Pusheen is a female cartooncat who is the subject of comic strips and sticker sets on Facebook, Instagram, and other social media websites. Pusheen was created in 2010 by Claire Belton and Andrew Duff for a comic strip on their website, Everyday Cute. More recently, the Pusheen character has been used in social media posts and on the Pusheen blog. On the official Pusheen website, Pusheen is described as being a female cat who loves blogging, snacking, and going on adventures. The original comic strip series included characters modeled after Belton, Duff, their dog named Carm, and Pusheen, a chubby grey tabby cat based on Belton's cat that now lives with her parents in Oregon. Pusheen's name stems from the word Wiktionary:puisín, which means kitten in Irish. Occasionally, Pusheen and her sister Stormy are drawn in different themes, such as Pusheenosaurus Rex, where Pusheen is a dinosaur and Stormy is in a dinosaur egg. She can also be a Pushicorn, Purrmaid, and many other themes. Pusheen has a mom, dad, husband, a sister named Stormy, a brother named Pip, two kids, and an array of furry friends, including Sloth the sloth, Bo the parakeet, and Cheek the hamster.
History
Pusheen first appeared in May 2010 in the comic strip "Pusheen Things" on Claire Belton and Andrew Duff's website, Everyday Cute. In 2011, Belton and Duff launched a spin-off site dedicated to Pusheen. In 2013, Belton published I Am Pusheen The Cat, a collection of comic strips featuring Pusheen. Pusheen has become well known for appearing in sticker sets on Facebook, which are images that can be attached to personal messages or comments. The feature, including a set of Pusheen stickers, was introduced to Android in April 2013, and added to the main website in July of the same year. In an article for PC Magazine on emoji and unicode, Sascha Segan referred to Pusheen as Facebook's "proprietary emoji", being used as a form of vendor lock-in. In April 2017, the Pusheen Corporation acquired office space in the Park Ridge suburb of Chicago. The offices are used as a workspace for artists and photographers.
Social media
Pusheen is an example of the popularity of cats on the Internet. An exhibition at the New York CityMuseum of the Moving Image examined the phenomenon, highlighting Pusheen alongside other celebrity cats such as Grumpy Cat and Lil Bub. The Facebook page for Pusheen has over 9.2 million fans as of February 2019. The brand has expanded with merchandise including an app. Pusheen has expanded and moved beyond just Facebook and now takes part in multiple social media platforms such as: Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter. This cartoon cat also has many fan pages within the platforms and blogs dedicated to celebrating the comic. Its popularity has even allowed the Pusheen Corp to create an app that is an expansion of their sticker collection that started on Facebook. Within each social media account that is officially owned by the creators of Pusheen the cat has gained over a million followers and counting. Due to this rise in popularity the company has started releasing GIFs on their website several times a month.
Merchandising
The Pusheen corporation started selling Pusheen merchandise after the popularity of the cat took off in July 2010. The first Pusheen merchandising was sold on the Everyday Cute website as a charm keychain, and necklace. From there, the merchandising expanded. In 2014, Gund developed an interest in the cartoon cat and became the manufacturer for Pusheen's plush toys and blind boxes, which helped the brand take off. Now, Pusheen Corp has teamed up with many brands to create and sell merchandise in stores, including retailer specific items. Pusheen Corp's has many current retailers, including Hot Topic, Books-A-Million, Barnes & Noble, Claire's, Petco, Walmart, Target, FYE, and Gund. Pusheen also has a Funko Pop! line that consists of various styles of vinyl figures. Pusheen Corp expanded their merchandising to the website formerly known as Hey Chickadee, which was rebranded as The Pusheen Shop in April 2019. The website features merchandise collections dedicated to the cartoon cat, which includes plush toys, clothing, home decor and various accessories. A quarterly subscription box, called the Pusheen Box, filled with Pusheen Products, is available too.
