A year after ban, Peppa Pig goes viral in China
BEIJING: The UK-made children’s cartoon character Peppa Pig has made a comeback in China in a trailer of a forthcoming movie, less than a year after its memes were banned by authorities for apparently promoting a subversive lifestyle.
The trailer of the film Peppa Celebrates Chinese New Year, to be released only in China , was viewed millions of times on Chinese social media ahead of its release next month during the Chinese New Year – the Year of the Pig.
“By Tuesday, the trailer’s Mandarin hashtag #WhatisPeppa had been viewed more than 1.45bn times on popular microblogging platform Sina Weibo and the official video had garnered hundreds of millions of views across various streaming platforms,” the Financial Times reported.
The movie’s story revolves around the theme of family bonds – a central motif in Chinese New Year celebrations – involving a poor Chinese grandfather who welds a Peppa Pig from the metal of a stove pipe.
Within hours of release, the five-minute video What is Peppa Pig was heavily trending on China’s Twitter-like Weibo and the mobile smartphone platform, WeChat.
“In just a few hours, it was trending on both Weibo and WeChat, the two most popular Chinese social media platforms with hundreds of thousands of forwards and likes,” official news agency, Xinhua reported.