Stickers
Unlike Emojis and Emoticons that came about to fill a need, Stickers were originally designed as a unique selling point for the instant messaging service Line. A South Korean company named Nevar started producing a mobile data based messaging service and wanted a feature to stand out against the competition and stickers was the answer to this.
The popularity of stickers is coincidental with the popularity of Line. Line was set to launch in 2011 in Japan, and ended up launching shortly after the Tohoku earthquake. This natural disaster devastated the countries infrastructure and many telephone lines and power stations were out of commission as a result. Most of Japan’s telephone companies were under a lot of pressure and the service became slow and unreliable so the alternative of a mobile data based messaging service such as Line became very popular.
The first sticker set on the messaging service entitled ‘Line Friends’ became very popular and has since expanded into it’s own brand, selling merchandise. Stickers became hugely popular in Japan, quickly spreading to other platforms and services, until in 2013 where they started to emerge in the west, with Facebook leading the way of implementing stickers onto their platform in 2013.
“Stickers are different than emoticons. They’re detailed illustrations of characters with personality. Sending stickers is a way to share how you’re feeling with your friends.” – Facebook
Russell, J. (2018). Stickers: From Japanese Craze to Global Messaging
Phenomenon. [online] The Next Web. Available at: https://thenextweb.com/asia/2013/07/12/stickers/ [Accessed 20 Oct.
2017].
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