Cute politics!: articulating the kawaii aesthetic, fandom and political participation

ABSTRACT This article explores the affective power of the kawaii (“cute” in Japanese) aesthetic in politics by drawing from the successful “cute” campaign in Taiwan’s vital presidential elections of 2000 and 2004. Based on field participation, interviews, and secondary sources, this study offers a historical-textual analysis of the ways in which cute aesthetics and fan participation alter the political communication process in postauthoritarian Taiwan. This study suggests that the prevalence of kawaii in protests and political campaigns, most salient in East and Southeast Asia today, indicates an ideological shift from masculine communication styles to an “effeminate” voice in politics. This study also exemplifies the significance of the “minor aesthetics” such as cute, zany, glamorous, and whimsical because they give voice to weak, silenced and marginalized groups. These minor aesthetic categories deserve the same level of serious attention that academics have given to the grand, the beautiful and the sublime.