Photo: VCG

The death of Street Cat Bob, a cat who inspired a popular book about a man struggling with drug addiction, has touched the hearts of Chinese netizens who mourned the cat on social media and shared their stories of beloved pets.

Bob died at the age of 14. The book, written by James Bowen, has become familiar among Chinese people because of the film based on it, "A Street Cat Named Bob." After playing himself in the film, the cat gained lots of fans in other countries.

The related hashtag "Streetcat Bob passed away" has been viewed more than 180 million times as of Thursday afternoon, and some netizens posted articles in the channel for the film on China's major media review platform Douban to mourn the web celebrity. The film has got an 8.0/10 rating on the platform.

"Bob pulled James from the darkness. Little angel, please be happy when you are in your planet," a netizen "Hamifengzi" commented on China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo.

Another netizen told a story on Douban about how her cat and golden retriever accompanied her when the netizen broke up with her boyfriend. "It was a dark time, but because of my two angels, I finally pulled through," the netizen wrote. "When they intently stare at me, I instantly feel powerful because I know there is someone who loves and needs me in the world."

These commemorative comments and articles reflect the way in which people have emotional dependence upon their pets, especially young people who are living in large cities alone.

A white-collar worker surnamed Xiao, 26, from North China's Shanxi Province who now lives in Beijing, has had a Scottish Fold cat for more than one year. "Now I cannot leave her, rather than her having no way to leave me," Xiao told the Global Times on Thursday. "Every day, the thing that mainly supports me in going to work is being able to play with her after work."

Keeping the pet has changed Xiao's habits. She did not cook herself and always ate at canteens but now she has learned to cook and mostly eats at home - "because there is someone waiting for me at home and cooking for my cat is a pleasure for me."

Song Xuan, a psychology professor at China University of Labor Relations, told China Youth Daily that many young people are turning to pets for the intimacy they lack. 

Song pointed out that many young people born after the 1980s and 1990s are the only child in their family, and many of them work in big cities and refuse to marry early.

"For single young people, pets can accompany them and relieve their pressure, and they sometimes even treat pets as children," the professor said.

Some people aren't able to have a pet but it cannot stop their yearning and attention to pets. They follow many abroad and overseas pet bloggers to experience the process of keeping pets online.

Qi, a 26-year-old Shanghai resident, is one of these people. "I dream of having a pet dog and now I just can watch videos about pets' daily lives online, as a way of relieving my loneliness," she told the Global Times.

In 2019, the number of pet dogs and cats in China's cities and towns reached 99.15 million, an increase of 7.66 million over 2018, as the Paper reported.