What is a scene icon? What is a scene mascot? In order to answer that, we'll need to take a trip back to when it all started. 2007. The golden years. When the internet became more available than ever before. Dial up was dead like the squealing pig it was and broadband was here to stay. Now with wifi on our ipod touches and windows vista laptops we were now so connected it was frankly pretty scary.
But in this new era, where everyone was now online constantly how are we going to differentiate ourselves from the normie masses? How are we going to both fit in and let everyone else know how unique we are? Why by using the same copy and paste name brand characters on our myspace profiles as all our friends, duh. But it doesn’t stop there,
No, we need to go deeper, we must break through to the irl. What were you going to put on that little knotch on your flip phone, what were you supposed to weave into your kandicuff bracelets? You needed merch. Cool merch. Cute merch. Japanese merch. Cause what’s cooler than something that comes from place that you don’t live?
But who’s this merch for? Scene kids. Emo kids too. Which aren’t the same thing but they kind of are. There wasn’t a lot to go around at the time and sometimes we’d just have to share the same hot topic shirt wall.
So okay. We’ve got our mom to drive us to the mall, we’re in the ht, what are we looking at? It’s the mid 2000’s so what’s cool? I’ll tell you what’s cool. It’s kawaii shit. Marketable brand mascot cute chibi little simplified shit. Something you needed to be able to doodle on the white spot on your converse. You know what I’m talking about. Keep it simple. Keep it easy. But a little creepy. Something you can screenshot and paste in the corners of a photo of you on a play ground being sad. Some real proto traumacore shit.
Here's what you need.
Domokun
Domokun has been the official mascot of the nhk, aka Nippon Hoso Kyokai, aka the Japan Broadcasting Corporation since 1998. His name is a pun on the japanese greeting domo, konnichiwa. Which is roughly translated to ‘well, hello there‘ which was said often during news segments. And the kun addition to his name is an honorific like chan or san, it was mostly added to further anthropomorphize him. And to you know put some respect on his name.
Domokun himself is a, is a something. He’s a big furry unidentified monster. With a large mouth that never closes and sharp pointy teeth. I was always sort of afraid of this guy. Something about his beady eyed stare and unchanging expression. Tbh I didn’t fuck with domo.
But apparently I was the only one because in 2006 western audiences started to take notice of this rising star, and in 2008 nickelodeon premiered Domo TV, a series of 26 episodes to follow up a series of shorts originally broadcasted as station bumpers back on nhk. These shorts were directed by Tsuneo Goda who is also credited with the creation of domokun.
But domo’s reach stretches beyond the canon, he’s also had a few brand tie ins, like 711, he also started popping up in hot topic, everyone had that hat and then there was that time when he was the target halloween mascot. I mean this sign literally says create the scene this halloween, they knew what they were doing. They knew their target audience. 
But you think that’s all? Wrong. He’s also had is own tokyopop manga, because they used to exist. It features all of domo’s friends from the shorts. Mr. Usaji, an old rabbit guy, Ta-chan, this weasel thot best girl. And alcoholic bat. Bear boy. Uhhh ghost? Watching and reading these shorts it’s clear none of the characters go beyond their surface personality, and that’s okay. It’s more like a newspaper comic gag type beat and not like you know, anything linear. I’m not asking for a 10 chapter arc from jeff familycircus.
He’s also been in a few portable games including 5 dsi games, like crash course domo, hard hat domo, rockn roll domo, pro-putt domo, and who could forget white water domo. Those releasing circa 2009. There’s also a facebook game, you remember facebook games, it was called domo planet and released back in 2011. Most notably though, a game boy advanced game called domo kun no fushigi terebi in 2002 and tbh looks like an absolute insane thing to play it being mostly comprised of minigames. Most of his game releases are just minigames, and that’s pretty fitting, his origins being based in shorts and gags. But that’s nothing. That’s the just the corporate end.
We gotta turn to god’s greatest mistake, the internet, for this next one. All pales compared to domo-kun angry smashfest made using terebi’s sprites, also created in 2002 by mockery and tom fulp, you know, tom fulp, the newgrounds guy. And the thing about smashfest is. It’s fucking unhinged and made an huge impact on the domomunity. To this day being one of most memorable pieces of domo media ever. Even though no one remember its.
