The Power of Cute Audiobook (Free)

An exploration of cuteness and its immense hold on us, from emojis and fluffy pups to its even more uncanny, subversive expressions

Cuteness has taken the earth by storm. Global feelings Hello Kitty and Pokémon, the works of performers Takashi Murakami and Jeff Koons, Heidi the cross-eyed opossum and E.T.-all reflect its gathering power. But what does “cute” mean, being a sensibility and design? Why is it therefore pervasive? Could it be all infantile fluff, or will there be something even more uncanny as well as menacing about The Power of Cute heading on-in a lighthearted method? In THE ENERGY of Cute, Simon May provides nuanced and surprising answers.

We usually see the cute as merely diminutive, harmless, and helpless. May problems this prevailing perspective, looking into everything from Mickey Mouse to Kim Jong-il to claim that cuteness isn’t restricted to such special qualities but also beguiles us by changing or distorting them into something of playfully indeterminate power, gender, age, morality, as well as varieties. May grapples with cuteness’s dark and unpindownable side-unnerving, artful, understanding, apprehensive-elements which have fascinated since historic situations through mythical numbers, especially hybrids like the hermaphrodite and the sphinx. He argues that cuteness can be an addictive antidote to today’s pressured anticipations of understanding our purpose, getting in control, and appearing predictable, transparent, and sincere. Instead, it frivolously expresses the doubt that these norms deny: the ineliminable uncertainty of who we are; of just how much we can control and know; of who, inside our relations with others, really has power; indeed, of the very value and purpose of power.

The Power of Cute delves into a phenomenon that speaks with strange force to our age.