Cuteness is a twenty-first-century sensation—from the global expansion of Sanrio fandom to the rise of social capital around Labubu and Jellycat, from K-Pop stars (real or animated) to cute animals like the quokka and Fennec fox. This issue explores a “cuteness turn” found in many public realms around the world. The adoration of attractive or cheerful objects associated with childishness and youthfulness is part of the human experience. However, this issue does not examine cuteness as a transcultural aesthetic or psychological condition, but we focus on its larger political implications. Throughout history and around the world, this “universal” sentiment has often been manipulated for commercial and ideological purposes. This issue focuses on the political use of cuteness in social movements, political propaganda, public lobbying, and campaigns for public office, among other contexts, a phenomenon occurring at the intersection of popular culture and political participation.

While many consider cuteness a reflection of the “infantilization” or "feminization" of the adorers, we need more careful analysis to understand the elaborate calculation, personal expressions, and manifestation of bonding behind many of the related phenomena. There could be many commercial and political interests involved, but the producers and users also appropriate these objects or images for self-empowerment. We want to explore how this craze for the cute reveals entanglement among public participation, personal expressions, and social formation. The production, consumption, and distribution of cute objects and images could be commercially driven, but the usages and exhibitions of these objects and images could also be staged as a collective protest against the established world of the adult. These cute objects might be a strategic result of political negotiation, and they might also reflect a complex entanglement between public formation and subject formation. These objects form a unique nodal point where the public and private meet, reminding us how the public is constructed and manifested in many forms.

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