Hello Kitty Bombshell: Kitty Is Not a Cat Talk about a pivot. Sanrio received a boatload of publicity yesterday with the revelation that Hello Kitty is not, in fact, a cat.

Time to start questioning all your longest-held beliefs: Hello Kitty is actually not a cat.

Hello Kitty is a cat. She has whiskers and a cat nose. Girls don't look like that. Stop this nonsense.

— josh groban (@joshgroban) August 27, 2014

On Wednesday, the LA Times reported that the famous Kitty is no cat. The revelation came out of a story on anthropologist Christine Yano who has spent years studying Hello Kitty and is currently creating an exhibition for the Japanese American National Museum on the icon.

"Once we found out Hello Kitty wasn't a cat we lost faith in humanity and decided to get married" - Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie

— samir mezrahi (@samir) August 28, 2014

Sanrio, the company behind Hello Kitty, claims Hello Kitty is a little girl named Kitty White. She lives in the suburbs of London with her parents and twin sister, Mimmy.

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The outcry was immediate. Dozens of media organizations published their own pieces on the revelation. Social media exploded with flabbergasted Hello Kitty fans. Even celebrities got in on the drama, with Katy Perry confirming her pet is indeed a cat and Josh Groban calling for an end to "this nonsense."

IT'S OKAY HELLO KITTY FANS, KITTY PURRY IS A CAT.

— KATY PERRY (@katyperry) August 28, 2014

If anyone had thought to investigate earlier instead of taking the name "Hello Kitty" and the cultural icon's whiskers at face value, someone would have noticed a few the non-feline warming signs. Sanrio's official fan site refers to Kitty as a little girl, who further owns a pet cat of her own named Charmmy Kitty. Of course, the website also says that Hello Kitty weighs about three apples and is five apples tall, hardly appropriate measurements for a human child.

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Ignoring the headache-inducing puzzle of whether Kitty White is an animal or human, one thing is clear: it's causing a storm of publicity. Hello Kitty was No. 5 in Google's hot searches Thursday morning, with over 50,000 searches. "HelloKittyIsNotACat" has been trending on Twitter. Countless media organizations published stories on Hello Kitty -- and therefore Sanrio. Clarifying Hello Kitty's DNA was the best free publicity the Japanese toymaker could ask for.

.@hellokitty Ur not a human

— Honest Toddler (@HonestToddler) August 28, 2014

However, as the outraged responses on social media show, most Hello Kitty lovers didn't take kindly to the news. Did Sanrio just get the best free advertising campaign ever or reveal a fact that could cause long-term damage to their brand?

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We can confirm, Snoopy IS a dog. ?

— PEANUTS (@Snoopy) August 27, 2014