But hold, hold on. Stop stop everyone shut up. 2002? The internet wasn’t real in 2002. I don’t believe terebi even had an american release. It was released in february, and smashfest came out in december of the same year, Fulp saying it took approximately four months to create. I can’t reach back in my mind far enough to comprehend an internet culture in which you would 1 know about domokun and 2 be able to get your hands on gba assets of a japanese only released game based on the mascot of a public broadcasting channel, and then 3 know people would be like yeah, mascot of a foreign public broadcasting channel, I love that guy. That was almost 20 years ago. I cannot.
Yeah. That’s about it. Not much shakin up in the domonews lately. The domokun youtube channel has been pretty inactive. Especially after his disgraceful loss in the 2016 election. I’ll go ahead and say it, Domo could have saved us. Look at this clip.
Okay uh that’s it, okay fine. I gotta mention it. The real reason domo first gained popularity with western audiences in part to this image. Every time you masturbate, domo kills a kitten. This. This is why I didn’t like this guy. This is how I was introduced to him. This image is old as shit, it’s actually also from 2002, which I hear you say, the popularity of the meme must have inspired smashfest, no, the meme was from november of 2002, well into the production of smashfest.
You know. Clint Bickham, writer of the domokun comic books says domo’s expression is “a cheery wonderment,” You know what, I say it’s an expression of pure rage and animalistic hunger. I don’t like this guy. Don’t @ me. Moving on.
Gloomybear
Gloomybear or guri-mi is a line of plushies, clothes, and accessories using the titular gloomy bear. He’s an expressionless pink and white bear often dripping blood from his mouth and claws. Or pomegranate juice? Idk.
The naughty grizzly as he’s often called is usually depicted next to his owner and punching bag, an optimistic boy named pity. Gloomy is often shown punching, kicking, beating, and gnawing on pity for comedic effect.
The backstory or so it goes, is pity took in gloomy as a cub because the bear reminded him of a stuffed toy he used to have, however, gloomy is like a real actual bear and bears are wild animals. Hence the mauling. And the blood.
There’s a lot of blood. Now we’re getting into the goth shit.
The character was created in the year 2000 when a man named Mori Chack began to sell post cards on the streets of minami, osaka. That was before the word of mouth spread and his characters ended up growing so much in popularity to the point where soon after he got the opportunity to sign with a production company just one year later. Since then the brand has released more than 2000 types of stuffed animals related to gloomy.
And so gloomy became a cultural phenomenon and it’s not hard to see why. He perfectly slots into the yami kawaii aesthtic, gothic, but cute to the point of not looking out of place next to something like hello kitty.
At also some point there was also a racing team “Gloomy Racing Group” or grrrrrg with its own line of merch tie ins. Bitches love gloomy.
Speaking of bitches here’s Jeffrey Star back in his scene king days.
Ok but fr Gloomy’s still going strong. Not as popular as he once was, but he’s still got stuff going on. A lot of hands in a lot of honey pots. Just this this year he’s finally gotten an animated series. It’s sort of a 2d 3d blend and each episode is only a few minutes long not dissimilar to the domo shorts. And uh these’re pretty cute, if not one note.
So yeah, gloomy bear is still truckin. He’s alive and thriving to this day, and that’s not something we can say that about everyone on this list. So yeah,. We stan a longevity king.
Sanrio
Sanrio is a brand that needs no introduction. But here’s the introduction. Sanrio is another japanese influenced cutesy mascot chibi big head animal based company that I’m sure everybody’s heard of by now. It’s popular characters include hello kitty, my melody, kuromi, gudetama, little twin stars, and many many more. Ie about 500.
And if you don’t know a few of these from your childhood, I’m sure you’ve seen them in the novelty japanese section of your barnes and noble.
Sanrio was first founded as the Yamanashi Silk Company back in 1960 and as you can imagine mostly specialized in silk. And eventually through the years they dabbled in character mascots finding shit with cute little animal drawings sold better than shit without cute animal drawings and so began branching off into other merchandise. But what really made the company what it is today happened in 1974. Designed by yuko shimizu, Hello Kitty made her inevitable debut and at first, was solely marketed towards children. That was up until the 90s when it shifted its target audience to teens and those who were getting into kawaii fashion. Which maybe was due to the changing culture but also the economy was having a time.
