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Culture
文艺版块
The culture of cuteness
可爱文化
Small, but mighty
软萌但强大
How cuteness has taken over the world.
萌物如何征服世界。
Scroll through any social-media feed, and before long a cute video will appear.
滑动浏览任何社交媒体推送，很快就会出现一段可爱的视频。
Perhaps it shows a giggling baby or a rabbit nibbling strawberries.
也许是一个咯咯笑的婴儿，也许是一只兔子在啃草莓。
A red panda might be throwing its paws in the air, like a furry thief being apprehended, or a kitten may sit astride a tiny motorcycle.
也许是一只小熊猫把爪子伸向空中，就像一个毛茸茸的小偷被逮捕一样，又也许是一只小猫跨坐在小摩托车上。
The supply of these endearing clips is huge.
这些可爱视频的供应量是巨大的。
On TikTok there are 65m videos tagged #cute.
在TikTok上，有6500万个视频带了“可爱”标签。
The demand is even greater: those videos have been viewed more than 625bn times.
对这些视频的需求甚至更大：观看量已超过6250亿次。
Cute things are everywhere, not just online.
可爱的东西无处不在，不仅仅只在网上有。
In Japan—where appreciation for all things kawaii is especially keen—roadblocks come in the form of dolphins, ducks or frogs.
在日本，人们尤其热衷于欣赏卡哇伊的东西，日本的路障都是海豚、鸭子或青蛙的形状。
Hello Kitty, a cartoon, adorns everything from phone chargers to first-aid kits.
卡通形象Hello Kitty装饰了从手机充电器到急救箱的各种东西。
In America a puppy has advertised beer, and an endearing gecko helps geico sell around $39bn in car insurance a year.
在美国，小狗为啤酒做广告，一只可爱的壁虎帮盖科公司每年卖出了约390亿美元的汽车保险。
In Britain a cartoon koala helps peddle toilet paper.
在英国，一只卡通考拉帮助兜售卫生纸。
An interest in the adorable has long been derided as girlish and frivolous.
长期以来，喜欢可爱的东西被嘲笑为是女孩子气和轻浮的表现。
But cuteness has recently become a subject of serious inquiry, inspiring scientific research, academic literature—dubbed “Cute Studies”—and a recent book, “Irresistible: How Cuteness Wired our Brains and Conquered the World”.
但最近，可爱已经成为一个严肃的探究主题，启发了科学研究、学术文献（被称为“可爱研究”）以及最近出版的一本书《无法抗拒：可爱如何塑造我们的大脑并征服世界》。
A new exhibition at Somerset House in London also examines the ubiquity of cuteness in culture, bringing together art, games and toys.
伦敦萨默塞特宫的一个新展览也探讨了可爱在文化中如何无处不在，将艺术、游戏和玩具汇聚起来。
Cuteness “has taken over”, says Claire Catterall, the curator.
策展人克莱尔·卡特罗尔说，可爱“已经占据了一切”。
“It’s infiltrated almost every aspect of our lives.”
“可爱几乎渗透到我们生活的方方面面。”
What do humans consider cute?
人类认为什么是可爱的？
In the 1940s Konrad Lorenz, an Austrian zoologist, found that people are drawn to babies with big eyes, a small nose and mouth and round cheeks, as well as a pudgy body, short arms and legs and a wobbly gait.
在20世纪40年代，奥地利动物学家康拉德·洛伦茨发现，人们会被婴儿吸引，婴儿有大眼睛、小鼻子和小嘴巴、圆圆的脸颊、胖乎乎的身体、短短的胳膊和腿以及摇摇晃晃的步态。
These traits motivated people to nurture and protect babies, helping ensure their survival.
这些特点促使人们去养育和保护婴儿，确保婴儿存活下来。
Humans are so drawn to these attributes that cats and dogs may have been bred to emphasise those same features.
这些特点对人类有极大的吸引力，以至于小猫和小狗在育种的时候都强调这些同样的特征。
Cartoon characters have morphed, too.
卡通形象也发生了变化。
For instance, Mickey Mouse’s arms, legs and nose have shrunk since 1928, while his head and eyes have become larger.
例如，自1928年以来，米老鼠的胳膊、腿和鼻子都缩小了，而它的头和眼睛却变大了。
A study from 2015 found that participants felt more energetic and positive, and less annoyed, anxious or sad, after watching cat videos.
2015年的一项研究发现，参与者在观看猫咪视频后感觉精力更充沛、心态更积极，烦恼、焦虑或悲伤的情绪更少。
Morten Kringelbach, a neuroscientist at Oxford University, has studied the brain’s rapid reaction to baby faces: the orbitofrontal cortex—a region linked with pleasure, among other things—is activated within a seventh of a second.
