In social applications, emoticons, with their unique advantage of "a picture being worth a thousand words", have quickly occupied people's chat interfaces. In China, this phenomenon has spawned the vigorous development of a "light IP" industry centered on emoticons.

Take "Changgcao Yantuanzi" (Grass-Growing Face Dango) launched by Beijing Shierdong Culture Communication Co., Ltd. as an example. This cute white dumpling-like image is deeply loved by the public. The cumulative download volume and usage volume of its emoticons have exceeded 1.3 billion times and 35 billion times respectively. Moreover, "Changgcao Yantuanzi" has successfully achieved IP development, deriving a variety of peripheral products such as dolls, ornaments and throw pillows from emoticons, which have entered people's daily lives.

Equally popular is "Xiao Lan and His Friends" (Little Blue and His Friends), a set of emoticons featuring several stick figures wearing tops of different colors. With its highly recognizable expressions, rich body language and diverse character personalities, it is widely sought after by netizens. Less than two years after the emoticons were launched, the related peripheral products have brought tens of millions of yuan in revenue to the brand, and its commercial value has even surpassed that of established IPs such as Disney and Harry Potter.

The prosperity of the emoticon economy has also given birth to a new profession - WeChat emoticon designer. Most practitioners are young people, mainly in the form of "light entrepreneurship" teams. As long as one has certain design and art skills and captures the emotional needs that young people want to convey, it is possible to create "viral" emoticons that become popular across the internet.

However, with the continuous expansion of the scale of the emoticon economy, problems have gradually emerged. Currently, China's domestic emoticon economy is in a stage of "having many images but few IPs", lacking a distinctive brand strategy and a sound development system. At the same time, the relevant supervision policies still need to be further improved to guide the healthy development of the industry. Nevertheless, this does not prevent the emoticon economy from becoming a unique phenomenon in the development of China's cultural and creative industry, demonstrating the great charm of the cultural and creative market.