Graphicon Evolution on the C hinese Social Media Platform B ili B ili (2022)

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.

## introduction graphicons are graphical icons used in text-based computer-mediated communication @xcite . from the first use of :-) in 1982 @xcite to the varied and colorful stickers on social media today, graphicons have changed dramatically. ascii emoticons, the first graphicons, were composed of keyboard symbols and were typically used for expressing emotion. emoticons in the western context emphasize the mouth and are read at a 90-degree angle to the words (e.g., :-) for a smiley), while kaomoji (literally 'face letters'), a style of emoticon that arose in japan and also became popular in china, are read in-line with words and emphasize the eyes (e.g., ^_^ or ^^) @xcite . kaomojis express not only emotions, but also actions, objects, and story lines. 1 1 http://kaomoji.ru/en/ , retrieved april 5, 2022. emojis were adopted globally after apple included them in the iphone in 2010 @xcite . emoji are more colorful, more representational (as opposed to schematic), and express a wider array of concepts than ascii emoticons. stickers, which were introduced a few years after emojis, take these trends further @xcite . usually larger than emoticons and emojis, stickers may include text; this is typical of stickers used on chinese social media (e.g., see the examples in de seta, 2018; ge, 2020). stickers are character-driven illustrations or animations that are typically offered as thematic sets on social media platforms (de seta, 2018), although social media users in china may also create their own stickers @xcite . extensive studies have addressed the meaning, function, and usage of each type of graphicon in different cultural contexts (e.g., @xcite @xcite @xcite . interrelations among the three types, however, have not attracted much attention until recently. studies have explored the uses of the three graphicon types @xcite , user perceptions of the three types @xcite , and the evolutionary trends they follow @xcite . while these studies provide rich insights, the first two mainly used qualitative methods, and the latter analyzed contemporary data, despite making diachronic claims. their findings remain to be verified by empirical comparison of graphicon use in longitudinal data. ## findings the findings are presented in two parts. the first part reports the frequency distribution of the graphicons over time. the second part presents a qualitative analysis of the most frequently used graphicons in terms of what they suggest about trends in chinese graphicon evolution. ## conclusion further, our analysis of a large longitudinal dataset went beyond reporting overall frequencies of occurrence to explore more finegrained distinctions between types and tokens and differences in graphicon usage between comments and replies to comments. we also provided statistical evidence for priming effects on graphicon usage in comments and replies. these contributions reveal the complexities of graphicon evolution on bilibili and generate additional research questions.