Guys crave ‘cool,’ but women want ‘cute’

They use the word ‘all the time, about almost everything’

It’s a cute study. While investigating women’s retail decisionmaking behaviour, researchers uncovered a pervasive — and nearly overlooked — trend in which female shoppers used a single catch-all term to describe everything from underwear to handbags: “Cute.”

Further analysis led them to initiate an entirely new study, this time looking specifically at the ways in which that word has come to be the feminine counterpart to “cool” in consumer culture.

“At a certain point, it just hit me like a sucker punch,” said lead author Elad Granot, who describes his latest research as highly accidental.

“Female consumers hardly ever use the term ‘cool’ to describe anything; but they use ‘cute’ all the time, about almost everything.”

To determine why, he and fellow scholars Thomas Brashear Alejandro and La Toya Russell undertook a massive review not only of their own consumer research but that of others.

The resulting paper, published in the Journal of Consumer Culture, represents one of the first significant scientific efforts to describe and understand the concept of “cute” as it pertains to retail.

In terms of usage, the researchers found women’s affinity for cuteness crossed all demographics (though they note that their analysis excluded children and the elderly).

“We classify it as a feminine phenomenon and not necessarily a generational one,” said Granot, associate professor of marketing at Cleveland State University.

“We didn’t find any difference in terms of age. We saw teenagers and women in their 50s use the word just as liberally and in the same context.”

In terms of defining “cute,” the net was cast equally as wide. Although cute culture originated in Japan with an infantilizing esthetic, they found the western interpretation included almost any product that evoked comfort, nostalgia, charm or cheerfulness.

Examples cited in the study included the Day-Glo accessories and plushy sneakers linked with 1980s rave culture; auto brands such as Mini and Volkswagen, known for their playful styling; and Victoria’s Secret’s PINK label, lingerie’s rainbow-hued answer to antidepressants.

As for why female consumers seek out these “cute” products, one-on-one interviews pointed to a psychological need for reassurance.

“Cuteness is a kind of cultural decoy,” the researchers wrote. “(It’s) a soothing and simple distraction from a world whose boundaries and problems are becoming more complex by the day.”

Just as previous studies have shown that people crave comfort food during times of struggle, Granot said “cute” becomes a kind of retail carbohydrate.

His paper notes that products with childlike bubble lettering, pink fabrics and winsome mammalian shapes lend personality to otherwise meaningless — and often useless — consumer goods, therefore making them more attractive to female shoppers who want to feel warm and fuzzy.

“It’s a conscious decision made by consumers to cute-up their lives through consumption,” said Granot, though as a feminist he confessed disappointment that it appears to be a very gender-specific behaviour.

“You’d be hard-pressed to find a lot of guys using ‘cute’ to describe anything aside from puppies and babies — and maybe girls.”