China's most widely used online messaging platform WeChat also helps spread the facial expression stickers as it's easier to find or send such stickers through WeChat than their foreign peers.

"I think using stickers sets a leisurely playful tone to my WeChat conversations," said Kevin, an international student in Beijing. "They undoubtedly add personality and humor to conversation, but I generally don't like to spend a lot of time on my phone as I often have other things going on."

Though enjoyed by many, such stickers could be confusing and annoying, too.

"Sometimes when you open the group chats, boom! A full screen of weird stickers pop up," Miao said.

While those light-hearted stickers flooded China's cyberspace, some fear whether stickers will replace the written language or even threaten its purity.

But Han, a linguistics lecturer from the Capital Normal University, said such concerns might be overblown.

"In general, I don't think they will significantly affect how Chinese language is being used," she said, because stickers are only applied in instant messaging.

"We may, however, observe changes in how those susceptible to sub-culture recognize and process visual information in the long run. Say, changes in their short-term memory capacities due to disruptive, graphic insertions into written texts," she added.

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