The Bubble Pup Duo gif is an animated sticker created by WeChat. On the sticker, the motif above the Bubble Pup Duo reads in red lettering “May you be prosperous”. Featuring the two recurring puppy characters, Green and White, they are drawn in a simple, graphic style. Intended to celebrate the Lunar New Year, the dogs plead for red envelopes, hóngbāo, wearing traditional red and gold Chinese Tang-style coats and caps. WeChat stickers form part of highly personal and curated sticker collections for a largely Chinese audience.

WeChat, Weixin in Chinese, is an instant messaging, social media, gaming, and mobile payment system—often called China’s “everything” app. Developed in 2010 by Zhang Xiaolong in the Guangzhou Research Center of Tencent, it is one of the most popular social media platforms in the world today. WeChat bypassed one billion active users by 2018.

In 1998, Tencent Holdings Limited formed in Shenzhen, a city in the Guangdong Province of China, bordering Hong Kong. Formerly known as Canton, the Guangdong region is often cited as the largest manufacturing area in the world. The Pearl River Delta Special Economic Zone encompasses the cities of Dongguan, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Foshan. Shenzhen was the first city to launch in Deng Xiaoping’s launch of SEZs, “Special Economic Zones” in 1980. Since that time, Shenzhen has radically transformed from a marshland fishing village of 300,000 residents to a megacity of over 15 million, composed of 65% migrant workers. Ole Bouman, director of the Design Society, has called Shenzhen “the birthplace of China’s modernisation over the last 40 years”. In 2008, it was named a UNESCO “World City of Design”.