The influence of memes and “cute” in popular culture is a radical part of collective imagination, from examples of sexualization of military propaganda, violence, to ways of radicalization in different areas through tenderness. Radical Cuteness aims to unmask the mechanisms that, based on subliminal strategies of seduction – the adorable, the childish, the tender, the vulnerable, the fragile, the soft – influence, disturb and confuse in order to reprogram minds. This approach questions the cultural and political meanings behind these aesthetics. Such disruptive mechanisms are increasingly more internal than external and go beyond prohibition to deploy their control from a veritable psychological warfare that the digital environment only intensifies. We see it through the massive presence on the Internet of very popular and attractive DIY products, in which subliminal aspects shape the collective consciousness, introducing supremacist messages.
RADICAL CUTENESS 》article for A*desk Critical Thinking
Resident Editor: María Muñoz-Martínez