Online vendors in China are going crazy over a Peppa Pig meme

Enterprising online vendors in China are proving that it’s never too early to cash in on a blockbuster movie… even if they don’t have the rights to it.

Check these items out. Do they look familiar?

It’s a pig… it’s an air blower… it’s Peppa! (Image credit: Taobao)

If you think these look like a strange, metallic version of Peppa Pig, well… yeah. That’s exactly what they are.

They’re actually air blowers. If you don’t know what those are, the hand-operated types are often found in rural households and used to fire up the stove. They typically cost under US$5 each on Taobao. But slap on Peppa’s good name and they’ll cost five times more than that.

It’s all down to “What’s Peppa”, a viral phenomenon that’s taking China by storm. It was triggered by a roughly five-minute promotional video for “Peppa Celebrates Chinese New Year”, a full-length movie featuring the British cartoon darling Peppa Pig that’s coming to Chinese cinemas on the first day of the Lunar New Year – which, appropriately enough, begins the Year of the Pig.

The promotional video became a sensation in its own right, because it features one adorable grandfather’s quest to decipher his grandson’s gift request: “Peppa.” He eventually finds out from his neighbor that when an air blower is painted pink, it looks just like Peppa Pig.

(And that’s why the grandfather who bought a small child a household appliance as a gift is actually an amazing grandfather and not a terrible one.)

As seen on TV: the Peppa blower. Is it just me or is Peppa drawn like Picasso? / Photo credit: 小猪佩奇过大年/Alibaba Pictures/Entertainment One

It didn’t take long for sellers on Taobao to take advantage of this. Of course, there are pink air blowers for sale. But there are also sweatshirts, T-shirts, tote bags, wall decorations, and embroidered handkerchiefs – all featuring pink air blowers. And to be honest, none of that is particularly surprising: we all know Taobao is the place to look for things you had no idea you even wanted.