On May 21, KFC China introduced three brand new Pokemon toys to its kid's meals to celebrate the upcoming Children's day on June 1. The three newly released toys include two Pikachu and one Psyduck. Surprisingly, Psyduck has replaced Pikachu as the most popular Pokemon on Chinese social media, becoming a viral sensation.
The reason why Psyduck is so popular right now is that the KFC toy has hilarious dance moves. Unlike the Pikachu toy mug and music box, KFC China designed Psyduck as a movable toy that can dance and play music. With the funny dance moves and sad background music that is automatically played from the toy's base, the Pysduck looks both pitiful and cute. With this contradictory style, it quickly took off online.
What's more, people who bought the Psyduck toy soon found more ways to play with it. They glued small notes onto Pysduck's hands and started the toy so that Psyduck looked like it was cheering for what they had written on the paper. Some people wrote “no overtime work” on paper and put the Psyduck at their company's front door, and with Psyduck's arm swinging up and down, the whole company could see the hilarious sight.
There are also meme lovers out there who put "Show me" and "da memes" signs in Psyduck's hands, which instantly went viral in the Chinese meme community.
Modelers didn't miss out on this opportunity either, they installed some parts from Gundams on Psyduck, and thus an RX-Psyduck was born.
With more ways to play with the toy, people started complaining about the frequent quality problems of the Psyduck. Because it was initially designed as a low-cost toy for children, KFC did not conduct rigorous quality tests on it, and many people's toys would stop running after a few starts because of internal gear problems. As a result, some DIY repair guides for the toy are also starting to explode on social media like Weibo and BiliBili. Many people have contributed their creativity to this cute Pokemon that has unexpectedly become popular in China.
The hashtag for the Psyduck toys has reached more than 25 million views on Weibo. Also, many KFCs have posted notices that the Psyduck toy has been sold out. The price of the Psyduck toy online has also risen to about 10 dollars, almost twice as much as the original kid's meal. Perhaps this combination of being both pitiful and cute makes the Chinese in pandemic lockdown feel a touch of empathetic joy when seeing Psyduck.
Signs in KFC that shows Psyduck has been sold out
Source: KFC China