Paddington is the busiest bear in Hollywood. While fans eagerly await the third installment of his film franchise, Paddington has found time for roles alongside Anthony Hopkins, Tom Hanks, and Robert De Niro. He celebrated a goal with Ted Lasso, donned a spacesuit for Interstellar, and appeared on stage with David Byrne. He devoured spicy wings on Hot Ones, opened a children’s book with LeVar Burton on Reading Rainbow, and recently participated in Thanksgiving dinners with characters from Snoopy, The Sopranos, and The Simpsons.
This overwhelming itinerary has been made possible thanks to the work and creativity of Jason Chou, who describes himself as a Paddington enthusiast and has spent nearly three years using the magic of Photoshop to teleport the jam-loving, adventure-seeking bear with a fixed gaze into scenes from popular movies and TV shows. “At this point, I feel like some people expect it every day,” said 27-year-old Chou, a student at Gnomon, a visual effects school in Los Angeles. “And it’s hard to disappoint them.”
Chou, who has been posting Paddington-related content daily since March 2021, is approaching a milestone: his 1000th post, which, barring any setbacks similar to Paddington’s, will be uploaded on Sunday. (Posts usually appear after midnight on the East Coast). Chou’s work resides on X, formerly known as Twitter, where he has over 340,000 followers under his username, @jaythechou, and where he has promised to “Use Photoshop to put Paddington in a movie, game, or TV show until I forget.”
The milestone is, at the very least, one of the internet’s most unusual feats of endurance. (He hasn’t forgotten yet). In a phone interview, Chou described his creative process. “Basically, I try to insert him into a scene,” he said.
Few people have the persistence of Chou, but Geoffrey Palmer, another internet artist, is one of them. Inspired by Chou’s work, Palmer has spent a couple of years dedicating a few minutes every weekday morning to Photoshop Paddington into various frames from “Magic: The Gathering,” the fantasy card game.
“Anyone who likes Paddington is probably a good person,” said Chou. Palmer, 38, who makes TV commercials for a mattress company, described Paddington as “something purely good that exists,” which helps explain why all of this works. Paddington is a beloved character from children’s books, animated TV shows, and now a film franchise—Paddington in Peru, the third movie in the series, will be released in the U.S. in January 2025—known for his innate curiosity, which often gets him into trouble.
“It’s like he goes through all these scenes in awe,” said Palmer, who lives in Prior Lake, Minnesota. “So it seems natural for Paddington to suddenly appear in The Godfather or the multiverse of ‘Magic: The Gathering.’ I think it’s the whimsical and unexpected nature of it all that people appreciate and connect with so much.”
Chou has always strived to stay true to Paddington’s principles. “Even in some of the action scenes, I find myself saying, ‘Oh, Paddington! Don’t do this,'” he said. “I’m afraid that one of these days I’ll accidentally turn Paddington into one of the bad guys or something.”
Chou’s winding path to Paddington dates back to his childhood love for the original Star Wars trilogy. His mother nurtured his obsession by giving him a set of the films, which included a DVD dedicated to special effects. “I watched it all day,” Chou said.
He soon began making his own clay animations, and he continued his artistic pursuits in high school and at the University of California, Irvine, where he studied film and video production. It was there that Chou planted the seeds for his Paddington project.
Chou recalled being stuck in traffic on a Southern California freeway one winter afternoon in 2018. He was feeling anxious about college and finding a job, and the traffic… well, the traffic was brutal. “I thought, you know what? I’ll go see a movie,” Chou said.
He got off the freeway and found a theater, where Paddington 2 happened to be playing. The woman at the box office told him he would love it. Chou had no idea that Paddington’s adventures would affect him so deeply.
The consistency of Paddington’s character resonated with him. Throughout the entire movie, Paddington never fails to be kind-hearted and accident-prone, even as those around him change, and change for the better, often due to their interactions with him. Think of the unlikely friendships he forms in a prison full of rough criminals. (Spoiler: Paddington goes to jail).
“But he just keeps on doing his thing,” Chou said. “And no matter how many obstacles are thrown at him, the power of courtesy and kindness helps him overcome it all. I felt so happy at the end.”
A few years later, with free time during the pandemic, Chou became a regular visitor of Reddit. Challenges on social media were trending, and Chou recognized that he “needed something to do.” So he Photoshopped a giant Paddington into a scene from Godzilla vs. Kong and posted it in a specific Reddit community related to movies, committing to do something similar every day.
“It was kind of light and fun content to cheer people up,” Chou said. “And it just kept growing.” The Reddit community quickly became a forum for “movie nerds to have fun with a Photoshopped bear in their favorite films,” said Jarick Simbol, one of Chou’s avid followers.
Simbol, 28, used the platform Letterboxd to catalog the movies and TV shows that Chou has used in his ever-expanding Paddington repertoire, which gained an even larger audience once Chou moved to Twitter about six months into the experiment.
Simbol followed Chou’s posts for 665 consecutive days before life got in the way. “I got a new job, ended up having to work long hours, and just couldn’t keep up,” said Simbol, who lives in Long Beach, California, and works in the video game and esports industry. “I was just keeping track of things. He’s doing the real work. I think it’s really impressive.”
From the beginning, Chou has prioritized consistency. “I do one a day,” said Chou, who hopes to work in the film industry. “And it doesn’t bother me if it doesn’t get a lot of views, because that might affect how I do things.”
And while he dabbled in Patreon, the monetization service for artists, he quickly abandoned it. He didn’t get into the business of Paddington Photoshop for money or fame, though he was saddened that Paddington doesn’t follow him on X. “There has to be a reason,” Chou said.
Neither Paddington nor his representatives at StudioCanal, the French production company overseeing the Paddington franchise, responded to requests for comment.
In this prestigious stage of his series, Chou faces challenges. The first on the list: he initially wanted to avoid using the same TV show or movie more than once, but that possibility is becoming less likely. “I painted myself into a corner,” Chou said.
So he has made exceptions while expanding his work to include video games and the occasional album cover. For example, he recently paid tribute to Taylor Swift: “1989 (Paddington’s Version).” “As for a final goal, I don’t think there is one,” Chou said. “I would just feel bad if I stopped.”
Scott Cacciola has been covering sports for The Times since 2013. More from Scott Cacciola.