Friendships through the style choice of virtual stickers: Young adults manage aesthetic identity and emotion on a social messaging line app

Abstract

With social media and modern pop culture (e.g., virtual stickers) reshaping social dynamics, young Taiwanese consumers who engage in social messaging via the Line app are introducing new interaction avenues that change communication habits and style choices to meet their tastes and interpersonal needs. This article analyzes the links between style choice and young consumers' experiences to elucidate the contours of virtual sticker possession when managing aesthetic identity and emotions for friendships. The methodological approach to this research follows the principles of interpretive phenomenology. The results demonstrate that Taiwanese culture's consolidating forces clash with alternative styles in the different contexts of friendships. In terms of modern pop culture and Taiwanese cultural reflexivity, young consumers are contemplating the possibilities of embracing new ways of managing their friendships.

WeChat online visual language among Chinese Gen Z: virtual gift, aesthetic identity, and affection language

“…Excluding the personal factors of personality and aesthetic preferences, this phenomenon is also related to masculinity and femininity in social norms. In line with the gender norm in conventional culture, for young females, such a preferred style shows the "feminine" identity and encourages them to build their image as caregivers or supporters of their friends (Chen, 2019). In the Chinese tradition, women are expected to be caregivers, and tenderness and empathy are considered their best qualities (Chen, 2019); thus, they are influenced by these traditional beliefs and use visual languages with cute, emotional stickers to present the ideal "caregiver" image.…”

El auge de los ‘stickers’ en WhatsApp y la evolución de la comunicación digital

“…El planteamiento del trabajo pretende superar determinadas limitaciones de encuestas anteriores. Por un lado, la mayoría de los estudios de encuesta publicados hasta la fecha han centrado su atención en los emojis (Miller et al, 2016;Sampietro, 2020) o bien en los stickers (Al-Maroof et al, 2019;Chen, 2021;Carmelino y Kogawa, 2020;López Gómez, 2020) y no se ha comparado el uso de diferentes recursos visuales. Por otra parte, los escasos estudios que sí han considerado emojis y stickers al mismo tiempo se han concentrado en variables muy específicas.…”