8 ms·

The new science of cute

61 points by pmcpinto 10y ago

jhbadger 10y ago
"He is almost regarded as a living entity, a kind of fun ursine household god (it is perhaps significant that the very first licensed Kumamon product was a Buddhist shrine emblazoned with his face)." Things like this fascinate me about Japan. How is this understood? Is it a "South Park" style sacrilegious parody, or do Japanese Buddhists actually find this totally acceptable?
- adrianratnapala 10y ago
  I know nothing about Japanese culture, but my guess is that it is monks trying to be hip. Some of the onookers will roll their eyes, and others will agree that this is a nice way for them to keep up with contemporary culture.
- Freak_NL 10y ago
  Not unlike a Hello Kitty rosary (do these exist?), it is a votive item used in a personal household. It will raise a few eyebrows, but won't be decried as sacrilegious.
- bitwize 10y ago
  Japanese have a different concept of sacredness and sacrilege than what we Westerners are used to. In Christianity, God is inherently good -- the source of all good things -- so anything which desecrates, trivializes, or insults God is inherently evil. Note the use of increasingly obscure terms to refer to God rather than calling him by name -- "just to be safe" -- especially in Judaism. In Japan, the kami aren't really good or evil -- they just are. Most of them are more like neighbors than lord and master of the earth. So paying them respect can take many forms, including offering them cute shrines. I'm sure people believe that if the kami were angry about it, they'd let you know.
- po 10y ago
  I am by no means an expert, but after living here for a while I have had to adjust my conception of what sacrelegious means. I think my understanding of it (after growing up in the US and primarily being exposed to christian and jewish customs) was 'pious sincerity' or 'seriousness'. In Japan, religious practice is not as serious as I was used to, even if many people are very serious about observing. There's not as much value placed in physical artifacts. Historic buildings get razed (pour one out for the Hotel Okura), earthquakes destroy cities… people move on. The culture needs to be respected and honored but new artifacts will always arise which honor that line of culture. You respect your ancestors by however you show respect.. bowing, keeeling, building a shrine out of discarded PS2's or whatever. If it is heartfelt, then how you do it mostly reflects on you. So associating a mascot (which is a totally accepted cultural tool) with a religious artifact isn't considered bad because there is no negative association with it. People love kumamon! Anyway, that's my view on it. I am sure I have a lot to learn still. As an aside: Even the police like to get in on the cute. Note the mascot at the bottom of the tokyo police website. Pepo-kun is all over Tokyo to make the police more approachable. He's named after the sound that police cars make: "peee-poh-peee-poh" http://www.keishicho.metro.tokyo.jp/multilingual/english/index.html http://www.keishicho.metro.tokyo.jp/multilingual/english/ind...
  - kens 10y ago
    To add to your comment on the transience of historical buildings, the Ise Jingu shrine gets torn down and rebuilt every 20 years, and this has been happening for 1300 years! http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-japanese-shrine-has-been-torn-down-and-rebuilt-every-20-years-for-the-past-millennium-575558/ http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-japanese-shrin... Also, according to Freakonomics, Japanese houses are "disposable", commonly torn down and rebuilt. http://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-are-japanese-homes-disposable-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast-3/ http://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-are-japanese-homes-dispo...
homero 10y ago
I wonder if zenbo flopped https://zenbo.asus.com https://zenbo.asus.com
- dexwiz 10y ago
  Why do manufacturers need to put big goofy eyes on robots? I am perfectly fine with an astro-mech style robot that is obviously a robot.
  - vanderZwan 10y ago
    Well you're not wrong for liking it, but you also are (presumably) a techie of some form, be that programming, electronics or whatever. That implies a pretty strong aesthetic bias that does not represent the average person.
- srtjstjsj 10y ago
  That video shows what Japanese think Americans are like?
vanderZwan 10y ago
> In a study at the University of Michigan in 2012, visual information expert Sookyung Cho asked subjects “to design a cute rectangle by adjusting the size, proportion, roundness, rotation, and color of the figure”. What she found supported the idea that “smallness, roundness, tiltedness, and lightness of color can serve as determinants of perceived cuteness in artifact design”. It mattered, she found, whether the person designing the rectangle was in the USA or South Korea. Cuteness is nothing if not culturally specific, and that itself has become a rich focus of inquiry. > [...] > Teddy bears exist because the night is dark and long and at some point your parents have to go to bed and leave you. There is real comfort in cuteness. > “Filling in an emotional need is exactly where kawaii plays a significant role,” writes Christine R Yano, a professor of anthropology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and the author of Pink Globalization: Hello Kitty’s trek across the Pacific. “Even in America, journalist Nicholas Kristof has written of an ‘empathy gap’ in today’s society,” states Yano. “He points to the place of objects that may be considered promoters of ‘happiness’, ‘solace’, ‘comfort’. When a society needs to heal, it seeks comfort in the familiar. And often the familiar may reside in ‘cute’. Witness the use of teddy bears as sources of comfort for firefighters in the wake of NYC’s 9-11. So I see kawaii things as holding the potential as empathy generators.” I wonder how these two points tie in to the modern obsession with cats. They seem to fill a real need people have, but speaking as someone who is unaffected by cat-cuteness (which is weird because I generally am very susceptable to cute things) and who is treated as a freak of nature by many, I think there's also a certain aspect of trying to conform to societal expectations. PS: The Guardian aritcle is a reprint (republish? reshare?) of an article at Mosaic[0], which features a lot more pictures. [0] http://mosaicscience.com/story/cuteness-japan-kawaii http://mosaicscience.com/story/cuteness-japan-kawaii
