Why China is obsessed with this evil bear

How did a character from a 15-year-old movie suddenly go viral?
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A few weeks ago, a subscriber named Marco De Nobili told me a story. Walking the streets of Shenzhen and Guangzhou during a work trip to China, he noticed something strange: Lotso — or Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear, the cuddly pink villain from Toy Story 3 — was everywhere. Images of his face were emblazoned on the sides of cars, scooters, and mopeds; shops were filled to the brim with every kind of Lotso-themed merchandise.

Marco was confused. He’d been to China before, most recently in 2018. But he’d never seen anything like this. In Europe, where he lives, Lotso isn’t a particularly well-known character. Same goes where I live in the United States — you’ll see plenty of Mickey Mouse, Hello Kitty, Snoopy, or Winnie-the-Pooh. But in China, Lotso has become a phenomenon. Marco wanted to know why. I went down a rabbit hole to figure it out.

Read Yaling's Following the Yuan newsletter about the Lotso phenomenon: https://www.chineseconsumers.news/p/t...

Special thanks to:
Marco De Nobili, Tunnel Vision subscriber
Yaling Jiang, Writer, Following the Yuan
Isabella Harefa, Disney content creator
Bryan Seah, Disney content creator
Ashley Wu

Hello and welcome! Tunnel Vision is a new independent video news show that dives deep into mysteries from all corners of the internet. With a commitment to transparency, we pull back the curtain on the journalistic process, emphasizing the journey of discovery rather than simply presenting the final answer.

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All the music for this video was created by our in-house composer Tom Fox and is available to license or just to listen to on our music channel: ‪@tomfoxcatalog‬

About:
Christophe Haubursin is a journalist and video creator. Before launching Tunnel Vision he worked at Vox.com for 8 years, where he made videos for Vox’s YouTube channel, hosted the show Glad You Asked, and produced on the Netflix series Explained. He lives in Brooklyn.

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Twitter: / haubursin

-- VIDEO CHAPTERS --
00:00 Intro
01:23 Just how popular is Lotso?
05:36 The hypotheses
07:57 Finding an answer
10:10 When it began
13:46 Why it worked
15:40 The debrief
19:30 The twist