Xiao Xiao
The archive has not found a surviving copy.
2001·Early web, before YouTube·skill
A Beijing animator's stick-figure fight scenes that reached the whole world in 2001 and taught it how to animate.
At a glanceThe facts
- Remembered as
- 小小
- Spread in
- 2001
- Began as
- A web animation
- Made by
- Zhu Zhiqiang, an animator based in Beijing
- Where it started
- Newgrounds
- Who or what it shows
- An anonymous black stick figure, to whom the series’ name came to refer
- Origin
- Not an upload originally
- Available
- Not held by ViralWorld
What this wasThe story
Black stick figures fight, in silhouette, against blank backgrounds — nunchaku, flying kicks, guns, wire-work, whole choreographed sequences with camera moves and weight. Zhu Zhiqiang made them in Beijing in Flash. Some episodes are interactive and playable rather than watched. Ten instalments were released between 2001 and 2002.
The series ended in 2002 and Zhu did not become famous in the way a Western creator of the same thing would have. The Flash files depend on a plug-in that no longer exists. What survives is the genre it started, which outnumbers the original by many thousands of works.
Why it matteredWhat changed
Ten animations of stick figures fighting, made by one animator in Beijing and released on Newgrounds, were followed by a court case over whether a way of drawing a stick figure can be owned.
TimelineIn order
- Posted
The first animation in the series is released.1
- Later
The tenth and last is released.1
- Later
Zhu sues Nike over stick figures in its advertisements. He wins, and Nike is ordered to pay 36,000 US dollars.1
- Corrected
Nike wins on appeal at the Beijing High People’s Court.1
What people misrememberSet straight
Commonly remembered asZhu beat Nike in court.
ActuallyHe won the first case. Nike appealed and won in 2006.1
Commonly remembered asAll of it was made in Flash.
ActuallyThe first animation was made as a video file and converted afterwards.1
Why it is here: something the internet still knows by name · a moment that changed what the internet did next · it got out of its own corner of the internet fast · still being watched and quoted years later
This began as a web animation, not as a video upload. Originally published on web.
Where it came fromWhat we know
There is no original upload to identify: this did not begin as one. There is no copy of it here either — what it was, when it appeared and what people called it is what this page can tell you.
Nothing here is claimed to be the first publication of this Moment, because the first publication was not an upload. This began as a web animation, not as a video upload. Originally published on web.
Not established. This index only names a creator where the evidence supports it.
ConnectedFollow it further
- Spread by NewgroundsPhenomenon · 2000
The stick-figure animations were released on Newgrounds.
SourcesWhat was read
Sources last read on . That date is about the history on this page. Whether the media still plays is checked separately and can change any day. How ViralWorld documents things