- douche 10y ago
  Cats are furry, murderous assholes http://theoatmeal.com/comics/cats_actually_kill http://theoatmeal.com/comics/cats_actually_kill http://www.kittycams.uga.edu/index.html http://www.kittycams.uga.edu/index.html
  - Kristine1975 10y ago
    That's what makes them cute, though.
return0 10y ago
Isn't this another symptom of infantilization of culture? Similarly to how the most successful movies are about wizards and magical rings.
- Chris2048 10y ago
  infantilization of culture? Why are wizards and fantasy not allowed for adults?
  - zdkl 10y ago
    "All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach." Replace propaganda with marketing, PR, journalism...
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- krapp 10y ago
  Why would the "wizards and rings" of popular culture be any more infantilizing than the "angels and demons" that culture and philosophy have taken seriously for thousands of years?
  - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
    Many people seem to have somehow grown to an adult age without ever growing out of the teenage predilection for considering edgy, grimdark fantasies as "grown-up" and "real", despite those fantasies failing to resemble the real world at all.
- dominotw 10y ago
  I think this goes hand in hand with economic prosperity. I grew up in the third world and by the time you grow up all your joy in life is defeated by life and living. You loose childlike joy and become a "serious" person and the culture correspondingly encourages "growing up". In western, richer countries there is no such pressure on culture to make people "serious".
agentgt 10y ago
I vaguely remember reading somewhere how domestication brings about cuteness in animals. When animals are breed to be less aggressive they look more like babies. We are not even sure if humans are naturally selecting the traits (as baby like features seem less aggressive) or that just inherently happens when aggression is removed (ie lower testosterone would cause less maturity). I believe the study on domesticating foxes showed this. As they removed aggressive foxes from the gene pool the left overs were unbelievable "cute" with soft fur, round eyes, etc. Seriously a domesticated fox is a pretty animal. Of course I believe there is an exception to this of the house hold cat. Supposedly cats are technically not domesticated (I'll find link on this shortly but yes this mainly a joke as domestication is likely a multi-faceted continuum).
- kang 10y ago
  You are right but it's the other way around. Being cute brings about domestication in an animal. Dogs are just more common because they were wolves 15000 years ago and stuck around groups of human hunters for leftover hunt. In return they acted as protection since others animals didn't come close, whereas humans were able to control them with fire. So humans domesticated the cute ones.
  - kevlened 10y ago
    Strangely, domestication can bring about cuteness. Radiolab did a story on the domestication of the silver fox [0]. They discuss how domestication yielded physical changes. "Through generations of selectively breeding a captive population, Belyaev noticed not only increased docility, but also unexpected physical changes." [0] - http://www.radiolab.org/story/91696-new-nice/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/91696-new-nice/
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
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- 10y ago
dschiptsov 10y ago
Cuteness is a look of a healthy (lack of abnormalities) child, and youth in general. Beauty is youth + health (average face = lack of deformities) for all species - good genes, just reached reproductive age (with all necessary markers). Sexual attractiveness is a bit more complicated - species specific markers of youth, health, good genes (parasite resistance, foraging, etc) and social status. Nothing to see here. Humans aren't descendants of gods, they are still mere animals.
- drpgq 10y ago
  Sexual dimorphism is also important for sexual attractiveness.
kevinSuttle 10y ago
I wrote about this a few years ago, with the goal to answer the question of "what is cute, really?" http://uxmag.com/articles/beyond-emotion http://uxmag.com/articles/beyond-emotion
doctorstupid 10y ago
Japan is an hierarchical society in which the pressures flowing from the top can build to unbearable levels near the bottom. The outlook for many is quite bleak, with an unthinkably small possibility of escape from one’s allotted role. Many live in conditions that may be best described as human storage. Cute things offer an escape into a fantasy world devoid of life’s powerlessness in a manner compatible with consumerism. The aggressive and masculine traits valued near the top are sometimes too confrontational for most, resulting in a proliferation of cute, comforting and non-aggressive symbols throughout society. Even police boxes have cute mascots to soften the intimidation of their presence.

