Hello Kitty is a cat. You can tell by the whiskers, the ears, and the name. Yet it has been revealed that the iconic figure does not identify as a cat, but as a 50-year-old little girl who presents herself as a cat:

Hello Kitty became the subject of a North American museum exhibition for the first time when a retrospective called “Hello! Exploring the Supercute World of Hello Kitty,” premiered at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles.

The exhibit made headlines — and caused a few online meltdowns — after its curator, Christine R. Yano, revealed that the Hello Kitty character was, in fact, a little girl and not a cat.

She got the word from Sanrio, the company that created Hello Kitty. Yet a cat is a cat, even if it’s a cartoon cat.

An Abraham Lincoln quote comes to mind:

“How many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg? Four. Saying that a tail is a leg doesn’t make it a leg.”

Next we may learn that Hello Kitty identifies as a dog.

On a tip from Lyle.