Influencers today, on platforms of social media such as Instagram and Youtube, provide their audience with guidelines about how to look like and how to behave in order to fit into a community of one’s own choice. With videos of step-by-step tutorials put out by the influencers, they put across the audience rules that should be adhered to create a certain new identity. If I must say, these socio-technological platforms have made it easier to master the ‘rules’ of belonging.
Picture source: Pixabay
Although the platforms of social media, do construct a space to construct new identity discourses, yet it doesn’t mean that the influencers are in any way, always right or appropriate. There is a possibility that they would state the rules in a way, they feel is right, or what suits them. This often leads to the rise of new ideas, concepts, and discourses about a particular culture completely out of the context. This is to say, influencers sometimes tend to decontextualise the cultural concepts and ideas.
Picture source: Pixabay
The Kawaii appearance is often characterised by large eyes, heart-shaped mouth, cute and colourful clothes, pastel hair and a lot of Kawaii accessories. What is seldom talked about is the sociopolitical aspect behind the concept of Kawaii appearance. It cannot be claimed empty or meaningless, as western discourses always have. The dressing up in cute and colourful outfits is actually connected to the historical ideas of ‘shojo’, the ‘girls’ culture that originated from the 20th-century- Manga- comics. These Manga have had made a huge impact on the subcultures of Kawaii in 1960s in Japan.
Picture source: Pixabay
Since the beginning of 1960s Kawaii has played a huge part in the life of high-school girls in Japan. They started to distance themselves from the mainstream society and defy against the authority by behaving in a child-like and an angry manner. They refused to read the prescribed books for their academics and instead read Manga comic books. So as it turns out, Kawaii style began as a self-expression of rebellion and resistance.
Picture source: Pixabay
It became globally popular thereafter; during their economic crisis in the 1990s, Japan used this as their soft power to spread an image of the Japanese modernity. This however proved negative, as the Japanese media blamed the rebellious movement of the girls the reason behind Japan’s misfortunes. The Kawaii influence on fashion and subcultures was consequently seen as a dangerous female conspiracy against the patriarchal society.
Picture source: Pixabay
The discourse of the rebel Kawaii culture is still alive in Japan today, but the Western has a complete different notion of Kawaii in itself. Kawaii is often romanticised; and with “what it means to be Kawaii” video on Youtube, the rules and the ideas of the culture keep on changing. Influencers from the Western countries of England and United States have devised their own norms and values around this westernised discourse of Kawaii.
Picture source: Pixabay
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Kawaii Korner- Everything Cute!
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