5 ms·

South Koreans use emoji to express playful sentiments they wouldn’t utter aloud

66 points by r0n0j0y 10y ago

wodenokoto 10y ago
Don't everybody do that with stickers?
bitwize 10y ago
It reminds me of Facebook stickers. I get those a lot from Asian friends.
- jwagenet 10y ago
  Perhaps because Line stickers are the archetype for Facebook stickers, which Facebook introduced to attract Asian users already used to sharing them on Line and Kakao.
personjerry 10y ago
Re: stickers In Europe WhatsApp is a lot more popular than Messenger, and so people use emojis a lot, instead of stickers. Anecdotally I believe the amount of emojis in a conversation in Europe is many times the amount of sticker use in a conversation in North America.
silencio 10y ago
Aw, come on, mentioning Kakao Friends without Apeach? :) https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/hphotos-xaf1/t51.2885-15/e15/11287911_1397529980574256_1009294730_n.jpg https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/hphotos-xaf1/t51.2885-15/e... My last trip to Seoul I even picked up an Apeach pillow and set of peach-butt coasters from the Kakao store. Love that dude. These are stickers for sure. My Asian friends and family use them all the time, including as replies on their own. Even my parents and 70-80+ year old relatives do this with regularity. The extra context that these stickers add are very useful and I wish they were more popular among my non-Asian friends. Somehow little rows of emoji and Slack reactions are just not quite the same.
- rpgmaker 10y ago
  > Aw, come on, mentioning Kakao Friends without Apeach? What about MSN Messenger Winks? They seem like a clear precursor to these Stickers and probably predate them by 5 years at least.
pcurve 10y ago
Kakao has some of the best stickers. The best part is, most are animated. And really well. You can see some of them here.. about a minute into the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVpM8lUlMH4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVpM8lUlMH4 There are constantly new sets coming out, and they are very cheap too. Most of them $2.
- Razengan 10y ago
  Line has cool stickers too, though I'm not sure if it has animated ones.
  - level3 10y ago
    Yes, it has animated stickers, as well as ones with sound.
ajamesm 10y ago
"Sorry, you need to enable JavaScript to visit this website." then ctrl-W it is, please learn to render plaintext
- current_call 10y ago
  curl is your friend
  - ajamesm 10y ago
    <sarcasm>can't see how <i>that</i> would be illegible</sarcasm>
    - current_call 10y ago
      Darn, if only there was some program that could render HTML files.
- mrob 10y ago
  It's readable if you disable CSS (in Firefox: View, Page Style, No Style).
amagumori 10y ago
i hope stickers catch on here in america and dont just stay an east asian thing. i think they're a better form of expressing emotion than emoji. the "nice" thing about emojis is that they're standardized, but i don't think anyone realized how hackneyed and played out emojis would get. when i see tears-laughing-emoji these days, i roll my eyes, because i think of dumb instagram memes. in general, they're tiny icons that are kind of lacking in expressiveness to begin with. i've gotten really tired of them, and so have a lot of other people. you start to think they're dumb. stickers don't do that because they convey more complex emotional information. i find with emojis that i always want new and more specific ones, and stickers cater to that perfectly. emojis are this wan, broad "happy" or "sad" emotional marker, which doesn't really convey all that much, while, as discussed in the article, stickers can convey really complex and pithy feelings related to the cultural environment people are living in. this makes them feel like a more honest and human method of communication through emotional pictograph, or whatever.
- white-flame 10y ago
  The one "standardized" one that always messes up my communication is ":-P". To me, in ASCII, that's not a playful, smiling, stick out your tongue at your friend sort of thing, but rather an exasperated "Just found out I had to refile all my TPS reports. :-P". While the only places I tend to have ascii->emoticon functionality is Skype and Slack, the auto-replacement for that usage never fits the mood, and I never seem to find a good representation of how I interpret ":-P". But more to the point, I think that these stickers have already caught on as what we would call meme images, especially on image boards. They're just not well integrated elsewhere.
  - s_kilk 10y ago
    > To me, in ASCII, that's not a playful, smiling, stick out your tongue at your friend sort of thing, but rather an exasperated "Just found out I had to refile all my TPS reports. :-P". I'd wager you're in a pretty small minority there. In fact, I'm struggling to think of a way in which :-P would not be seen as playful. Do you have an example of the kind of facial expression you see in that particular sequence of characters?
corv 10y ago
Yeah, I must be getting old...
- protomyth 10y ago
  The funny part is all the near future SciFi with kanji characters needs to have them replaced in a special edition with emojis.
bby 10y ago
Lots of sexual play with these stickers.
ddp 10y ago
Along with the rest of Southeast Asia...
avindroth 10y ago
For a while, I thought it was strange how native Koreans would use extraneous ~,^^, ㅋ, and emojis in messengers. Having lived here for over a year now, I see myself using those once-foreign symbols as part of my messaging jargon. I feel it softens communication with the other person. The effect is similar to that of a smile; you can say anything while smiling and it won't look so aggressive. If you message without healthy utilization of these symbols, the negative effect is similar to that of ending texts with period marks. No matter the content, the tone will seem aggressive.

