I've NEVER voted and NEVER will...

...in the Sanrio Character Ranking!

I considered naming this newsletter “Democracy dies in dorkness.”

Earlier this week, my coworkers threw me an office bridal shower, complete with a cutthroat Jeopardy game. My friend Emily customized the categories to be Hattie-themed, but still accessible to the layperson: Hot Diggity Dog (hot dog history), Viva Las Vegas (Vegas facts), etc. The last category was called Hello, Kitty, and all the questions pertained to Sanrio characters—known to many of my friends, family and compatriots as my “little guys.”

The Sanrio category was a challenge even to me. I spend plenty of time on the Hello Kitty wiki¹, looking at Little Guys, but it’s comprehensive to the point of being incomprehensible. Under the “characters” tab, there are 916 entries. Sanrio has been around since the 60s and churning out Cute Little Guys in earnest for decades. Of course there are hundreds! And for a long time, Sanrio didn’t just manufacture gifts and stationery with its own proprietary guys. If you do your Sanrio history reading, you’ll see Snoopy (Charlie Brown’s friend) and Felix the Cat (notorious magic-bag-of-tricks enjoyer) show up on the team roster.

So why, then, are there only 90 characters represented on the ballot for Sanrio’s official character ranking?