牛津大学神经学家莫滕·克林格尔巴赫研究了大脑对婴儿脸庞的快速反应：眼眶前额叶皮质（与愉悦等情绪相关的区域）在看到婴儿脸庞的七分之一秒内被激活。
(Men and women are equally eager to look at adorable infants.)
(男性和女性渴望看到可爱婴儿的程度是一样的。）
Cuteness is not a new obsession.
可爱并不是一种新热潮。
Japanese artists in the Edo period (between 1603 and 1868) painted puppies or fashioned them out of ivory.
江户时代(1603年至1868年)的日本艺术家会画小狗或用象牙雕小狗。
Joshua Paul Dale, the author of “Irresistible”, argues that the popularity of Cupids in Renaissance and Rococo art made winged babies “the major expression of cuteness in Western art for three centuries”.
《无法抗拒》的作者约书亚·保罗·戴尔认为，丘比特在文艺复兴时期和洛可可艺术中的流行，使长着翅膀的婴儿“在长达三个世纪的时间里成为西方艺术对可爱的主要表现形式”。
Technology has offered new ways to enjoy winsome things.
科技为人们提供了享受萌物的新方式。
Harry Pointer’s photographs from the 1870s, on display at Somerset House, depict felines in anthropomorphised ways, sitting on tricycles or in prams.
哈利·珀特在19世纪70年代拍的照片（也在萨默塞特宫展出）用拟人化的方式描绘了各种猫咪，它们坐在三轮车或婴儿车上。
As he added amusing captions, he is credited as the inventor of the cat meme.
因为他还对照片添加了有趣的文字说明，所以他被认为是猫咪表情包的发明者。
It was in the 20th century that cuteness dug in its tiny claws.
萌物开始伸出小爪子是在二十世纪。
Walt Disney brought a parade of wide-eyed creatures to cinemas across the world.
华特·迪士尼将一群大眼睛的动物带到了世界各地的电影院。
(He apparently instructed his animators to “Keep it cute!”)
(他显然要求动画师们要“让这些形象保持可爱！”）
Japanese kawaii culture also went global, with the spread of anime films and manga comic books.
随着动漫电影和漫画书的传播，日本卡哇伊文化也走向了全球。
After the advent of mass production, cute trinkets and toys became widely available; Sanrio, which owns Hello Kitty, has $3.8bn in sales a year.
在大规模生产出现后，可爱的小玩意儿和玩具变得到处都可以买到，拥有Hello Kitty版权的三丽欧每年的销售额为38亿美元。
Then, with the internet, cuteness became available on demand.
然后，随着互联网的出现，可爱变得随时都可以获得。
People could watch and share amusing content of their children or favourite animals at any time—in 2022 more than 90,000 videos of cats were uploaded to YouTube every day.
人们可以随时观看和分享关于他们的孩子或最喜欢的动物的有趣内容，2022年，每天有超过9万个猫咪视频上传到YouTube上。
So voracious is the appetite for cute content that in 2014, when Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the world wide web, was asked what surprised him most about internet usage, he replied simply: “Kittens.”
人们对可爱内容的胃口是如此之大，以至于在2014年，当万维网的发明者蒂姆·伯纳斯-李被问及人们对互联网的使用最令他惊讶的是什么时，他回答了简单的一个词：“猫咪。”
Cuteness has real-world uses.
可爱在现实世界中是有用处的。
Lovot, a doe-eyed companion robot with a button nose, is covered in sensors and responds positively when cuddled.
Lovot是一个有着大眼睛和纽扣鼻子的陪伴型机器人，它身上覆盖着传感器，人们拥抱它时会做出积极的回应。
Such innovations may help combat loneliness among the elderly.
这些创新可能有助于老年人对抗孤独感。
Policymakers, too, might harness the power of cute to nudge people’s behaviour.
政策制定者也可能利用可爱的力量来引导人们的行为。
Japan’s kawaii barriers are thought to reduce road-rage incidents.
日本的卡哇伊路障被认为可以减少路怒事件。
Putting images on bins of sea turtles or dolphins trapped in rubbish has been shown to reduce plastic waste.
在垃圾箱上放一些被困在垃圾中的海龟或海豚的图片可以减少塑料垃圾。
Mr Kringelbach says that cute babies can encourage people to have empathy for demonised groups such as refugees.
克林格尔巴赫表示，可爱的婴儿可以促使人们对难民等被妖魔化的群体产生共情。
An appreciation for cute things is a joy in and of itself, but it also “has the potential to change the world”, he argues.
他认为，欣赏可爱的东西本身就是一种享受，但这种行为也“具有改变世界的潜力”。
How’s that for a cute idea?
这个主意也很可爱吧？
