Unicorn stickers help young artist fight disease

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A cartoon image of chubby white unicorns with light pink bellies is becoming hot on WeChat, a social app in China. The story of the cute sticker is created by an optimistic 23-year-old artist Nini-an alias-comes from Ningbo City, east China’s Zhejiang Province, who was diagnosed with uremia in 2015. She has dialysis treatment three times a week.

The cartoon sticker named “Chubby Is a Union”, which have been downloaded by 200,000 plus users, received rewards from 33,711 netizens through WeChat payment as of 11 a.m. on Friday, China Daily reported. It is hard to imagine that these different cute expressions were inspired by Nini’s hardest part of her young life.

Screenshots of the 16 unicorn stickers. /Chinadaily Photo

Although Nini suffers from uremia, she always holds a "brave heart." In order to help the family share the pressure of huge medical expenses, Nini created stickers and learned how to make clay sculptures online by herself. She wants to raise medical expenses and subsidize her family.

Due to Nini’s disease, her family has moved to a 40-square-meter apartment from the 90-square-meter one and Nini’s mother had quit her job to look after her.

The image of the unicorn Chubby is smart and cute. When asked about the inspiration of Chubby, Nini said: “The unicorn is amazing and magic. I hope it will bring good luck and hope to my mother.”

Most of the netizens don’t know her disease. She opened her public account online to livestream her drawing, so far she has 800,000 fans.

Nini is creating new stickers. /Chinanews Photo‍

After the recent popularity of the cute sticker and Nini’s story were reported by the media, many netizens hope to help her. The number of download and sending sticker continue to increase and the accumulative income has reached to 100,000 yuan (15,846 US dollars). One of Nini’s fans sent her online rewards worth over 300,000 yuan (47,378 US dollars) through live streaming, China Daily reported.

Ningbo's governments and many enterprises have also come to help. Yang Lili, a teacher from Pan Tianshou Art Design School of Ningbo University expressed, “We will further enhance Nini’s design and creative capabilities based on her specific needs. In the future, we will also help Nini set up the ‘Unicorn New Media Design Studio’ to develop more themed stickers to increase her income."

Nini’s story continues to inspire more and more people. “I hope to tell people no matter how hard the life is, we should be optimistic and keep forward,” Nini said.