“I am proud to be able to plan and produce ‘KakaoTalk emoticons’ that I thought only experts could do.”
Arom (22, pseudonym), the author of ‘Cute Bear 메이저놀이터Djoli’, who was chosen as the rising emoticon star of the year by Kakao users, said this in an interview with the Korea Economic Daily on the 14th. In the information and communication technology ( ICT ) industry, ‘KakaoTalk emoticon writer’ is emerging as a new occupational group. In KakaoTalk chatting, the ‘national messenger’, emoticons that express the user’s situation and emotions have been formed as a sales market.
Author Arom is a new artist who debuted in September 2020 with the emoticon “I’m not a pig.” His true identity is a college student majoring in Western painting. Recently, he started to attract attention after 3 years of initiation by introducing ‘Cute Pojjak Pojjag Djooli’. Author Arom said, “With the thought that he wanted to use his own emoticon in the chat window, he decided to take on the challenge after drawing on the ‘iPad’.”
The process of becoming a KakaoTalk emoticon writer was not easy. He had to pass through the gateway from Kakao to Xian. KakaoTalk emoticon is a structure in which drafts with 24 actions are created, submitted, and approved. Usually, the work is carried out in such a way that 100 lines or actions of the emoticon character are designed and 24 of them are selected. Author Arom recalled, “In the beginning, I was rejected several times for about three months.”
Even after release, there were many concerns. This is because the first work did not receive much attention. As of November last year, there were 500,000 emoticons in KakaoTalk. There are about 10,000 emoticon writers. It is not easy to stand out among them.
Author Arom said, “I wanted to create emoticons that more people can relate to and enjoy using. This time, the main targets for targeting were also set in the 10s to 20s. He said, “I studied facial expressions and movements that can be used comfortably when I want to express a cute image in the Kakao Talk window.”
The result was successful. ‘Cute Bear’ was selected as one of the ‘KakaoTalk Emoticon Rising Star Top 3’ selected by Kakao last June. Rising Star is a plan promoted by Kakao’s strategy to discover and nurture ‘Kakao Talk emoticon star writers’ like ‘webtoon star writers’. A total of 8.72 million votes were cast with 5.84 million people participating in the vote, one vote per day for two weeks. ‘Cute Bear’ won a total of 610,000 votes and came in third.
Writer Arom said, “We are thinking about ways to build a worldview for the ‘Gomdyoli series’ and introduce additional Gomdyoly friends and family.”
Recently, ‘revenue’ has begun to form in earnest in the bank account. KakaoTalk emoticons share 5 to 5 between Kakao and the artist when sales occur, excluding app market fees. Writer Arom said, “I can’t reveal the specific income, but I’m not receiving my parents’ allowance.” He continued, “The advantage of being an emoticon writer is that there are no time and space restrictions on the work,” and emphasized, “I want to create emoticons at the same time no matter what job I have after graduating from university.”