Since then because of her massive success she has been plastered on over 5 hundr- no, 5, thou- 50,000 products including, piggy banks, toasters, stereos, planes, basically everything you can think of. Think of something it’s got hello kitty on it. Like idk idk a shovel maybe? Guess what there’s multiple shovels. I think hello kitty is the most merchanised ip in existence aside from like mickey mouse. I could sit here all day and list hello kitty merch. I can. I want to. But I won’t. Don’t worry... A plane.
But enough hello kitty, why stop with that? Mr Sanrio said in boardroom meeting. I’m sure we can churn out some more little guys. How many little guys can we make? Put a face on an egg! We got another guy. People will eat this shit up. Bitches love little guys. That’s the thesis of this video.
But lets talk about Kuromi, Hello Kitty’s goth friend.
Introduced in 2005, Kuromi is the scary counterpart to her nemesis my melody. Her birthday is october 31 and she leads a biker game. She’s got a little devil tail, and a jesters hat- yeah you can see why this is the favorite of our demographic. Finally a goth clown.
Yeah so she didn’t get introduced until the show Onegai My Melody premiered and she was introduced as a side character, and that was thirty years after my melody’s debut. However kuromi has proven herself enough to hold her own merchwise as she’s one of the most popular sanrio characters to this day. She really just fills that niche you know. Again the goth clown niche I’ve been saying this for years.
But before we move on. Fun fact. Fun fact alert. In 2010 a lawsuit against sanrio was brought to court claiming a hello kitty character was copywrite infringement against the dutch children’s book character, miffy created by dick bruna in 1955. Which, yeah I guess I can see the resemblence. And the dutch courts agreed and ruled against sanrio, however they later settled out of court so. I’m sure they didn’t take too much of a hit, I mean they’re owned by sega, a billion dollar corporation.
Skelanimals
Skelanimals are a plush line based off a book by Mitchell Bernal called Skelanimals:Dead Animals Need Love Too published in 2005. Skelanimals is actually one of the few properties on this list that doesn’t come from japan. Go figure.
There are about 33 main skelanimals, but your milage may vary counting cross promotions. All the skelanimals are their own characters in a way, kinda like a beanie baby, but they all have their own backstories ie how they died. For instance cecil the snake, who was caught in a market, skewered, and eaten. Kawaii.
Yeah, they really blew up in the scene er scene, they were a big seller at hot topic, but they were also pretty available everywhere. Like target, walgreens, all the exclusive boutiques. And back in the day they also did celebrity endorsements and photoshoots with people like hanna beth, audrey kitching, some real top of the line myspace scene queens. Also all time low? Okay? Escape the fate? Alright. Alesana? What is happening?
But yeah, they were the shit for a little while. They had a booth at comic con for a couple years, some dc crossover editions. Nothing can slow these guys down.
In fact most recently in 2015 they had a series of web cartoons which are pretty good actually and ran for about 9 episodes, but actually that’s it. That’s it? Huh. Their channel has been dead since the final episode back in 2016. And their website has been down since 2017. They’re instagram hasn’t posted in years. And no one’s selling them anymore. So. Skelanimals are dead. Deader I guess.
Gir
Gir, my love, my everything. The sweety baby boy from outerspace. I’m sure even those not hip to the scene knew this green dog boy was everywhere. And rightfully so, he’s my baby boy.
Actually I’m working on a much longer video than this on invader zim, where I’ll be going much more into depth on invader zim merch. It’s 30,000 words. But lets sum it up in a much more manageable 20,000.
In 2001 Invader Zim, created by comic artist Jhonen Vasquez, premiered on nickelodeon, around that time hot topic bought the license to it and quickly found that one of its most merchanisable characters was gir, the alien robot character that speaks mostly in lol randomisms. Personally I believe the rise of xd tacos culture spawned from gir but more on that whole phenomenon another time.
