ears.

Girl looks like a kitteh.

[Guest]

Whiskers, cat ears, is friends with bi-pedal birds. Other "people" include a cat, dog, apes and a pig. Her movies include "Wizard of Paws" and "Furry Tale Adventures". But, she is a girl and not a cat? ... Uh. *confused*

[NatureSoo]

I say Hello Kitty is a Kitty. Ears and whiskers. Something about this little characture just attracks me.

I always felt it was because it conveys a neutral emotional personality. No extreme moods, just kinda peaceful.

Lack of mouth and the features are always the same gives it this feeling. ^_^

[KokoroKitty]

I suppose this makes her more of a nekomimi than a cat. :D I still like her anyways, since she's still as adorable as ever /shrugs.

[WhenSummersGone]

I feel she is a cat. She also has a tail along with whiskers. I feel who ever made her is just saying this for attention.

[Saraya]

She is a Scorpio like me so idc though HK has a pet kitty called Charmy kitty so I always wondered how can a cat have a cat as a pet?

[SquirrelCat]

Nothing else matters anymore, NOTHING!!!

[5_♦♣]

Maybe she's a girl trapped in the body of a cat? *Shrugs*.

[Xavy]

She is Scorpio ? Cool ! I don't care if she is cat or human, if she is Scorpio that's all that counts (since I am Scorpio and love Scorpio people)

[Saraya]

Yeah her birthday is November 1st

[Guest]

She's clearly a human with a nine-tailed cat demon sealed inside her.

[Xavy]

Yeah her birthday is November 1st

Really ? That's my birthday !

[LaMaestra]

And my nephew's! I never knew Kitty was that old though.

If it walks like a cat, sounds like a cat, looks like a cat and behaves like a cat, then it is a cat.

[Kulukan]

A human? Does this mean, it's like a fursuit or something? Say it ain't so!

[❅Snowflake❅]

If hello Kitty is a cat ,it would be eatable ...seem with a lot of meat ....

[Princess Flufflebutt]

Everything I was has been taken away...