More than just cute: Kakao emoticons become bellwether of Korea's investor zeitgeist

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More than just cute: Kakao emoticons become bellwether of Korea's investor zeitgeist

Published: 25 Mar. 2026, 10:01 Updated: 25 Mar. 2026, 11:28

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Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

An image of a person using their smartphone [GETTY IMAGES]

Every time the Korean stock market swings sharply, something else moves along with it: the emoticon live rankings on KakaoTalk, the country's dominant instant messaging app. When the Kospi surges, emojis saying "it's going up" rank first. When the market plummets, crying parrot emojis screaming " tteok-rak" (Korean investor slang for an extreme plunge) take their place.

The Kospi told you the number. Kakao told you how it felt.

On Monday morning, the Kospi opened five percent lower, triggering a sell-side trading curb at 9:18 a.m, the sixth case this year alone. By 9:30 a.m., the keyword “market crash” climbed to No.1 on Kakao’s most searched emoticon keywords live ranking. By 9:45 a.m., crying parrots and weeping cartoon characters, devastated by plummeting stock prices, were flooding the rankings.

KakaoTalk's emoticons are animated, character-based stickers used in the messenger app to express texters' emotions and enhance conversations. They are widely used to communicate tone and reactions, even replacing conversation. They often feature popular characters or cute animals. The emoticons differ from Western emojis, which are standardized, minimalistic pictograms, in that they offer countless options, with diverse characters and themes for each user's taste.

There were 850,000 emoticon options on KaKaoTalk as of November 2025. Users can pay 2,500 won ($1.67) for a set of 24 to 32 emoticons.

Monday morning was not the first time the Kospi’s turbulence had been reflected in an unexpected ranking.

On the morning of March 9, the Korea Exchange triggered a full circuit breaker at 10:31 a.m. — halting all trading as the Kospi collapsed more than 8 percent. But millions of Koreans had already seen it coming. Forty-six minutes earlier, at 9:45 a.m., "market crash" was trending at No. 3 on Kakao's live emoticon ranking, with cartoon parrots screaming and characters weeping over nose-diving price charts. The official circuit breaker took effect at 10:31, but the emotional one occurred on Kakao 46 minutes earlier.

KaKaoTalk's emoticon keyword search live ranking on March 5, with ″I should have bought then″ on No.3 on the left and the ranking on March 23 with ″it's crashing″ on No.1 on the right. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

Four days before, on the morning of March 5, Korean stock investors bonded over FOMO, or the fear of missing out. Fueled by the Kospi surging nearly 10 percent just a day after it plunged 12 percent, the collective regret from those who missed the opportunity was so strong that it triggered a buy-side trading halt on the Korea Exchange, an automatic stock market suspension caused by an excessive number of purchases.

The extreme fluctuation put the keyword "I should have bought then" at No. 3 on Kakao's live emoticon ranking by 9:51 a.m., with dozens of emoticons featuring weeping characters looking at the soaring stock chart.

Emoticons may seem like nothing more than cute, animated characters, but Kakao's "real-time" recommendations system is proving to be a bellwether of retail investor sentiment in the stormy seas of the Korean stock market.

In particular, KakaoTalk Emoticon Plus is an immediate mirror of the national mood. Kakao's Emoticon Plus is a paid monthly subscription priced around 4,000 won, depending on which app store you use. When a user types their message, the subscription identifies keywords and offers emoticon options for that keyword and its context.

An image of a hand holding a phone filled with symbols of online chat speech bubbles, hearts and icons [GETTY IMAGES PRO]

For example, if a user types "market crash" on a bad morning, a crying cartoon character screaming that word will appear instantly. The service's "trending right now" tab shows a real-time ranking of the keywords 2.5 million paying users are typing in their private chats, as well as the words converted into emoticons.

When this reporter joined a public KakaoTalk stock-themed group chat on Wednesday morning, one user faced a real-time dilemma about whether to sell their Hyundai Motor shares and buy Samsung instead. Another user responded not with words but with an emoticon depicting a character declaring "[They] turned red" — in Korea, red signals a rise in the stock price.

