#cute000

But I think I prefer the Good Smile rubber mascots:

I remember what a shock it was when women started wearing headbands with an outline frame in the shape of cat ears. That used to be a kindergartener or elementary school kid type of thing. Even teenagers wouldn't be caught dead wearing that for fun, in public.

And now we have women with Labubus and bag charms on their purses. So much so, that expensive designer brands are having bag charms too. This was NOT a thing, years ago. Years ago, it was considered "childish".

I feel like when I was a kid, even Hello Kitty was something adults of any gender would not be caught dead with, unless they were giving it as a gift to a child. You wouldn't even say you liked Hello Kitty, unless you were pressed to comment. And the comments were polite, but reluctant and sterile. You didn't express "cute aggression" as an adult, unless it was towards human babies. You could be understood to feel cute aggression towards puppies or kittens, but you kept displays of that emotion private.

It was much later when people started pointing out the connection between degrading anything cute and the devaluing of anything perceived as "feminine".

At the time before that correlation, they would tell you the reasons for shunning such things was because it was "childish", "infantile", "supposed to be for little kids", and "aren't you too old for that?". That type of stuff was heard more often, back before the MCU made geekery mainstream, social media made geeky hobbies look like fun to normies, and we started to get this community of people vocal about standing up for your geek pride and the arbitrary elite status given to "adult" pastimes, like alcohol and dating.

After the MCU made so much money, for a full decade, in our dystopian world that respects money the most, all the marketing of the most influential companies started pushing for geeky things to be perceived as "cool" at ANY AGE. They normalized enjoying things into adulthood, that used to be considered childish. After all, they wanted audiences of all demographic ages to watch their movies and buy their merch. It was cool now. Geeks could be visible and proud about our hobbies now. Because it was big, respected business now.

After people started questioning the ages associated with formerly "childish" hobbies, people stopped objecting to geeky and cute things because they were "childish", and started ridiculing them because they were "feminine". At least, that's the feeling I got from the timeframe I noticed.

But you will note that more geeky men often have no problem with Cute. Men, who grew up with anime and no shame around their "niche, weird, geeky" interests, more easily call things "cute". Anime and being a geek has either given older geeks practice as learning to demonstrate pride in their weirdness without shame, or they were young enough to grow up with liking Cute being normalized in their media, which was often anime, manga, and Japanese videogames. Nowadays, men more openly say aloud, even to other people in public, that the reason they like things is because it's "cute".

I remember back when boys would only use the word "cute" to describe a girl they were romantically/sexually interested in. Everything else with a "je ne sais quoi" was described as "funny". Because in the same way that Cute is the quickest way to endear something to Asians, Funny is the quickest way to endear something to Americans. (I can say that as an Asian-American.) Look at the difference between the Crash Bandicoot mascots in Japan vs America.

I feel like Pokémon and exposure to anime, in general, with its rising popularity and subconscious reinforcement of Cute as an acceptable, public reason for enjoying things, made it more normalized for boys to openly enjoy cute things.

This came alongside the newer wave of feminism that included a focus on how narrow definitions of masculinity---and gender, in general---harm men (and all genders). Then I felt like enjoying Cute became more genderless.

When Cute became enjoyed by all, it became less a marker of gender. Which of course, threatened the misogynists, who doubled down on gender markers. How can they prove they're "big, strong, superior men" whenever any aspect of society is being encouraged to have a genderless perspective? They need all perspectives on how "big, strong, superior men" they are. lol And for that, they need contrast. They need someone to look down on, to reinforce their "superior" image.

I'm guessing that maybe this is why it took this long, ironically after we got out of the age of gendered toys and more gender-restricted society, for correlations between "femininity" and derogatory "Cute" to become more prevalent. You'd think that deriding Cute as "feminine" would happen more back during the era of more gender discrimination against women. And maybe that was the underlying reason back then, but it was never really spoken of, at least not as much as now. Now, Cute isn't discussed as "bad" because it's "childish", as it was back in the day. Now, we more often openly discuss how it is an extension of misogyny. I feel like most of the public, decades ago, didn't have as much language or awareness, as most people have now, of how misogyny was the underlying reason for deriding Cute, even back then. But the connection is happening more publicly, more ubiquitously now, while society is becoming more genderless.