This brand in particular has become notorious for being associated with scene kids, and that makes sense. Hot topic was flooded with zim merch for years even long after the show was canceled. Hell, the character didn’t reach peak popularity until after the show went off the air. In fact around 2007-2009 is when the zim renaissance happened, prime scene kid years. And yeah, with new zim media cycling every few years, gir never goes out of fashion. Can’t go wrong with a little gir. Girboss shit, BABEEEEEE
Pon and zi
I made you a cookie. But I eated it. Some of the most harrowing words ever put to screen. The intial elation. The promise of sweets, of gifts and affection from your beloved. And the immediate heartbreak. Of it being already eated. I. This is up there with loss. imho, in my humble opinion. In one panel this sums up the hardships of every relationship. Wanting to love, and put yourself out there. To do something, anything to show someone you care, but deep inside knowing how selfish you really are, knowing you can’t control yourself, or your flaws. You want to try, you want to be better but sometimes you just can’t. But having the bravery to admit it. Inspiring. They didn’t have to tell them, but they did.
Pon and Zi is a webcomic written by Jeff Thomas in 2004. It consisted of the characters doing cute or macabre activities which plays out with essentially one telling the other how much they love them just sooooo much. All the time. That’s basically every comic. And there’s about 70 of these.It lasted quite some time, Thomas making them over the span of several years. By the style and timing of the comics it wouldn’t be too big of a stretch to say it clearly influenced the aesthetic of other emoesque creations. Take the big white eyes and desaturated colors. And for the record I am considering it emo btw. Tragic love? Tears? Whatever this is? Emo through and through.
Structurally the comic is only one panel and usually has one of the two characters but more often both of them. The yellow one being pon and the blue being zi. Even though it never being stated I believe it was widely accepted the blue one to be the girl? Despite neither of them having any gender coding. Thomas even stating he never meant for either to be the girl or the boy. They’re just pon and zi.
And, as you can imagine, it did get its own hot topic merch, supposedly. It’s been said. I can’t find anything concrete more than a tweet from thomas, but ehh. Seems like something that would happen.
Impactwise, pon and zi were peak romance in the community. They WERE your phone’s background at one point. Don’t argue with me. If you didn’t send your bf or gf or ectf, you made my heart too happy so I vomited blood, then you weren’t serious about them.
Happybunny
It’s happy bunny is a series of stickers, posters, buttons, t shirts, etc that began in the late 90s created by Jim Benton. He’s also the author behind dear dumb diary, uh franny k. stein, sweetypuss? A whole bunch of stuff. Benton began designing his own cartoon characters in a shirt shop and then used those designs combined with silly little sayings to create things like happy bunny.It really took off though when, you’ll never guess, it started appearing in hot topic.
Most of the merch isn’t too notable. It’s just the same few bunny images with an irreverent saying under it. Whoa, since you’re gross shouldn’t you be smart? Ahaha whoaho I- wait what, what does that mean? Whatever. Yeah, that’s about it. Here’s spaz juice, the happy bunny energy drink. Some happy bunny mints. To freshen up from whatever toxic sludge was in the spaz juice. I don’t wanna know.
Happy bunny also released several books? Life. Get One, Love bites, What’s Your Sign?, The Good The Bad and The Bunny. They’re just picture books with more one liners. Nothing to write home about. I’m sure your aunt got you one at the drug store.Speaking of drugs. In 2007 the site drugfreebunny launched which was like an anti drug campaign using happy bunny and like. “Meth. Finally a simple way to become a twitchy idiot in no time.” Which well, who needs meth when you have spaz juice. Whatever, I want this pin, How do I- texas only? Of all the.
This won a public service award for christsake. Brief aside, domo also had an energy drink and I bet if yep okay. (hello kitty drink) What did I expect, this was the age everyone was doing photoshoots with their monster cans.
Whatever you know what? I’ll go ahead and say it. Happy bunny bad. Honestly the merch isn’t that varied, it’s not very funny, and like, it’s not even that kawaii. I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again, americans cannot do kawaii right. I mean it’s pretty cute but it’s also psychoooooooo.
Hatsune Miku
Hatsune miku. Today hatsune miku’s popularity has ballooned into the mainstream, I mean getting dominos sponsorships, how can you get any bigger than that. A performance on david letterman? Can you say diva? But back in the day she was an indie darling. That’s right, I liked hatsune miku before she was cool.
