As a kid growing up in the 90's I was Obsessed with Hello Kitty (that's right Obsessed with a capital “O”), I had to get my hot little hands on anything with Sanrio's leading character emblazoned across it. Her cute little Kitty face still gives me a teensy rush of excitement to this day, even though I may be far too old to be fussing over a cartoon cat.

So – I was SHOCKED to learn this morning that Hello Kitty… is in fact not a cat…!

“Wait, WHAT?” you say. “But the ears..the whiskers…her last name is Kitty!".

I know. You’re confused. I’m confused. We're confused together!

So here's the explanation. Christine R. Yano, an anthropologist from the University of Hawaii who is curating an upcoming Hello Kitty retrospective at the Japanese American National Museum in October, told the L.A. Times that she discovered this when the Sanrio folks corrected her after she described Hello Kitty as a cat in her written texts for the exhibit.

“I was corrected — very firmly,” Yano said. “That's one correction Sanrio made for my script for the show. Hello Kitty is not a cat. She's a cartoon character. She is a little girl. She is a friend. But she is not a cat. She's never depicted on all fours. She walks and sits like a two-legged creature. She does have a pet cat of her own, however, and it's called Charmmy Kitty.”

Hello Kitty may not be a cat but she has a surprisingly specific backstory: she is British, her real name is Kitty White (no relation to Breaking Bad's Walter White), and she's the daughter of parents George and Mary White. She has a twin sister, is stuck in time as a third grader (even though she turns 40 this year), and lives outside of London. She has a horoscope sign, too: she's a Scorpio.

And fun little fact, if you've been wondering why Hello Kitty doesn't have a mouth, Sanrio explains it on their website: “Hello Kitty speaks from her heart. She’s Sanrio's am­bassador to the world and isn't bound to any particular language.” (How cute!).

So this has me wondering… is Snoopy really a dog?

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From the Home & Living Gorilla