I want to talk about one of the most influential images in China — expressions.
Expressions are often in JPG, PNG, or GIF format. Use a picture or an action to express your emotions. It could be called the advanced version of emoji.
These two images are very popular in China. Every you want to express confusion or shock, you could use them. Even its meaning is same with ???, it looks stronger than ?. It’s easy to see the emotion in these pictures, even if you don’t know the person in the picture.
Pictures have never been so widely used in life. It can be said that most Chinese people who use Internet chat will have some of their favorite expressions.
Many people find them interesting. Couples can make fun of them.
Two people who have just met can promote their relationship by sending each other funny looks.
If you like animals, there are many expressions of cats, dogs, rabbits or other animals.
There are even many expressions just with words Don’t ask the reason, they may just want to use images.
With the popularity of expressions, some interesting things have happened. A person may become very famous simply because of popular expressions. Some out-of-date stars will come to the public’s attention because of reading expressions. Some products may even sell more because of their expressions. So netizens spread everything they thought was funny, and some businessmen began trying to use expressions to advertise. But few have actually succeeded in using expressions to make a killing because it’s harder to guess the interest of Internet users than it is to make a good product.
Considering the reason for the popularity of expressions, I think it’s the
raising of people’s threshold. In fact, people today are harder to please. Many Chinese people’s favorite music forms, film and television forms, novel forms have undergone great changes in today, they may be more and more pursuit of simple strong stimulation. Objectively, with the development of communication technology, it is possible to spread pictures quickly, and this method that can spread and be read a lot of information and emotions in a short time has become popular. Traditional writing and technology are getting more and more boring for some young people.
Even though it may seem ridiculous to many people, young people are creating a new culture. In the future, the way of publicity and communication may also change. I can’t say whether this change is good or bad, but the era of expressions seems unstoppable.
Qingyu Meng 