Memes are all the rage on WhatsApp
Fun with stickers
Door Tim van de Vendel
By Tim van de Vendel
Tim van de Vendel
‘I use them as often as I can’, says Yasmina Forsch. She proudly explains that she collects WhatsApp stickers. Whenever she hears that someone has a lot of stickers, she asks them to trade. ‘It’s like an exchange. When I was a kid, I used real stickers, now they’re digital.’
The student of English language and culture has quite a collection. However, she can’t keep using them all. ‘It’s very dynamic; approximately twenty stickers are relevant for a while, and then new ones take their place.’ She does keep track of the old ones, though, in case the perfect situation ever arises. ‘People sometimes reference older stickers. It’s all very context dependent.’
Background knowledge
A good sticker fits the context exactly. For that, you need background knowledge. ‘I have some stickers that are very specific, only a few friends would be able to understand them.’ Right now, Elmo is a popular sticker she and her friends use. ‘He’s a big meme and I love just dropping it in the conversation at random moments.’
That’s basically what the stickers are: simplified memes. They come and go, stop being fun after a while, and are very niche.
As a kid I traded real stickers, now they’re digital
Emma Smith is deeply involved in one of the Groningen sticker niches. The half-Frisian minorities and multilingualism student is the brains behind many a Frisian sticker. They’re mainly popular among members of her student association Bernlef. She loves seeing how young people use language this way. ‘It’s really amazing to see young Frisians still using the language and modernising it with things like this.’
What’s her favourite sticker? A photo of a friend of hers with the text net kostelik (niet kostelijk, not funny) under it. ‘I love turning pictures of friends in which they look weird into stickers.’ They share the stickers on a daily basis. ‘I have a sticker group chat with a few people in which we trade them all.’
She’s not sure what makes stickers so special. ‘It just adds an extra dimension.’ The stickers’ humour and how easy they are to use make them attractive to use at any moment of the day, she says. ‘You don’t have to upload or edit anything.’
Sharing emotions
That’s exactly why stickers are so attractive, says Berber Hagedoorn. She is an assistant professor in media studies and audio-visual culture and recently published a study into the use of WhatsApp among adults during the first lockdown. ‘Visual content is becoming much more prominent, hence this development’, she says. ‘Not only can you convey text or information, but also emotions and feelings.’
It’s amazing to see young Frisians modernise their language
WhatsApp is the perfect platform for this. ‘It allows for all these different forms of communication: audio, video, memes, emojis, photos, text, and stickers.’ These functions and how well-integrated they are in the app means the whole thing is a success. ‘Easy, simple, and accessible. Those are the words participants in the study used the most.’
Hagedoorn says that when it comes to stickers and memes, the offline relationship you have with people also comes into play. ‘It’s interesting to see how people interact and share certain humour outside of WhatsApp.’ The visual content also allows people to share information with a select few people online, strengthening the bond with them.
Rowing stickers
That explains the popularity of stickers that are specific to a single association. Before June Wallinga joined rowing club Gyas, she used all sorts of stickers. ‘Now I basically only use rowing stickers.’
The artificial intelligence student’s favourite sticker is a variation on the ‘bonk’ meme in which a dog hits another dog with a bat. In this particular case, the bat has been replaced with an oar. ‘A friend of mine sent it to me when I was out sick with a swollen cheek from an operation’, she says. ‘She didn’t know what had happened and three weeks later, she asked me if I’d really been in a fight.’
Before you know it, there are thirty stickers in the group chat
Every once in a while, she ends up in a ‘sticker battle’. ‘Someone will send a sticker, someone else replies with another, and before you know it there are thirty stickers in the group chat.’ Why? ‘People just want to show off their best stickers.’
Yasmina also has conversations with her friends in which no one types a single word. ‘All we do is send stickers to each other.’ Anyone familiar with their context, though, can read between the lines. ‘We somehow manage to get our meaning across’, she says. ‘Sometimes it’s just a much more fun way of communicating.’
Togetherness
Hagedoorn says this kind of communication during the lockdown made people feel a sense of togetherness even when they weren’t in the same room. ‘We also asked about other social media in the study, but WhatsApp was the most used by far.’
She thinks the app’s new functionality is the reason stickers are so popular. ‘People can now make them themselves and import them into the app’, she explains. ‘The question is now whether they’ll remain popular in the future.’
But even if other people stop using them, Emma will stick with them. ‘There are times when people use stickers less, but some are so good that I can’t stop using them!’ Not even if her friends were completely done with them after seeing them twice.