Graphicon Evolution on the Chinese Social Media Platform BiliBili

Abstract

This study examines the evolutionary trajectory of graphicons in a 13-year corpus of comments from BiliBili, a popular Chinese video-sharing platform. Findings show that emoticons (kaomoji) rose and fell in frequency, while emojis and stickers are both presently on the rise. Graphicon distributions differ in comments and replies to comments. There is also a strong correlation between the types of graphicons used in comments and their corresponding replies, suggesting a priming effect. Finally, qualitative analysis of the 10 most-frequent kaomojis, emojis, and stickers reveals a trend for each successive graphicon type to become less about emotion expression and more integrated with platform-specific culture and the Chinese language. These findings lend partial support to claims in the literature about graphicon evolution.

Tasks

Reproductions