66 points by r0n0j0y 10y ago

wodenokoto 10y ago

Don't everybody do that with stickers?

bitwize 10y ago

It reminds me of Facebook stickers. I get those a lot from Asian friends.

jwagenet 10y ago
Perhaps because Line stickers are the archetype for Facebook stickers, which Facebook introduced to attract Asian users already used to sharing them on Line and Kakao.

personjerry 10y ago

Re: stickers In Europe WhatsApp is a lot more popular than Messenger, and so people use emojis a lot, instead of stickers. Anecdotally I believe the amount of emojis in a conversation in Europe is many times the amount of sticker use in a conversation in North America.

silencio 10y ago

Aw, come on, mentioning Kakao Friends without Apeach? :) https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/hphotos-xaf1/t51.2885-15/e15/11287911_1397529980574256_1009294730_n.jpg https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/hphotos-xaf1/t51.2885-15/e... My last trip to Seoul I even picked up an Apeach pillow and set of peach-butt coasters from the Kakao store. Love that dude. These are stickers for sure. My Asian friends and family use them all the time, including as replies on their own. Even my parents and 70-80+ year old relatives do this with regularity. The extra context that these stickers add are very useful and I wish they were more popular among my non-Asian friends. Somehow little rows of emoji and Slack reactions are just not quite the same.

rpgmaker 10y ago
> Aw, come on, mentioning Kakao Friends without Apeach? What about MSN Messenger Winks? They seem like a clear precursor to these Stickers and probably predate them by 5 years at least.

pcurve 10y ago

Kakao has some of the best stickers. The best part is, most are animated. And really well. You can see some of them here.. about a minute into the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVpM8lUlMH4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVpM8lUlMH4 There are constantly new sets coming out, and they are very cheap too. Most of them $2.

Razengan 10y ago
Line has cool stickers too, though I'm not sure if it has animated ones.
- level3 10y ago
  Yes, it has animated stickers, as well as ones with sound.

ajamesm 10y ago

"Sorry, you need to enable JavaScript to visit this website." then ctrl-W it is, please learn to render plaintext

current_call 10y ago
curl is your friend
- ajamesm 10y ago
  <sarcasm>can't see how <i>that</i> would be illegible</sarcasm>
  - current_call 10y ago
    Darn, if only there was some program that could render HTML files.
mrob 10y ago
It's readable if you disable CSS (in Firefox: View, Page Style, No Style).

amagumori 10y ago

i hope stickers catch on here in america and dont just stay an east asian thing. i think they're a better form of expressing emotion than emoji. the "nice" thing about emojis is that they're standardized, but i don't think anyone realized how hackneyed and played out emojis would get. when i see tears-laughing-emoji these days, i roll my eyes, because i think of dumb instagram memes. in general, they're tiny icons that are kind of lacking in expressiveness to begin with. i've gotten really tired of them, and so have a lot of other people. you start to think they're dumb. stickers don't do that because they convey more complex emotional information. i find with emojis that i always want new and more specific ones, and stickers cater to that perfectly. emojis are this wan, broad "happy" or "sad" emotional marker, which doesn't really convey all that much, while, as discussed in the article, stickers can convey really complex and pithy feelings related to the cultural environment people are living in. this makes them feel like a more honest and human method of communication through emotional pictograph, or whatever.

white-flame 10y ago
The one "standardized" one that always messes up my communication is ":-P". To me, in ASCII, that's not a playful, smiling, stick out your tongue at your friend sort of thing, but rather an exasperated "Just found out I had to refile all my TPS reports. :-P". While the only places I tend to have ascii->emoticon functionality is Skype and Slack, the auto-replacement for that usage never fits the mood, and I never seem to find a good representation of how I interpret ":-P". But more to the point, I think that these stickers have already caught on as what we would call meme images, especially on image boards. They're just not well integrated elsewhere.
- s_kilk 10y ago
  > To me, in ASCII, that's not a playful, smiling, stick out your tongue at your friend sort of thing, but rather an exasperated "Just found out I had to refile all my TPS reports. :-P". I'd wager you're in a pretty small minority there. In fact, I'm struggling to think of a way in which :-P would not be seen as playful. Do you have an example of the kind of facial expression you see in that particular sequence of characters?

corv 10y ago

Yeah, I must be getting old...

protomyth 10y ago
The funny part is all the near future SciFi with kanji characters needs to have them replaced in a special edition with emojis.

bby 10y ago

Lots of sexual play with these stickers.

ddp 10y ago

Along with the rest of Southeast Asia...

avindroth 10y ago

For a while, I thought it was strange how native Koreans would use extraneous ~,^^, ㅋ, and emojis in messengers. Having lived here for over a year now, I see myself using those once-foreign symbols as part of my messaging jargon. I feel it softens communication with the other person. The effect is similar to that of a smile; you can say anything while smiling and it won't look so aggressive. If you message without healthy utilization of these symbols, the negative effect is similar to that of ending texts with period marks. No matter the content, the tone will seem aggressive.