'Friend ship' sails to ocean

Cartoons are put online on Sina Weibo, a Twitter-like service in China, on April 2. Notes show that "two are on the 'friend ship'; one is getting thinner and the ship sinks." [Photo/Weibo.com]

What kind of ship never sinks? Friendship! The joke has ever been popular. But a recent group of cartoons starring cute penguins that's going viral online tells you how "friend ship" sinks.

The cartoons were first put online on Sina Weibo, a Twitter-like service in China, on April 2. Notes on the cartoons showed that "two are on the 'friend ship'; one is getting thinner and the ship sinks."

These cartoons soon attracted many viewers and were forwarded 78,000 times within 10 days, Chengdu Business Daily reported.

On April 6, Nan Dongni (a name used online), the artist who created the cartoons, allowed people to replace his captions with their own. Nan wanted to publish the best ones on his verified Weibo account and offer prizes.

The cartoons went viral on social media, such as Weibo, WeChat and online forums. Captions suggested the reasons why the "friend ship" sinks, such as friends having different jobs and industries.

For example, when you have a journalist friend and ask them to have a meal the next day, and they respond that they have to finish a news report first, the "friend ship" sinks. Or, when you friend is a teacher and ask if they want to have a meal today and they say "I have schoolwork to do", the "friend ship" sinks.

The popularity of the cartoons shows that people have little understanding of the different demands made by careers, which causes barriers in communication and sensitive people to have misunderstandings and their friendship comes to an end.

These cartoons with different captions have been viewed more than 16 million times. Nan said April 12 on his Weibo account that some changed cartoons without his permission but also attracted more than 100,000 views.

The "friend ship" cartoons have finally transformed Nan into a cyber celebrity, or Wanghong, in Chinese.

Nan was born in the late 1980s in Linyi, East China's Shandong province. He told media representatives that he retreated from a university to embark on drawing cartoons. His decision came after he bought two books by Chinese cartoonist Jimmy in 2010.

Nan wrote on his WeChat account, a messaging service, "Never thought I'd be the creator of a hot event. As you see, the 'friend ship' cartoons and notes flood the circle of friends on social media."

He said he created the two penguins – a yellow one named Dongni and a black one called Ade – last year. He was very happy that the two penguins were popular among Chinese netizens, but he worried that some people released the cartoons with their own captions and did not give him credit as their creator.