Entertainment

7 Ways Human Hello Kitty Would Change Pop Culture

by Kadeen Griffiths

I hope you were sitting down when you heard the news. The Internet was forced to completely re-evaluate its childhood when the news broke that Hello Kitty is not a cat but a human girl. Or, apparently, Hello Kitty is a cat but not a cat-cat? Whatever. The point is that apparently, that tiny white cat that we had on our backpacks and lunch kits and watches is not actually a cat. It's a girl. I mean, it does wear clothes and walk on two legs, but apparently the whiskers and the cat ears and the button nose weren't a dead giveaway of her true feline nature. Cats don't wear clothes, guys, come on.

It's very hard for me to imagine Hello Kitty as anything other than a bright white cat, but apparently that's the world we're all being forced to live in now. If Hello Kitty looked more like the human girl she supposedly represents, what kind of picture would that make? Well, considering the ears and the whiskers, the picture would be a weird one. Naturally, we here at Bustle had to take the liberty of drawing one up for you. So if Hello Kitty was more human-looking, she'd look a little something like this.

I don't know about you, but this new image of Hello Kitty is forcing me to re-evaluate my whole life. I mean, if Hello Kitty is human, then the face of pop culture will never be the same. Imagine how different the world would be with a human Hello Kitty. Imagine a Hello Kitty that could actually transcend the bounds of her series, movies, and merchandising to pop up in other places. Imagine Hello Kitty as "a little girl, a friend," as Christine R. Yano of Pink Globalization: Hello Kitty’s Trek Across the Pacific described her.

Or don't imagine and just look at these seven images.

The New Hello Kitty Movies

Hello Kitty and Friends

Hello Kitty in Full House

Hello Kitty on Big Brother Season 16

Hello Kitty Saying Goodbye on Chelsea Lately

Hello Kitty in Avril Lavigne's "Hello Kitty"

Hello Kitty Performing at the VMAs

Yeah, no, sorry, this is still weird.

Illustrations: Caroline Wurtzel/Bustle