"The Kospi is a public socioeconomic event, but the emotions it triggers are deeply personal," said Choi Hoon, a professor of cognitive and social psychology at Hallym University. "This phenomenon shows raw, often illogical human emotions based on the fight-or-flight instinct, behind closed doors, triggered by the volatile stock market."

A man uses a mobile phone with a white background. [GETTY IMAGES PRO]

As of last November, 93 percent of smartphone users in Korea use KakaoTalk. It is the most-used app in Korea, with over 48 million monthly active users. More than 300 billion emoticons have been sent between its users since 2011, according to Kakao Corporation's 2025 report.

Emojis in other countries are free and universal. Anyone can send a yellow crying-face emoji at any time on any subject. Kakao emoticons, on the other hand, are paid and intentionally designed for a specific situation. Kakao Emoticon Plus has surpassed 20 million accumulated users since its launch in 2021, with 2.5 million paying subscribers as of November 2024.

That distinction is reflected in the data. When the market moves in Korea, it shows up not just in trading volumes, but also in emoticon sales.

Comparison between Western emojis on the left and Korean KaKaoTalk emoticons on the right [GETTY IMAGES PRO, SCREEN CAPTURE]

"Western emojis are about the core of the emotion — a universal symbol in its purest form. Kakao emoticons are about relationships and moments. How you express emotion, and to whom, matters as much as the emotion itself," said Min Jeong-ah, adjunct professor at the Graduate School of Arts and Cultural Management at Hongik University.

One popular emoji used by retail investors is Cceolmusae the Stock Expert Parrot, a screaming green parrot yelling "it's up" or "it's plummeting" in front of the corresponding stock chart.

"Sends on March 4 — the day the Kospi recorded its biggest single-day crash — were up 100 percent compared to Nov. 5, when the market rallied. People reach for these emoticons far more when they are losing than when they are winning," said the designer of Cceolmusae the Stock Expert Parrot, who requested anonymity. "My sales over the past few months alone have exceeded everything I made since the emoticon launched in April 2022 through 2024, combined."

As of Monday, the Korean stock market was experiencing extreme volatility, with 10 trading curbs and one full circuit breaker that halted all trading for 20 minutes. Since wrapping up 2025 at a record-breaking 4,214.17 points, the market surged about 47 percent from Jan. 2 to this year's peak of 6347.41 on Feb. 27 midday.

In March alone, it saw a record-breaking 12 percent crash on March 4, its worst single-day decline, and a sharp, approximately 10 percent rebound the following day.

Similar to Kakao's emoticon user demographic, the Kospi relies heavily on individual retail traders, known as "ant traders." According to Korea Exchange data, individual traders accounted for the largest share of trading on the Kospi on March 5, responsible for about 45 percent of total turnover, compared to roughly 33 percent for foreign investors and 22 percent for institutions. It was the ants who led the charge on March 5, culminating in the biggest rebound rate since 2008.

A KaKaoTalk user sends an emoticon on their chat rooms [LEE JI-WON]

"This is a uniquely Korean phenomenon where group mentality meets technology," Choi said. "When the market crashes, people don't sulk in silence. They open their online group chats. They want compassion. They want to know they aren't alone — that others are on the same boat. It's a search for solidarity."

The emojis indicate more than just investor sentiment; they serve as a weather vane for Korea's biggest trends.

For instance, when this reporter checked the live ranking on a sunny morning of March 5, at 9:45 a.m., the No. 1 keyword was "It's going to rain." Later that day, Seoul experienced sleeting rain. Monday mornings' rankings are often dominated by "I'm late" or "morning coffee." The lunch hour rankings see "have a good lunch" followed by "food coma" a couple of hours later.

"Given KakaoTalk's dominant position in Korea, the rankings can reveal meaningful emotional value," said Min.

BY LEE JI-WON [[email protected]]