61 points by pmcpinto 10y ago

"He is almost regarded as a living entity, a kind of fun ursine household god (it is perhaps significant that the very first licensed Kumamon product was a Buddhist shrine emblazoned with his face)." Things like this fascinate me about Japan. How is this understood? Is it a "South Park" style sacrilegious parody, or do Japanese Buddhists actually find this totally acceptable?

adrianratnapala 10y ago
I know nothing about Japanese culture, but my guess is that it is monks trying to be hip. Some of the onookers will roll their eyes, and others will agree that this is a nice way for them to keep up with contemporary culture.
Freak_NL 10y ago
Not unlike a Hello Kitty rosary (do these exist?), it is a votive item used in a personal household. It will raise a few eyebrows, but won't be decried as sacrilegious.
bitwize 10y ago
Japanese have a different concept of sacredness and sacrilege than what we Westerners are used to. In Christianity, God is inherently good -- the source of all good things -- so anything which desecrates, trivializes, or insults God is inherently evil. Note the use of increasingly obscure terms to refer to God rather than calling him by name -- "just to be safe" -- especially in Judaism. In Japan, the kami aren't really good or evil -- they just are. Most of them are more like neighbors than lord and master of the earth. So paying them respect can take many forms, including offering them cute shrines. I'm sure people believe that if the kami were angry about it, they'd let you know.
po 10y ago
I am by no means an expert, but after living here for a while I have had to adjust my conception of what sacrelegious means. I think my understanding of it (after growing up in the US and primarily being exposed to christian and jewish customs) was 'pious sincerity' or 'seriousness'. In Japan, religious practice is not as serious as I was used to, even if many people are very serious about observing. There's not as much value placed in physical artifacts. Historic buildings get razed (pour one out for the Hotel Okura), earthquakes destroy cities… people move on. The culture needs to be respected and honored but new artifacts will always arise which honor that line of culture. You respect your ancestors by however you show respect.. bowing, keeeling, building a shrine out of discarded PS2's or whatever. If it is heartfelt, then how you do it mostly reflects on you. So associating a mascot (which is a totally accepted cultural tool) with a religious artifact isn't considered bad because there is no negative association with it. People love kumamon! Anyway, that's my view on it. I am sure I have a lot to learn still. As an aside: Even the police like to get in on the cute. Note the mascot at the bottom of the tokyo police website. Pepo-kun is all over Tokyo to make the police more approachable. He's named after the sound that police cars make: "peee-poh-peee-poh" http://www.keishicho.metro.tokyo.jp/multilingual/english/index.html http://www.keishicho.metro.tokyo.jp/multilingual/english/ind...
- kens 10y ago
  To add to your comment on the transience of historical buildings, the Ise Jingu shrine gets torn down and rebuilt every 20 years, and this has been happening for 1300 years! http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-japanese-shrine-has-been-torn-down-and-rebuilt-every-20-years-for-the-past-millennium-575558/ http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-japanese-shrin... Also, according to Freakonomics, Japanese houses are "disposable", commonly torn down and rebuilt. http://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-are-japanese-homes-disposable-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast-3/ http://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-are-japanese-homes-dispo...

homero 10y ago

I wonder if zenbo flopped https://zenbo.asus.com https://zenbo.asus.com

dexwiz 10y ago
Why do manufacturers need to put big goofy eyes on robots? I am perfectly fine with an astro-mech style robot that is obviously a robot.
- vanderZwan 10y ago
  Well you're not wrong for liking it, but you also are (presumably) a techie of some form, be that programming, electronics or whatever. That implies a pretty strong aesthetic bias that does not represent the average person.
srtjstjsj 10y ago
That video shows what Japanese think Americans are like?

vanderZwan 10y ago

> In a study at the University of Michigan in 2012, visual information expert Sookyung Cho asked subjects “to design a cute rectangle by adjusting the size, proportion, roundness, rotation, and color of the figure”. What she found supported the idea that “smallness, roundness, tiltedness, and lightness of color can serve as determinants of perceived cuteness in artifact design”. It mattered, she found, whether the person designing the rectangle was in the USA or South Korea. Cuteness is nothing if not culturally specific, and that itself has become a rich focus of inquiry. > [...] > Teddy bears exist because the night is dark and long and at some point your parents have to go to bed and leave you. There is real comfort in cuteness. > “Filling in an emotional need is exactly where kawaii plays a significant role,” writes Christine R Yano, a professor of anthropology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and the author of Pink Globalization: Hello Kitty’s trek across the Pacific. “Even in America, journalist Nicholas Kristof has written of an ‘empathy gap’ in today’s society,” states Yano. “He points to the place of objects that may be considered promoters of ‘happiness’, ‘solace’, ‘comfort’. When a society needs to heal, it seeks comfort in the familiar. And often the familiar may reside in ‘cute’. Witness the use of teddy bears as sources of comfort for firefighters in the wake of NYC’s 9-11. So I see kawaii things as holding the potential as empathy generators.” I wonder how these two points tie in to the modern obsession with cats. They seem to fill a real need people have, but speaking as someone who is unaffected by cat-cuteness (which is weird because I generally am very susceptable to cute things) and who is treated as a freak of nature by many, I think there's also a certain aspect of trying to conform to societal expectations. PS: The Guardian aritcle is a reprint (republish? reshare?) of an article at Mosaic[0], which features a lot more pictures. [0] http://mosaicscience.com/story/cuteness-japan-kawaii http://mosaicscience.com/story/cuteness-japan-kawaii

