'Tu Si Ji,' an internet brand created unintentionally by a post-80s girl

by swcml on 2009-04-24 10:50:00

At the end of July 2006, Wang Liyuan, whose online nickname at that time was "Cannibal Rabbit," expressed her confusion about her future in her blog: why her paintings could never win awards. While suffering from stomach pain, she casually sketched a rabbit, which she later named "Tuksi." Due to her appearance and timid, gentle personality, she had been often compared to a rabbit since childhood. At that time, she was a third-year student in the Animation Department of Communication University of China, working part-time jobs at various graphic design companies to earn her living expenses. In her blog, she recorded the ten things she most wanted to do, with the first being "to replace the mobile phone that had been broken for more than a year."

She probably didn't expect that this rabbit, drawn with just a few strokes as a memento of her stomachache, would become, a year later, the first virtual spokesperson for the mobile giant Motorola, holding a phone like Jay Chou appearing on billboards and buses in major cities.

In November 2006, the "Tuksi" series of comics, featuring a simply sketched rabbit and accompanied by a short life philosophy, participated in the "Flash Girl" anime contest hosted by the magazine "Love Girls." An editor who handled the contest recalled: "Tuksi definitely did not make it to the final round of the competition, otherwise I wouldn't have forgotten."