Moomins enter the cuteness pantheon, with help from Gen Z

Straits Times

2 days ago

A long mural for 'The Door Is Always Open,' a new exhibition that celebrates the Finnish author Tove Jansson and her Moomin family creations, at the Brooklyn Public Library in New York, on July 17.
The Moomin family – Moominpappa, Moominmamma and Moomintroll – live in Moominvalley, where they welcome all friends, visitors and vagrants for adventures and sweet treats.
Lately, though, the milk-white hippo-esque characters created by Finnish author and artist Tove Jansson, have taken over the central branch of the Brooklyn Public Library in New York City. With huge, friendly eyes and protruding, snuffly snouts, they peer from balconies and dance across giant pink and green floor displays.
On a recent summer afternoon, Ms Meera Sastry, who was visiting from Los Angeles, stopped by to see the exhibit on the recommendation of a college friend.
'I remember Moomins growing up, from online – I was big into Tumblr,' said Ms Sastry, 23, pausing to admire a photograph of Ms Jansson by the Finnish coast. 'Of course they were cute, like Sanrio characters. But I liked that they were also anxious, and had little narratives.' Ms Sastry hadn't read any of the nine books featuring the characters, she admitted: 'I'll have to get on that.'
Others browsing the exhibit, including an art teacher on a road trip with her friends, had also first learned of these lovable creatures online, where Moomins have gone the way of Snoopy and Miffy – decades-old cartoon characters who have been rediscovered and embraced by a younger generation and have spread widely through merchandise and online content.
When the library announced the exhibition on Instagram, said Ms Linda E. Johnson, the president and CEO of the Brooklyn Public Library, it became the account's highest-performing post to date.
Mr Lukas Dean, 22, a Norwegian singer who recently appeared on 'The Voice', mainly uploads content about two things on TikTok: music and Moomins. One video, captioned 'pov: when someone asks me what happened to all my adult money,' features Dean cross-legged on a kitchen floor, flanked by stacks of Moomin-themed dishware.
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The comments sympathize with his situation: 'relate so hard,' 'literally me,' 'ok don't call me out like this.' Mr Dean's obsession with Moomin collectibles began when his father brought him back a treat from a blood drive: In Norway, everyone who donates receives a Moomin mug. Now he has a collection of about 40 of them (not all from donating blood).
Choosing one each morning, he said, 'sets my mood for the day.'
'A lot of people like the nostalgia aesthetic,' he added.
This year is the 80th anniversary of 'The Moomins and the Great Flood', the children's book by Ms Jansson that originated the Moomin universe. From the beginning of Moomintimes, the characters and their stories have been related but separate entities, from a business perspective.
In the 1950s, Ms Jansson and her brother Lars founded Moomin Characters Ltd to manage the copyright of the booming Moomin brand. The brand, already renowned and beloved in Ms Jansson's native Finland, quickly expanded internationally when the artist began making comic strips for The Evening News in London.
The characters surged in popularity in the 1990s, when Moomin-themed video games and television shows fueled a Moomin renaissance in Europe and Japan. (It was also in this decade that the Moomin mugs, which were originally hand-painted by Ms Jansson, were reintroduced and mass produced.)
Now, the Moomins have entered a global pantheon of cuteness: The Brooklyn Public Library Exhibit is the first in the United States to celebrate Ms Jansson's creatures.
'Moomins are being discovered in the US by new generations, spreading word from person to person,' said Mr Thomas Zambra, 36, the director of business development for Moomin Characters. He and his brother, Mr James Zambra, the company's creative director, are Ms Jansson's grandnephews and the third generation of family members to run the business.
In the United States, awareness of Moomins began in 'small pockets bubbling up here and there,' Mr Thomas Zambra said. That has been changing rapidly, particularly as major American retailers such as Barnes & Noble and Urban Outfitters begin to carry Moomin products, and as 'younger generations are organically discovering the Moomins through social media and the '90s animation on YouTube,' the Zambra brothers, who are based in Finland, wrote in an email.
The brand collaborations have helped, too. In the past few years, high-end luxury labels, including Rimowa, Acne Studios and Comme des Garçons have introduced products like Moomintroll luggage tags (Rimowa), a US$620 (S$798) Moomin-printed button down (Acne) and an entire collection of Jansson-inspired designs (Comme). Worldwide sales of Moomin products, not including books, are more than US$800 million a year, Mr Thomas Zambra said.
The characters surged in popularity in the 1990s, when Moomin-themed video games and television shows fueled a Moomin renaissance in Europe and Japan.
PHOTO: SARA KRULWICH/NYTIMES
But Moomintroll were always intended by Ms Jansson to be something of an adorable Trojan horse for more serious social issues. Ms Jansson was an outspoken pacifist, and her first Moomin book, which was published in 1945 and portrays her Moomin family traveling through a dark forest is often read as an allegory for World War II.
Ms Jansson was also lesbian and lived with her life partner, Ms Tuulikki Pietila, sometimes on a remote island that inspired the settings for her adult novels 'The Summer Book' and 'Fair Play'.
The Brooklyn Public Library exhibition, which is titled 'The Door Is Always Open,' champions Ms Jansson's message as a call for acceptance and inclusivity. It opened in June, LGBTQ+ Pride Month.
'An openly queer women at that time writing about the issues and the themes that are part of her work was avant-garde,' Ms Johnson said. NYTIMES