Hatsune miku is vocaloid. Basically a digital instrument you can use to make vocals for your songs. However since vocaloids are made for japanese artists, her english voice is a little wonky so she’s mainly used for jpop songs and is no where near as big as she is in japan. But she debuted on August 31, 2007 by crypton future media and has been adored ever since.
But enough about the dumb program, I wanna talk about an anime girl. The character herself is virtual idol and has launched several games and performed in many live concerts using hologram technology. Just like idol darling tupac. Her popularity in mainly thanks in part to the sucess of music videos created on niconico, basically japanese youtube, using her voice and image. The artists who make these songs are usually indie artists who-
What am I doing? You know who hatsune miku is. Everyone knows who hatsune miku is. She's Domino's mascot for fucks sake. But what is she doing on this list?
Miku didn’t have a lot of merch at the time so she wasn’t as seen irl. But her presence was felt. Especially online. This was more for the kids who bridged the line between scene and weeb. Yes most the previous mascots were from japan, but they weren’t anime per say. That was for weebs. And don’t get me wrong scene kids and emos were very close to weebs and they often intersected. We all fought for the same back seat of the bus. Which we didn’t get because that was for like actual cool kids.
Nyancat
Nyancat is a perfect fit for scene culture. A rainbow snack cat? That’s all scene is. However debuting in 2011 it was a little late to really blow up in that community, but it did make a few waves on the way out. And brief aside, some people call it nayn cat? Which no, it’s not. It’s nyan you know like nya. Nayn, I’ll kill you.
But I digreess.
It originated from a livestream by Christopher Torres in which a viewer wanted him to draw both a poptart or a cat and that mad lad, he drew both. He soon later developed that into the GIF we recognize today.
But that’s not all is it, because back in our favorite country, japan circa 2010, a song was uploaded to niconico by user daniwell and features our girl Hatsune Miku. However this version was a little different, the version you might recognize was by an UTAU idol momonemomo. Utau being a discount vocaloid.
Anyways, the scene was set and on April 5, 2011 youtube user saraj00n put the gif and the song together much like a poptart and a cat and called it nyancat. And history was made.
Nyancat was so beloved. He was the talk of the town. This fucking looping gif of a cat to the most annoying song you’ve ever heard. It was amazing. People couldn’t get enough. He had spin offs like. Tacnayn, the evil nyancat. Back when cat memes had evil nemesis. Like Tacgnol, the evil longcat. But we can’t forget about Gameboy nyancat. Ninja nyancat, valentine nyancat, bacon nyancat, zombie nyancat, pumpkin nyancat, priate nyancat, american nyancat, grumpy nyan cat. Wow. And you can find all these on nyan cat’s official website and did you know on nyancatcollection.com you can buy an nft of a nyancat version of your choosing. Jesus christ. I forgot we lived in a hell world.
Yes tragically in february in the year of our lord satan 2021 Christopher Torres sold our boy like a cheap whore as an nft for the equivalent of 590,000 dollars. Okay, so like an expensive whore. But Chris is quoted saying “I’m very surprised with the success, but I think I’m most glad knowing that I’ve basically opened the door to a whole new meme economy in the crypto world.” Which. Okay. This is the worst cyberpunk dystopia. But whatever. Nyancat can’t really be sold. I don’t care what the cryptobros say. He’s ours. I own him. Right click.
Well I guess that’s it for nyanca- oh I didn’t talk about deadmau5’s nyan cat ferrari named the purrari? I didn’t talk about a ferarri that made the company so mad they sent him a legal notice. Because he customized his 458 ferrari with a nyancat wrap. And he tried sell it for 380000 dollars. (a damn steal, being less than the price of a fucking gif btw) But ferrari said he couldn’t so he had to skin it alive? I didn’t mention that? Oh well.
My point is nyancat drama runs deep. Did you know Torres and the keyboard cat guy sued scribblenauts for their memes appearing in the game scribblenauts unlimited? This guy really made bank off of nyancat, especially in merch. Did you know there was a nyancat pop up shop in new york? Now you can get your favorite tacodog on a wallet.
I don’t know if you can tell, I’m a little salty. Memeconomy, I swear to god. Moving on.
Tokidoki
Tokidoki is a japanese lifestyle brand. Well Japanese inspired. In 2006 tokidoki was created by simone legno and his business partners, who were also the co founders of the makeupbrand hard candy. Their merch lines include cactus friends, donutella, unicorno, moofia, mermicorno, til death aka adios and cioa cioa, and punkstar.
