i'm reading about "cuteness" in japan.

it was originally a phenomenon

started by youth but soon appropriated by industry. soon the selling of cute
little trinkets, some of them near-useless or entirely useless, was huge.
the cute lent personality to objects such that consumers could have
relationships w/their commodities that they might lack with other people in
a society pervaded by alienation.

in japan of the popular sense of "cute" was closely associated with

"pitiful". this was illustrated by the case of a pair of 100-yr old twin
women who become wildly popular as cute. thus cute was not restrained to the
young (though childishness characterized much of cute), but could be evoked
by anyone that appeared weak, helpless, or funny. thus, when young japanese
teens (especially girls) tried to be cute, they did so by hiding their
strengths and appearing weak and dependent (much in the same way that
american males tend to hide intelligence and feign stupidity in an effort to
approximate 'cool').

The irony of the whole thing is that cute was associated with childlike
innocence, a naive spontaneity unbesmirched by adult restraints. However,
cute was contrived, cultivated, bought and sold, artificial. thus most
young people thought that cute behavior came to them naturally, despite the
markedly unnatural mannerisms and gestures that defined cute (pigeon toes,
bowl leggedness).

The romanticism of childlike naivete and purity followed fairly closely on

the heels of rapid Japanese industrialization; indeed it is quite tempting
to find parallels in the European Romanticism that followed the European
industrial revolution. Faced with the alienation and artifice brought about
by modern society, people seek a purer, more primitive and elemental self.
whereas in europe this phenomenon was figured as nostalgia for earlier eras
before the advent of human civilization (and with the romantisizing of the
"noble savage"), in japan it's a nostalgia for childhood. both romantic
movement strived for freedom and individualism. in japan, adulthood is not
associated with independence or freedom, but instead with subservience to
company and a Confucian sense of binding responsibilities to family and
bosses. thus, childhood becomes the idealized imaginary realm of freedom,
where forgivable naivete absolves the child of any obligation or
responsibility.

another interesting point - most youth subcultures are led by men with women
as auxillaries - this is the opposite of japan's experience, in which women
led the charge in developing cute culture.

cute culture of course had its critics within japan. punk and grunge rockers
considered cute culture a weak, materialistic, consumer-culture version of
rebellion that had little true social or political force. indeed, the
flowering of cute culture corresponded with the most apolitical youth
atmosphere in the postwar era. conservative commentators lambasted cute
culture as infantile, stupid, feminine, and tasteless (all interchangable
adjectives in their eyes).