The Infantilization of the Postmodern Adult and the Figure of Kidult

Jacopo BERNARDINI
Postmodern Openings, 2014, Volume 5, Issue 2, June, pp: 39-55

As recently stated by Samuelson (2003), we are living in an era in which it is practically normal to refuse to accept one's own age, an era that is characterized by young people who want to be adults and adults who want to be young.

he main target remains the adult for at least two reasons: his economic resources and the massive presence in the population. The promotion of the infantilization by the market has this aspiration: to foster the regression of the desires of the consumer in order to make them more compatible with a capitalist logic based on surplus production and equality of the products.
Not only that. As recently shown (Bernardini, 2012), the economic promotion of an infantilist ethos has widely influenced the major social and mass media contexts. Television schedules, for example, have gradually lost their original pedagogic and cultural depth in favor of fun and entertainment; the movie industry is increasingly focused onkidult movies, sequels, remakes, comics and cartoon superheroes at the expense of the complexity of plot and dialog; in publishing one sees motivational books and novels apparently addressed to children or adolescents (think of the Harry Potter phenomenon); Internet use, by adults, seems to be increasingly linked to ludic motivations, especially through social networks, while that of video games has assumed a nostalgic-escapist function that promotes the regression of the adult male to a utopian world of fantasy and virility, and to the consequent escape from family obligations and social responsibilities (Burrill, 2008).

The Birth of a New Social Figure: the Kidult

The kidult, therefore, may be considered to be the evolutionary peak of the postmodern changes linked to the socio-media infantilization, to the weaknesses in adult value models as a historical- generational consequence and to the social and psychological reproposal of an infantilist and youthful ethos.

reading texts - their abstracts

Abstracts of texts:

Graphic Design for the Real World?
Visual communication’s potential in design activism and design for social change

Thereafter it discusses persuasive tendencies in graphic design and ques-
tions if its current contribution to design activism is limited to its predominant narrow role of persuad-ing for “the good cause.”

Co-experience: user experience as interaction

This paper reviews various existing
approaches to understanding user experience and describes three main
approaches and their differences. It builds on an existing approach but borrows from symbolic interactionism to create a more inclusive interactionist framework for thinking about user experiences. Data from a study on mobile multimedia messaging are used to illustrate and
discuss the framework.

The future of print design relies on interaction

We compiled a list for both technologies with common media and their respective descriptions. Such
explanation helps to establish transitions of digital interaction and user involvement, for print media. In order to verify this effect, we developed a graphic design project. It was designed to allow a different use, based on experiences taken from digital artefacts. Though confined to communication needs, the result provides details on structure, organization and handling.

The Graphic Thing Ambiguity, Dysfunction, and Excess in Designed Objects

I approach what we call “things” as mental constructs that emerge in processes of meaning-
making rather than as entities that exist independently of human comprehension.
Objects can therefore be linked more readily to existing knowledge (apperception) and to familiar frames of reference and scenarios. In what ways do we experience “thingness” in graphic design objects, and how does this relate to issues of materiality and transparency in graphic communication? In this article, I mobilize concepts from cognitive linguistics to explain how our apperception of objects can be subverted through design strategies such as exaggerating the physical qualities of artifacts or contravening conventions. I will use examples of graphic design to illustrate how these strategies can, at some level, disrupt our understanding of graphic objects

Who’s in charge? End-users challenge graphic designers’ intuition through visual verbal co-
design

Three co-design activities are presented, as part of a larger project, revealing insights for the next generation of graphic designers. A visual verbal game dissolved participant status barriers, a persona scenario activity uncovered the real brief and a mix and match card game suspended participant politics. The findings suggest that co-designing with end-users, challenges graphic designers’ use of intuition, as new ways of categorizing asthma information material were revealed that previous
design-led processes had overlooked. This study confirms the rich contribution of end-users’ creativity, when designers relinquish creative control, ultimately revealing co-design as a valuable approach for graphic designers engaging in bottom-up design processes.

Growing Importance of Mascot & their Impact on Brand Awareness

Growing Importance of Mascot & their Impact on Brand Awareness

IJCEM International Journal of Computational Engineering & Management, Vol. 17 Issue 6, November 2014

A brand is nothing but simply can be defined as an entity (product, service, place, person, technology, organization) that is offered by a marketer. Brand as an important asset of an organization deserves care, attention & thought of marketers. Generally, companies build a brand through their products, packaging, logos, and advertisements. A strong brand communicates to consumers an image that, hopefully, builds trust and loyalty.

Developing a corporate mascot is a great way to develop a positive brand image, which will drive positive brand connotations and emotional attachment with consumers.