douche 10y ago
Cats are furry, murderous assholes http://theoatmeal.com/comics/cats_actually_kill http://theoatmeal.com/comics/cats_actually_kill http://www.kittycams.uga.edu/index.html http://www.kittycams.uga.edu/index.html
- Kristine1975 10y ago
  That's what makes them cute, though.

return0 10y ago

Isn't this another symptom of infantilization of culture? Similarly to how the most successful movies are about wizards and magical rings.

Chris2048 10y ago
infantilization of culture? Why are wizards and fantasy not allowed for adults?
- zdkl 10y ago
  "All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach." Replace propaganda with marketing, PR, journalism...
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
krapp 10y ago
Why would the "wizards and rings" of popular culture be any more infantilizing than the "angels and demons" that culture and philosophy have taken seriously for thousands of years?
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  Many people seem to have somehow grown to an adult age without ever growing out of the teenage predilection for considering edgy, grimdark fantasies as "grown-up" and "real", despite those fantasies failing to resemble the real world at all.
dominotw 10y ago
I think this goes hand in hand with economic prosperity. I grew up in the third world and by the time you grow up all your joy in life is defeated by life and living. You loose childlike joy and become a "serious" person and the culture correspondingly encourages "growing up". In western, richer countries there is no such pressure on culture to make people "serious".

agentgt 10y ago

I vaguely remember reading somewhere how domestication brings about cuteness in animals. When animals are breed to be less aggressive they look more like babies. We are not even sure if humans are naturally selecting the traits (as baby like features seem less aggressive) or that just inherently happens when aggression is removed (ie lower testosterone would cause less maturity). I believe the study on domesticating foxes showed this. As they removed aggressive foxes from the gene pool the left overs were unbelievable "cute" with soft fur, round eyes, etc. Seriously a domesticated fox is a pretty animal. Of course I believe there is an exception to this of the house hold cat. Supposedly cats are technically not domesticated (I'll find link on this shortly but yes this mainly a joke as domestication is likely a multi-faceted continuum).

kang 10y ago
You are right but it's the other way around. Being cute brings about domestication in an animal. Dogs are just more common because they were wolves 15000 years ago and stuck around groups of human hunters for leftover hunt. In return they acted as protection since others animals didn't come close, whereas humans were able to control them with fire. So humans domesticated the cute ones.
- kevlened 10y ago
  Strangely, domestication can bring about cuteness. Radiolab did a story on the domestication of the silver fox [0]. They discuss how domestication yielded physical changes. "Through generations of selectively breeding a captive population, Belyaev noticed not only increased docility, but also unexpected physical changes." [0] - http://www.radiolab.org/story/91696-new-nice/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/91696-new-nice/
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
10y ago

dschiptsov 10y ago

Cuteness is a look of a healthy (lack of abnormalities) child, and youth in general. Beauty is youth + health (average face = lack of deformities) for all species - good genes, just reached reproductive age (with all necessary markers). Sexual attractiveness is a bit more complicated - species specific markers of youth, health, good genes (parasite resistance, foraging, etc) and social status. Nothing to see here. Humans aren't descendants of gods, they are still mere animals.

drpgq 10y ago
Sexual dimorphism is also important for sexual attractiveness.

kevinSuttle 10y ago

I wrote about this a few years ago, with the goal to answer the question of "what is cute, really?" http://uxmag.com/articles/beyond-emotion http://uxmag.com/articles/beyond-emotion

doctorstupid 10y ago

Japan is an hierarchical society in which the pressures flowing from the top can build to unbearable levels near the bottom. The outlook for many is quite bleak, with an unthinkably small possibility of escape from one’s allotted role. Many live in conditions that may be best described as human storage. Cute things offer an escape into a fantasy world devoid of life’s powerlessness in a manner compatible with consumerism. The aggressive and masculine traits valued near the top are sometimes too confrontational for most, resulting in a proliferation of cute, comforting and non-aggressive symbols throughout society. Even police boxes have cute mascots to soften the intimidation of their presence.