Hello Kitty Rolls Out the Barrel

Japan’s Sanrio Co. has licensed her image to a Taiwanese beverage company to produce a range of fruit-flavored beers for the Chinese and Taiwanese markets. The best way I can describe it is the “beer’ a form of hard malt beverage rather that beer in my opinion.  If one thinks they are going to get hammered, the beer is only going to have a AV. of 2.3%.  One again there an offhand quip how Sanrio is marketing alcohol underage persons, but totally ignorant that Sanrio intends to market to Young Adult Women since the mid 1980’s and now men. 


Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/09/13/purr-me-a-hello-kitty-cartoon-cat-sells-beer-in-asia/#ixzz2ewTLyMG7

Are Brony And Male Hello Kitty Fans Changing The Meaning Of Masculinity ?

My answer is no, instead style can be expressed by our masculinity and applied to items even if the items is gender specific.  Hello Kitty or My Little Pony is not changing masculinity but we change Hello Kitty and MLP to fit our or in spite of our masculinity.

I been thinking both is late as I am creating a Hello Kitty panel for a convention. I am a guy who been interested in Sanrio / Hello Kitty as a way to express my Fury culture interest. It is a in a way backlash to what I see as sameness of furry media. Most furry media is ether toony flat badge art or gay/straight twenty something with angst or relationship problems. I see Hello Kitty as something different way as a way to express my furriness but not supporting the noting of gender neutrality. I have recently started watching My Little Pony Friendship is Magic and like other guys and like the show. I do not see Hello Kitty or My Little Pony change the notion of gender differences but how style and taste is incorporated and express through our gender difference and even bypasses them. I like girly Hello Kitty items but I am not gay or transgendered, I am simple put personal taste, individual expression, and nonconformity above my own male gender nature.

One item I need to address; my liking of Hello Kitty Girly or not is not an endorsement of   militant feminist notion of gender neutrality. Boys are going to be boys and Girls will be girls. One way I seen how gender differences is played out is two online communities:  Hello Kitty Junkies and Equestria daily.  Hello Kitty Junkies is dominantly female 6000+ women vs. 125 men. Much of the focus is on acquiring items and shopping. While I enjoy the site I can note the difference of interest between me and female members. I would make new group reporting news about Hello Kitty or pictures from various conventions and not receiving very much response, yet pictures of my acquisitions do.   On the other side is the Bony site  Equstria daily which  is mostly male,  and focus is much more different  and broad mainly on the My  Little  Pony  through news, analysis, art, stories, and crafting.  I think the difference between the sexes is why a bunch of guys who like My Little Pony can create an event like Bronycon and attract thousands yet except for a few events The Hello Kitty Convention could not get off the ground in 2008. Do women prefer a trip to the boutique with a small group of intimate friends vs. men by the thousands get together at a Football game? Now substitute   Brony Con for football you get the same thing.  

We men  are not becoming less or redefining masculinity by liking My Little Pony or Hello Kitty but realizing as men can separate masculinity from aesthetics, style and personal taste. 

Hello Kitty Science Project Wins Award and Trip to Regionals

Update: Ms. Rojas has won an award and will be going to the Reginald Science fair. We to go girl. Good Luck in the Regionals

I am glad unexpected  fame and world wide  attention did not jinxes her chances.  The judging was tough according to the report  and her video nor fame did not count.

Antioch teen’s ‘Hello Kitty rocket’ wins at school science fair – Contra Costa Times

“ANTIOCH — The weather balloon experiment that sent a Hello Kitty toy almost 18 miles above the Earth is now an award-winning science project that is sending its creator to a regional competition.”

Read News Report  here

Hello Kitty In Space but Press Miss-Reports on One Item

By now only a few on this earth has not heard of how a 7th grader, Lauren Rojas, has sent Hello Kitty Plush 93,000 feet up in the stratosphere  as part of a science project.

Having looked at the video, she did an excellent job of presetting her experiment during the flight, the pictures are spectacular   and hello kitty in her rocket is just so cute. The rocket  parachuted back to earth 47 miles from the launch point, in a tree; a likely place for a kitty. Hello Kitty is safe and sound back on Earth. The video went viral and new report has been seen all over the world and on National TV.

Not to detract from Ms.  Rojas feat, some in the media is reporting this is Hello Kitty’s first trip into (or near space). That honor really should go to Melissa whose Hello Kitty has flown with The Expedition 9 Crew in 2004. I quote from part of that post.

“This is to certify that Hello Kitty accompanied the Expedition 9 Crew in their long duration space mission aboard the International Space Station. This item was flown for the wonderful Melissa (last name omitted for obvious reasons).

The Expedition 9 Crew was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan on April 19, 2004, at 9:19 a.m., aboard the Russian Soyuz Spacecraft TMA-4, and return to Kazakhstan on October 24, 2004, at 6:35 a.m. aboard the Soyuz Spacecraft TMA-4.”

 

I also thought Hello Kitty as Soyuz crew mascot aka Micro Gravity Indicator some time ago.

Still way to go Lauren for Hello Kitty first altitude Balloon mission.

Full Report : Hello Kitty says hello to space, thanks to Antioch teen’s science project