I’m sure you can tell which of these were more popular in scene circles.
Simone is an italian artist greatly influence by japanese culture if you couldn’t tell. So he chose the brand name tokidoki, meaning sometimes in japanese.
Tokidoki, I want to say, is more of an art brand instead of a mascot brand. Like there are definently more frequent characters, but the aesthetic is more just a bunch of shit on screen. Like a style rather than a character. And people like the style, moreso overseas though.
In 2011 simone designed16 foot tall sculptures for the k11 mall in hong kong. And in 2012 created a whole installation for christmas for the hong kong apm mall.
Tokidoki I believe is available in nordstrom, macys, target, and fred segal in LA. They also have their own boutiques. And yes, hot topic sells them too.
Also I want to mention they did several collaborations with sanrio and hatsune miku. Which really shows you just how insular this all is. It’s all connected.
Jack Skelington
Emily the Strange
Pikachu
A Trex
open the door. Get on the floor. Rawr means I love you in dinosaur. In the year 83 million bc, a new player made his debut on the scene, no no. I I don’t know what else there is so say about this. Rawr was a popular emoism, dinosaurs said rawr. Dinosaurs are super random. What else is there to be said.
A Mustache
ok ok this is a joke. This has got to be a joke. Who wrote this? Whatever. The swag shift scene started to skew towards started happening in like 2013. When girls started moving their hair over their lip or tattooing a mustache on their finger. Mustaches became kind of just a thing. For some reason. This coincided with the time when people started wearing those large hats and shutter shades. Just a real dark time in fashion. And spelled the death of scene. Some lmfao shit. Idk I’m running out of topics.
That Emo Angel
who is this? Who made this? Why is it on every emo blingee picture. Where the hell is this from? Why are there so many just super subtle different versions of this. I cannot for the life of me find the original image. Of course I can’t. It’s so simple and yet someone had to be the first to have drawn this. Reminds me of those anime girl pictures you’d see on nightcore youtube videos that seemingly didn’t have an artist. Where did they come from? What kind artistic immaculate conception is this? Where is your mom? I just can’t with this. It is very emo though. The sad boy slight cry, he’s an angel yet he’s a little spooky? Hurts your heart. Who are you.Monster Energy Drinks
Honorable Mentions: Ruby Gloom, Pinkie Pie, Salad Fingers, Happy Tree Friends
And these were the ones I most wanted to talk about. There were others, don’t get me wrong. Jack skellington, pokemon, various food items, not really ugly dolls they wanted these to take off so bad. But I cannot stress this enough. They’re not kawaii. Again, americans can’t do kawaii. And there were a few others slightly more obscure. More niche. Like Ruby gloom, emily the strange with her sinnamints, why does everyone have mints?
But yeah now that we’ve established what these are I guess that’s the end of the video, wrong. We know our key players now, can we really leave it at that? We got conclusions we need to extrapolate. I mean we have two subcultures here, emo and scene? Are we sharing everything? This is before the nicification of the culture and I’m tryna gatekeep.
Okay hold on. Let me first illustrate the difference between these two. Here we go. The 2007 gender spectrum. Very similar, but slightly different shades. Literally. Red for emos pink for scenes. Emo’s go to hell and scenes go to worse hell. God, this good though. Wish I had talent in middle school, I could’ve done numbers with this on da, demiseman who?
But let’s categorize. Emos are pretty monochrome so they’re getting skelanimals and jack and the fucking emo angel. Anything bright and sickly cute is a bit too wacky for emo so we’ll edge that towards scene. Not pon and zi tho, they’re too sad. Tbh these are mostly scene properties, I mean that’s the title of the video. Scene thrived on pop culture icons and mascots. I’d say emo is a little more focused on the vibes. And those vibes are. I’m sad.
