Author Margarita Pujol dives into the history of the Dutch cartoon rabbit, Nintje (a.k.a. Miffy) and her international success as a ‘kawaii’ symbol.
In awe of the cuteness of a little white rabbit that fills up the souvenir shop shelves in the Netherlands, multiple fans of this Dutch cultural icon have shown up to the Miffy (Nijntje) Museum in Utrecht, the creator’s hometown, just to find out that it is a space meant for children’s amusement. Whereas some feel disappointed by this discovery, many others defend the rabbit’s honor as a symbol of their childhood and are surprised by Miffy’s recent popularity among young adults. As Dutch-speaking kids who grew up with this figure may have been confused as to why tourists wear Miffy as a keychain in their bags, internationals may ask themselves, where does this rabbit come from?
Dutch Origins in Children’s Literature and TV Shows
“Nijntje een lief klein konijntje” (translated to “Nijntje, a small lovely rabbit”) is one of the songs featured in a children’s animated TV show, the protagonist of which is this rabbit. In essence, ‘Miffy’ is merely the ‘easier to pronounce’ international given name to ‘Nijntje’, a diminutive of ‘konijntje’, the Dutch word for ‘rabbit’. Nijntje was first created by Utrecht-based artist Dick Bruna (1927–2017) during the summer of 1955, when Bruna told his one-year-old son bedtime stories about a rabbit they had seen walking around. After that Nijntje was restyled and made into children’s books that accumulated a huge success over the decades. Over time, Miffy has become a historical legacy of the Netherlands, with merchandise collaborations, sculptures, and museums and exhibitions dedicated to Bruna and his character being organized across the country.
Nijntje is one of the Dutch classic childhood characters, alongside Jip and Janneke and their pets Takkie and Siepie, the adventurous Pluk van de Petteflet, and the orange cat Dikkie Dik. For Dutch-speaking people, these cartoons may hold a similar ‘icon’ status as characters like Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, and SpongeBob do for children worldwide. Books and animation series that we consumed during our early years often have a special place in our hearts, letting us remember characters that accompanied us through our very first hardships, development of our imagination, and understanding of the world. In this sense, these figures are a significant and heartwarming part of our childhood nostalgia which makes them an important part of national cultural heritage. Nevertheless, Nijntje has become much more than a Dutch childhood nostalgia symbol, so much so that international young adults may splurge on Nijntje-themed items and take pictures with her sculptures around Amsterdam, often without acknowledging her history.
‘Kawaii’ Culture
Over the last decade, Miffy has gradually been included in the so-called ‘kawaii’ culture, a Japan-originated trend that embraces cuteness and is associated with a commercial culture of buying such cute products. An article by the University of Osaka examines how the ‘kawaii’ genre is central to Japan’s consumer culture and marketplace, emphasizing the investments of big corporations in the creation of these ‘cute’ figures. Moreover, this economic venture has social consequences. An article by Japanese researcher Kumiko Sato discusses the social and political implications of this phenomenon, highlighting a change in Japan’s youth culture. Whereas young women in the 1970s may have been attracted to the childlike powerlessness and innocence of these ‘cute’ products, there was a subversion of this pattern in the 1990s, when women and men began purchasing these items to express a kind of identity that defies patriarchal rules surrounding marriage and childcare, as well as challenges gender paradigms of femininity and masculinity.
Nowadays, the ‘kawaii’ culture has remarkably expanded outside Japan into worldwide trends of consumption. In the Western world, stores commonly sell branded merchandise of characters and objects considered ‘cute’ by customers, such as Disney, an American media company, and Sanrio, a Japanese entertainment company, items.
In fact, one of the main protagonists of the birth of ‘kawaii’ culture in Japan is Sanrio’s popular character of Hello Kitty. Particularly, it has become quite common for the Dutch cartoon of Miffy to get mistaken as originally Japanese because of her simple graphic design, as well as the massive popularity of Miffy items in the country. Bruna’s books were first sold in Japan since the 1960s under the name ‘Usako’. In the 1990s, Miffy was the ninth best-selling character in the country, with sales reaching 280 million euros.
However, what might seem like an innocent comparison has sparked controversy amid the commercial and creative rivalry between the two anthropomorphic animal characters. As Hello Kitty was created in 1974, Bruna often criticized Sanrio’s characters as unoriginal copies of Miffy. As a matter of fact, his management company filed a lawsuit against Sanrio in 2010, with copyright infringement claims against the creation of ‘Cathy’, a rabbit that was believed to be a Miffy knock-off. Ultimately, the Dutch court banned Sanrio from distributing ‘Cathy’-themed items in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, seemingly protecting Miffy’s legacy and significance in the territories against the potential emergence of other rabbit characters that would eclipse this cultural symbol.
Miffy’s place in Mass Comsumption
An interview with Dick Bruna by The Telegraph in 2008 points out how at that time Miffy was already an extremely successful global figure, worth approximately 170 million euros annually. Nevertheless, the creator, who took the artistic value of Miffy’s books seriously, expressed that he never intended for the rabbit to become a mass consumption figure. This was also proved by his disdain for the ‘Hello Kitty’ merchandising empire and his simple, down-to-earth lifestyle. However, the success of Miffy’s children’s literature was only the tip of an iceberg of the commercial potential of Miffy. Apart from the popular plushes, Miffy’s face is splashed across numerous household and personal items such as clothes, jewelry, glassware, mugs and stationery. Miffy has also become part of the fashion industry, having launched collaborations with such brands as Hannah Anderson, Mulberry and Tommy Hilfiger.
Indeed, Miffy is now another piece in the chain of late-capitalism mass consumption of objects, or ‘trinkets’. Beyond the consumption of baby and children’s goods and literature, Miffy can be considered a part of the contemporary consumer trend of young adults buying childlike objects, nicknamed ‘kidults’. During the past few years, market research has highlighted the increasing number of toys and other items placed in a children’s section that were bought by adults. They link this trend to a shift in these young adults’ preferred social activities, such as gatherings to play games or craft, and their social media presence and psychological welfare after the pandemic, reflecting on the appeal of childhood nostalgia and the positive impact of these toys on their mental health.
In fact, this trend has become so widespread that these sales represent a big percentage of the total revenue. As a consequence, companies are willing to modify their target audience and marketing strategies to accommodate the ‘kidult’ demand. Surely, we all know someone or are that someone, who collects plush toys like ‘Squishmallows’, ‘Jellycats’ or ‘Sylvanian Families’, items that were originally meant for children’s playtime, but which are now also displayed in young adults’ bedrooms.
Conclusion
Growing up in a Spanish household, Miffy was never a part of my own childhood nostalgia symbols. But a rabbit that was originally the figure of Dutch children’s playtime imaginations has become the entertainment of many people that would otherwise never have known her. After numbering all the Miffy products I own, such as a plushie resembling the Dutch Golden Age painter Johannes Vermeer’s The Milkmaid, I ask myself: “Was their purchase really necessary?” Naturally, most of the time I had spent money on something that was not of the utmost utility, I ended up piling things which could be easily discarded in the future. However, these items bring joy to my everyday life, transforming otherwise basic, routine and boring objects into whimsical, funny and original belongings in a way that simultaneously enhances my sense of self-expression. Nevertheless, whatever purpose Miffy items may stand for in consumers’ lives, it is clear that this cartoon character, having been reimagined across the decades, is only getting bigger.
Margarita Pujol is a university student in Amsterdam. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of The Amsterdammer.
