Research On Network Self-made Emoticons And Their Functions

With the development of technology,the modern net citizens can better control the graphics and images.They are not satisfied with the emojis uniformed and systematized but interested in making memes on their own to communicate online,and such memes are tacitly approved as self-made memes.Self-made memes refer to the processed image communication symbols with abundant associative meanings,and they often have some connection with hot news,buzzwords and popular stars.For the existed studies of memes,most of them are from a totalistic perspective,and do not tell self-made memes from the whole.But in this thesis,a vivid study of self-made memes will be provided.It is different from the simple and uniformed ones supplied by some apps.It is a creative production belongs to all the net citizens,owning considerable originality and unique expression mode.At the beginning of the article,the author made a statement to readers about Memes.From the appearance of Memes to the gradual process of self-made Memes,the author divides them into three different stages and lists the main events that affect their development in each stage.After that,the related reasons for the self-made Memes were described from the aspects of symbols,technologies,and individuals.As a new research object,it is classified into three types according to the expressing forms.They are “self-made memes with only images”,“self-made memes with both images and words” and “self-made memes with only words”.The thesis makes a study of its meaning generate path and shows its “emotion-oriented”,“context-reconstruction” and “metaphor-understanding” features during the generating process.What’s more,combining with the Conceptual Integration Theory,it also makes a demonstration of the meaning-creating process.In this thesis,the author lists some common self-made memes used in recent times,and makes a multi-dimensioned analysis of different kinds of them.Specifically speaking,for self-made memes with only images,it clearly shows its “context reconstruction” function in meaning-creating process.When they are used,a new content dissociated from the present one is set,then the new topic is comparatively easily made and the new-grown mood can be better shown;as for self-made memes with both images and words,it plays an important role in “emotion-oriented” and “metaphor-understanding” process.Both words and images are indispensable parts in self-made memes,and all of them can lead people to metaphor their mood and thought;apropos of self-made memes with only words,the “occult-expressing” function is uncovered.That is to say,when net citizens are using such memes,they are actually of different levels of understanding.Some may focus on understanding images while the others pays more attention to words.For the functional part,self-made memes further filled the "cultural space" between the mainstream culture and the network subculture,stimulated the creativity of social culture,drove the community to finish various social movement.However,its existence itself has brought some new obstacles to communication.Self-made meme makers supposed themselves as the controller of everything,and the whole society has a tend to “narcissistic personality”.Also,that forms the “national amusement” common mood.The original intention of self-memes is to be a assistant in the communication,but there are something wrong in its practical application.