Aesthetics and acceptable reasons for enjoying things, are becoming more genderless, these days. Liking Cute is no longer a characteristic of being a girl, but the misogynists have an invested interest in keeping it that way. It's something they have to actively reinforce, because the world around them is letting that standard fall away. The world is making room for this new standard of Cute being a genderless enjoyment, an ageless enjoyment, for everyone. I feel like nowadays, if anyone derides cute things, it would NOW be more skewed towards misogyny. Because only a misogynist freak would say "Cute is bad because it's feminine", because what are you talking about?!? Cute is for everybody.

But I will admit that there is a backlash against all this progressivism in the past several years. After those decades of feminist movements, fighting for equal rights and women's independence, we're now seeing a resurgence of lauding "trad wives". After years of trying to break rigid, narrow definitions of "feminine" gender expression/performance, nowadays, we have people gender-policing random strangers in bathrooms, out of fear of trans women. (Even though I, as a cis woman, look more butch than most trans women. I don't even wear makeup!) But in recent years, I've seen more policing and narrowing of feminine expression, that I haven't seen since the days of moms chiding me for not being very "ladylike". And now as well, after years of normalizing Cute as a genderless aesthetic/enjoyment, suddenly there's a backlash of "Cute is bad because it's feminine". Maybe something that's always existed, but is more emphasized and more conscious, less unconscious, now.

That is to say, that if people are calling Cute "pedophilic", as OP reported, then I can only assume it's another instance in this line of regressive backlashes. But damn, bringing back "this is stupid because it's childish" was an old pull I was not expecting.

Then again, I recently saw a trend of ridiculing geeks and hobbies that are not coffee or manicuring one's image/body. Now that the MCU and comic book movies are not longer making guaranteed billions of dollars at the box office anymore, is it a coincidence that it's suddenly more acceptable to ridicule geeks now? It's a regression and a shame. Now, only the videogame geeks are holding the line for geek pride. But that fandom was already notorious for regressive ideologies, and with the general backlash against progressive advancements, now even more bigots are funneling into videogame fandom. Almost every day, when I see the worst takes trending, it's coming from videogame fandoms. Right now, they're complaining about God Of War Laufey having a woman protagonist and GTA6 not having a white woman in a bikini on their promo/cover art. The backlash against progress is getting worse.

So should I be surprised if people are saying "cute things are pedophilic"???????????? Maybe I shouldn't be surprised, but goddamn, I didn't think we'd regressed THAT far and that FAST. Dude. Whenever people don't understand someone else's interest, they always assume it's a sexual freakiness. I guess the only explanation their brains could come up with to rationalize other people's enjoyment of Cute, was to combine "sexual freak reasons" with the regressive "Cute is childish". ...See how narrow a mentality can be when it regresses to such a limited acceptance of interests?! ugh...

All I can say is that, as a girl who grew up feeling treated like a dehumanized doll, whenever my mom made me wear clothes that she liked, instead of just wearing it herself, I never liked the old idea of waiting until you have a daughter, so you could dress them up in ribbons and frills, and bows and skirts, because that stuff is for kids. If you like that stuff so much, just wear it yourself! "Oh, but I'm too old for that." No, you're not! You're an adult! You can do whatever you want with your life! With your fashion, your tastes, your hobbies! I was so glad when learned about lolita fashion. I was so glad when 20 year olds started wearing those cat ear shaped headbands. I was so glad when women started openly hanging plushies from their bags and not worrying about seeming childish. I was so glad when boys started telling their friends, aloud, in public, that they thought a Pokémon or videogame mascot merch was cute, like it was nothing. I was so glad when people realized they could have more hobbies and interests besides alcohol, sex, dating, sports, and music. I was so glad when a whole world of varied interests became open to more people, without shame.

So if the regressives are relating all the fun stuff in life, to "childish" now---or should I say, again---then the backlash to progress is really intensifying. They're trying to narrow the chokehold on acceptable expression, lifestyles, identity, ENJOYMENT… This is gross.