A mascot can give limitless opportunities to drive consumer interest and recognition (Kristopher, 2012). 
Caufield, Kristopher, "Analyzing the effects of brand mascots on social media: Johnson City Power Board case study". Undergraduate Honours Thesis Series.Paper 40, 2012

The design and implementation of the mascot is imperative to its success. “To be visually effective, the vehicles or mascots must be properly designed and satisfying both the viewer’s preferences and perceptions” (Lin, Lin & Ko, 1999).

A mascot can be an illustration of either a real or an imaginary figure, it represent the brand and adds life of it. It issomething between the brand’s logo and a celebrity brandendorser (Manjusa, Segar, 2013).

It givesvisual cues to the brand’s consumers. They are characteristicfigures which can build an identity and help to create and express brand’s personality. They also help target market to identify,remember and understand the brand.

Brand mascots give visual cues tobrand’s consumers. They are characteristic figures which can build an identity and help to create and express brand’spersonality. They also help the target market to identify, remember and understand the brand. “Brand characters are created to promote a brand by establishing brand identity andfavourable brand association...they also help brands come alive with human qualities of emotion, thought and personality”(Weszka, 2011). 

Brand mascots present a friendly image. They are fun to watch and immediately capture a place in consumer’smind which can make a positive connection with your customers.

KELLER MODEL OF BRAND AWARENESS:
Brand awareness consists of brand recognition & brand recall performance:Brand recognition relates to consumer’s ability to confirm priorexposure to the brand when given the brand as a cue (Keller,2006). In other words it requires that consumers can correctly discriminate the brand as having previously seen or heard.
Brand recall relates to consumer’s ability to retrieve the brandfrom memory when given the product category, the needs fulfilled by the category, or a purchase or usage situation as a cue. In other words it requires that consumers correctly generate the brand from memory given a relevant cue.

Mascots also played a critical role in the humanisation of modern corporations & developing an emotional bonding between the brand & people.

According to Lebell & Cooke, 2008, to create relationships between customer & brand, marketers never rely on mereassertion of their products’ benefits; rather, they use elaboratetactics intended to engage consumers’ emotions. One such tactic,used for more than a century now, has been the creation and integration in marketing strategies of branded spokes charactersthat are designed to instil trust and enliven a brand’s personalityand claims.

Mascots are "the gift that keeps on giving," They never get in trouble with the law. They don't up their fees. You can use them for a long, long time." (Carol Phillips)

The infantilization of Western culture - The conversation article

The infantilization of Western culture

If you regularly watch TV, you’ve probably seen a cartoon bear pitching you toilet paper, a gecko with a British accent selling you auto insurance and a bunny in sunglasses promoting batteries.

But why are advertisers using the same techniques on adults?

The dictionary defines infantilizing as treating someone “as a child or in a way that denies their maturity in age or experience.”

And psychologist Abraham Maslow has suggested that spontaneous childlike behaviors in adults aren’t inherently problematic.

While scholars such as James Côté and Gary Cross remind us that infantilizing trends began well before our current moment, I believe our daily interactions with smartphones and social media are so pleasurable precisely because they normalize and gratify infantile dispositions. 

One of the most significant and yet rarely analyzed developments in campus culture has been its infantilization.  Eric Posner, a leading legal scholar at the University of Chicago, declared that “students today are more like children than adults and need protection.”

Whereas in the past infantilization was classically associated with the phenomenon of maternal overprotection, today the prolongation of adolescence is culturally sanctioned. In the case of universities, it is institutionally enforced.

Cop3 Proposal Feedback

How relevant are contemporary mascots to branding? - question???

'cute' is dodgy - look at cute itself as a theme - interesting
Infantilization of western culture
orientalism - how we depict (Edward said?)
What is a character and what do you mean by that (context)
Creating a universal language through characters - emoticon
Do they have to be animals/cute
what are you branding
50's characters comeback in digital age?
Mascots coming back what does it symbolise? what does the mascot say about the brand etc etc
what characters go with what brand and why?
role and narrative with a mascot?
Bring a character or mascot back - Ronald mcdonald
celebrity endorsement hidden persuasive
can create a narrative and humour - theories relating to humour - would be interesting
why Japanese have big eyes etc

Cop3 Proposal

eCute! The Evolution and Impact of Cute Culture on Social Media

important and influential new visual communication language, Cutemmunication, has emerged and is becoming an integral part of and a significant form in human interactions; and consequently plays an important role in helping bridge the gap between cultures and societies that are increasingly on the move.

visual semiotics (pg248) ;

Cute literacy has the ability to communicate graphically as opposed to spoken language, we use to convey meanings. 

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) coined the term ‘semiotic’, which refers to the process of making meaning through the formation of signs and symbols

Saussure defined language as a “system of signs that expresses ideas”, and the sign as the basic linguistic unit.