Modern
With the rise of scenecore and tiktok aesthetics scene and emo has been on the rise again, thank you rawring 20s but this time with more modern properties. Bc honestly. Society has grown past the need from domo. Nature is healing from mustache duct tape. Not gloomybear though. That shit stays. But in recreating scene ideas and styles we don’t need to wear the same shit just because that’s what we did then. We can transform and evolve the subculture merging nostalgia and how far we’ve come in fashion today. What are the scenecore kids wearing nowadays? Monokuma? You know what? Good. Take shit from what you love today. Sans? Great. Fnf? Awesome. And hey bring in notstalgic shit that never took off. Like lisa frank or furbies. And now we have cutting edge editing technology the limits for how absurd you can go is off the charts. Glitchcore rules.
Conclusion
Okay. So what’s up? Why? Why? Why? Why these icons? Why icons at all? I’m so glad you asked. In 70s japan a rebellion was growing in students. A rebellion that had girls writing in cute little hearts and stars on their schoolwork, a stark contrast to the uniformity and professional nature of japanese academia. This kind of writing was therefore banned by most schools. However in the seventies was also when hello kitty was born this combined with the rise of shoujo manga, idols, and lolita fashion in the 80s. And that kickstarted japan’s obsession with kawaii culture which completely exploded in the 90s with hello kitty producing more products than ever, pokemon releasing in 96, nhk followed the mascot trend with domokun in 98, also it was the nineties baby go crazy.
But what does this have to do with us? Us as in the US. Well in the 2000s we’re more connected than ever not just to each other, but to other cultures. The world was becoming a smaller place. And you know who else knew that?
In 1989 the first hot topic was opened. Which at first mostly catered to generic 90s mall goths, the most mainstream things they had at first were band merch and focused usually on men but in the early 2000s they started shifting towards a bit more pop culture. In 1994 they licensed nightmare before christmas. And spongebob following soon after with invader zim on its heels. And then it was hop skip and a jump overseas to the cute shit that was selling like hot cakes over there.
What you got to understand is the difference between the cultures. In japan there’s an emphasis on uniforms. You go to work in a suit, a large part of the population are salarymen, or white collar workers. There’s a culture of fitting in. Almost every school has a uniform with policies against altering, accessories, or unusual hair. In the west however, we don’t have that. At least not to that extent. So we could go. Ahem, I’m paraphrasing here, Off the shits.
But why then? Didn’t we already have cutey nonsense characters of our own? Especially in the 80s? The biggest difference between what we had already, ie spongebob, carebears, whatever, and these fresh new mascots, I suppose was connotations. You’d get made fun of for a carebears t shirt. But gloomy bear? Came with a clean slate, baby. And it was not quite as marketed towards children.
So uh yeah, we went sort of crazy with it. And instead of regulating it outside of school like japanese students, we had to show off to our peers in class. Cause what else were we supposed to do? Go hang out outside like of our own free will? This is america, we might get kidnapped.
Ahem. So that’s it. That’s the end. I hope you liked it. Or didn’t enough to hateclick on more articles in the future. I just want your attention.
Future Anyway with eight more years of rawring 20’s, here are my suggestions for some mascots for the new age of scene. rainbow brite pietro from animal crossing One of the original neopets like this thing
daffy duck
a cool mushroom
bohug from mysillycomics
the ladybug emoji
mort from madagascar
gritty
one of the homestuck guys, idk there names
cagney carnation
a mountain lion
the snorks
a small but knowing clown
the rabbit from trix cereal
Scylla, guard of the strait of messina
sky dancers
the noid
astaroth, great duke of hell
a cool lemonade on a hot summers day
gonzo the great
watapon
shrek the sheep that ran away and lived in a cave for six years
a warrior cats book cover
l from death note
the linux penguin
sayonara zetsubous sensei, higurashi, yume nikki, ergo proxy, elfen lied, soul eater, death note, black butler,
https://gloomy-official.com/history.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZBF-X5AvFo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mori_Chack
http://vinyl-creep.net/wiki/Mori_Chack
https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2021/02/19/nyan-cat-nft-sells-for-300-eth-opening-door-to-the-meme-economy/
https://thisjapaneselife.org/2011/11/30/kawaii-cute-in-japan/
http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/hot-topic-inc-history/
http://vinyl-creep.net/wiki/Tokidoki
https://gloomy-official.com/history.html
https://luxurylaunches.com/transport/ferrari-sends-legal-notice-to-deamau5s-for-his-purrari.php
https://www.startribune.com/domo-from-underground-to-advertiser/31178504/