As preparation for my Hello Kitty / Sanrio panel, I been reading Hello Kitty The Remarkable  Story of Sanrio and  the Billion Dollar Feline Phenomenon

I came to this section:

 But Hello Kitty is not an insider’s club for stars; she’s a statement for those who want to snub their nose at the establishment.  …She so made her way into the boardroom where women executive have been known to flash Hello Kitty pens as away to add whimsy and  irony to corporate meetings.  “We equate cuteness not with full citizenship” said Christine Yano, the University of Hawaii anthropologist. “As part of our individualism, Americans try to maintain                a healthy distance form Capitalism and from being manipulated.  Showing off Hello Kitty in normal setting affirms one’s independence even if it’s tinged with humor she said. [1]

I disagree with her dig on capitalism we cannot have individualism nor independence away from Capitalism, but I thought how this passage relates to my life; how becoming a male Hello Kitty fan has become a way to express my individualism. Even as a child I had a strong sense of individualism, partly out of survival, I was hazed because I was a misfit and in special education. In a trip with my family to San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Warf, we all order seafood cocktails, they all had the crab and I order shrimp. My mother chided me that I was just wanted to be different; she was right it bothered me nobody ordered shrimp.

Latter I became a furry and had a dilemma; I wanted to decorate my apartment turning the studio into my fury den, and stared to buy traditional plush animals and bear items, the problem they did nothing to inspire me. When cleaning up my apartment and found a Hello Kitty plush leftover from and ebay sales campaign.  I thought way not she is anthropomorphic and very cute. The first plush I bought was a 20 in Fairy plush on purpose knowing it gone against all male stereotypes for a guy to buy a girly Hello Kitty Plush for himself.  I found it liberating since then Hello Kitty has become a part of my life as way affirm my own individualism in the face of conformity.  I carry a Hello Kitty wallet, backpack and sometimes one of my 18in plushies in public. I want to play with people’s perceptions; I am not on some grand crusade. nor I want to change the world; I not LGBT or  trying to redefine masculinity, I want o be myself  and Hello Kitty with respect to limits within my Christian faith, liberates me  to my own aesthetic  taste.

Perhaps I am a Hello Kitty rebel a rebel not of your cause.