Abstract
Cuteness in Chinese is written as 可爱 (kě ài), which literally means “worth loving.” In this chapter, we first review the evolution of the meaning of cuteness in Chinese literature . Then, we present the conventional Chinese style of cuteness in visual design, followed by the three movements (i.e., kawaii culture, Moe culture, and Baozou phenomenon) that have reshaped how Chinese people perceive cuteness currently. After that, we discuss the general development of Chinese cuteness industry, and we use a successful case study to demonstrate how cuteness design may thrive as a business that bridges culture and technology in China.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Chinese Website of Baozou comic: http://baozoumanhua.com.
- 3.
Chinese Microblogging platform: http://www.weibo.com/.
- 4.
A online social networking tool by Tencent: http://www.wechat.com/.
- 5.
Forbidden City’s official Taobao store: https://gugong1925.world.taobao.com/.
- 6.
QQ is another instant messaging tool of Tencent: http://im.qq.com/.
- 7.
An image-based bulletin board: http://www.4chan.org.
- 8.
See http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/rage-comics for more examples.
- 9.
The copyright of rage comics in China is owned by Xi’an MOMO IT Ltd., the owner of the Website Baozoumanhua.com.
- 10.
See http://ww1.sinaimg.cn/bmiddle/6807d621gw1f0dxsyyh9sj20bc0m8ta5.jpg for the image.
- 11.
See this article for details: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/06/difference-between-emoji-and-emoticons-explained.
- 12.
See http://kaomoji.ru/en/ for examples.
- 13.
South China Morning Post article on WeChat red packet: http://www.scmp.com/tech/apps-gaming/article/1905882/get-lucky-spring-festival-wechat-adds-sexy-twist-red-envelope.
- 14.
- 15.
BBC article about “Duang”: http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-31689148.
- 16.
Air China safety video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBnfWRaCLJ8.
- 17.
- 18.
One major online store of the Palace Museum: https://palacemuseum.m.tmall.com/.
- 19.
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Marcus, A., Kurosu, M., Ma, X., Hashizume, A. (2017). Cuteness in China. In: Cuteness Engineering. Springer Series on Cultural Computing. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61961-3_3
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