What's stranger than fiction? An all-too-real USB flash drive resembling a strange but lovable fictional character: Emily the Strange.
Created by Rob Reger in 1993, Emily stands in stark contrast to the dominant images of perennially skirt-clad, pink-loving, giggly young girls with weekly ballet classes and bedrooms plastered with posters of crush-worthy teenybopper male singers. Instead of fuzzy bunnies and cuddly puppies, this 13-year-old favors the independent spirit of her four slightly spooky black cats. This strong-minded teen could care less about trends, which is why, instead of shopping for accessories at Claire's, she wears a no-fuss black dress. Like MTV's Daria character, Emily harbors a no-nonsense attitude, but she also adapts better to social environments, so that she's free of the jaded attitude that's so firmly entrenched into Daria's psyche.
Now thanks to a collaboration between Mimoco and Cosmic Debris, fans of the bang-rocking, conformity-bucking character can get their hands on one of the two USB flash drives made in her image. The co-branded Emily the Strange MIMOBOT series consists of two bold designs: “People Are Strange" and ”Save Yourself," each of which retails for $22.95 at Mimoco.com.
The Emily the Strange "People Are Strange" Mimobot celebrates quirkiness and individuality while nodding to the poster art style of the late 1960s and early 1970s with lightning-like, white zig-zags accentuating her blunt bangs, dramatic swooshes to give her black mane movement, and rounded, Jefferson Airplane-ish red letters spelling "Emily" along the bottom of the flash drive and stating "People Are Strange" along the back.
For a more tongue-in-cheek interpretation of the character, Mimoco also created the Emily the Strange "Save Yourself" Mimobot, which depicts her as a superhero-in-the-making, donning a Robin-worthy, feline-flavored red mask and a makeshift red cape with an illustration of a black cat along the back, which itself features jagged seams. To finish the masked avenger effect, Emily's forehead features a white bat-like shape — perhaps her own call to action.
Both of these Mimobots come pre-loaded with an Emily the Strange e-book and themed wallpapers, icons, and avatars.