249

The term ‘Semiotics’ was derived from the Greek word ‘Semeion’, denoting ‘Sign’ (Martin & Ringham, 2006). For the semiotician, signs are regarded as cultural symbols essential for constructing language and facilitating communication.

Saussure defined language as a “system of signs that expresses ideas”, and the sign as the basic linguistic unit.

Visual semantics 250

In the Internet age, visual semantics plays a key role in bridging human and machine knowledge representations. Nowadays, the booming of computer iconography such as signs, symbols, and emoticons has already accounted for the importance of graphical information transmission. Visual semantics is concerned with the meaning of visual presentations, and it also refers to the part of our semantic memory involving the knowledge and recognition of visual aspects around us.

Semiotics, the study of sign, which regards communication as interaction and negotiation of meanings rather than a literary transmission of messages from the sender to the receiver.

We must also note that emoticons—often collaboratively created by online users—are not as abstract as ancient signifiers (symbols).

257

The visual semantics of Comicons can function as linguistics; for example, if we change the punctuation of book title Eats, Shoots and Leaves, it can be read as Eats Shoots and Leaves and that means something completely different from what the book title suggests.

As any language is a reflection its culture, signs as a form for communication must naturally carry meanings in a specific social setting (Pinker ,1994). Although the meanings of signs are fixed, their use and interpretation in actual social applications are always open and arbitrary which lead to the so-called “unlimited semiosis”.

According to Eco’s Model Q, the signs are dynamic with the capacity of self-renewal and revitalization. Signs are not text or words that are defined in a dictionary, but are viewed from various perspectives and can be decoded connotatively. This has laid a theoretical foundation for explaining the unlimited possibilities and booming of comics

258

Most of Japanese Manga tends to use both pictogram and abstract signs to convey a particular emotion, and often changes the shape of facial features to convey inner feeling—‘a sign within a sign’.

After the steady increase in Manga’s popularity and usage for nearly half a century, the system of signs has been applied to comical emoticons in the post-Web 2.0 era.

Emergence of Visual Language: Texts Replaced by Graphics - 269

The new generation of comical emoticons has now expanded beyond simple cartoon facial expressions to a variety of still or animated images to represent body language, activity and narrative.

0. And as we are living a mobile lifestyle, constantly on the move and interactive, it is foreseeable that the popularity of Comicon will only increase.
   
   
   276
   
   
   According to Edlin, Golanty & Brown (1999), in the communication between an intimate connection every communication-act carries two types of messages. The first is a literal message, which is the message conveyed by the symbols themselves, as in the words ‘The ball is falling’ or ‘The bird is flying’. The second type is the meta-message, which carries implicit messages behind the reason for the communication, how the message is to be interpreted, and the nature of the relationship between the sender and the receiver. When the feelings coexisting with a message represent strong emotions, such as excitement, disappointment, fear, anger, etc., the meta-message implicitly conveys the true state of mind.
   
   conclusion - 280
   
   
   

   Cute elements are therefore roaming in the virtual space and making our social life colorful. Cuteness in online communication has the effect of softening conflicts due to social class stratifications, gender, age, race, and language. Due to their ability to convey emotions, emoticons make communication more personal—a smiley can break the ice, a childlike writing style can make people laugh, and a cartoon face can gives a humorous impression creating a relaxing conversational atmosphere.
   
   
   

   A higher demand for personalized communication has consequently fostered the creativity of iconography and digital literacy. In social media and digital communication, cute art and Kawaii culture play an important role of social agent reflecting our socio-cultural, semiotic, aesthetic, and economic values in the post-Web 2.0 era that is characterized by high mobility, excessive information-feed, constant connectivity in virtuality and physical detachment. Cute icons instantiated as Comicons help the user humanize the virtual space and turn the cold technological world into a warmer, friendlier and more bearable world.
   
   A variety of social media provides further platforms for self performativity and facilitates the globalization of cute culture online. Human culture and language have been evolving along with the development media. Cute symbols and elements have been widely spread by online users
   
   After the arrival of Web 2.0, the expressive Comicons have been playing roles as social agents in popular social media such as Facebook and blogs. The playful Comicons is more expressive than conventional smileys because of facial expressions, bodily movement, and background. Not only are they as capable in supplement the missing cues as conventional smileys, but they are also capable of conveying narrative and represent one’s identity at the same time.
   
   Previous research by Yale scientists explained the phenomenon of the influence of packaging: children said that the goodies from boxes with cartoon characters tasted better than the same stuff did from a plain container (Laffel, 2010). 
   
   In the digital age, these little characters have become incarnated into Comicons, and have continued their social functions. Strikingly, users keep sending Comicons instead of written text on a regular basis in social media
   
   As the real-world and the virtual world markets are increasingly integrated, characters from Comicons are becoming representatives for TV commercials for consumer products, and some have even become celebrities.