The Baba Kiko LINE Sticker as a Creator’s Virtual
Representation
E Franzia
1
Faculty of Art and Design, Universitas Trisakti, Jakarta, Indonesia
1
{eldafranzia@gmail.com
1
}
Abstract. The use of a mobile phone’s instant messenger application is a new
form of virtual community. As a digital society, it is melted in the global
mediasphere. LINE is one of the instant messenger applications that contain
many users in 19 languages from 230 nations all over the world (Beritasatu.com).
The LINE sticker is one of the popular features among LINE users. The Baba
Kiko LINE sticker is the object of the research. This sticker is designed by an
independent creator from Indonesia and published in the LINE sticker shop. The
Baba Kiko LINE sticker showed a unique character of women. This paper
analyzed the meaning of the Baba Kiko LINE sticker as a virtual representation
of the creator. The method used is the visual semiotic method including the
syntactic dimension, semantic dimension, and pragmatic dimension. The result
of this research is the understanding of mixed culture in the creator’s background
that affected the design of the Baba Kiko LINE sticker in the syntactic dimension,
semantic dimension, and pragmatic dimension.
Keywords: Virtual, Representation, Character, LINE Sticker, Baba Kiko
1. Introduction
The development of communication technology and digital media is the basis of many
instant messenger applications that are used in the daily communication of modern society.
Each application has a different feature and a unique one for the users. One with many users in
Indonesia is the LINE instant messenger. LINE was developed by NHN Corporation from
Japan. First released in June 2011, LINE was used only in the iOS and Android operating
systems at first, later integrating into the Blackberry and Windows Phone operating system.
There are 101 million users of the LINE application from 230 countries in the world. LINE is
the top position in the category of free applications in 42 countries, including Japan, Taiwan,
Spain, Russia, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia [1]. The LINE application
underwent innovations to better engage their users by developing the LINE characters, namely
Cony, Moon, Brown, and Sally. Those characters are primary characters in the LINE
application. Besides the primary characters are also James, Boss, Jessica, and Choco. Choco is
Brown’s sister. Each character unique and contains different background stories. Those
characters are the mascots of LINE that have been designed and packaged to interest and
express the user’s countenance in communication.
The LINE characters had published and promoted through LINE sticker. Users can
download the LINE characters’ sticker in the Sticker Shop. LINE stickers formerly only
WESTECH 2018, December 08, Medan, Indonesia
Copyright © 2019 EAI
DOI 10.4108/eai.8-12-2018.2283849