YINCHUAN－During this year's Spring Festival, Ma Rui made a meme by forming a collage of her portrait, images of firecrackers and golden coins. Ma sent it to relatives and friends on social media as her Lunar New Year greeting.

"Traditional text greetings are tedious. A meme sticker of myself is more creative and personal," said Ma, a 38-year-old working in Yinchuan, capital of the Ningxia Hui autonomous region.

As a regular meme maker, Ma has also made her cat and dog main characters in her creations. With her ever-increasing collection, she can deal with most online communications by sending memes instead of text messages.

On WeChat and QQ, China's most popular social networking apps, many users have developed the habit of collecting emoji and memes in their accounts, including those featuring celebrities, animals and cartoon characters. In fact, in November, WeChat unveiled six new emoji that became instant hits as they conveyed more vivid emotions, including sighing faces and rolling eyes.

Ma has been using emoji and memes on WeChat for about 10 years, but they were limited in the past.

In recent years, meme-making has become a trend, with the emergence of more designers and apps. With free apps, people can create their own memes and share them online.

As an industry, meme-making can also net designers decent incomes, injecting vitality into related products and industries.

"A good meme can accurately express what one means and reduce misunderstandings and embarrassment. This is why people need it," said Luo Yalong, a 30-year-old meme designer.

Luo created a cartoon character named "Little Chubby Inu". Using this character, he designed nearly 1,000 memes with different expressions, which have been used billions of times on WeChat since the platform was first introduced in 2017.

The image of the character has also been printed on T-shirts, mugs, cosmetics packages and popular drinks. This year, Luo opened an online store for Little Chubby Inu-themed products.

Li Jian, a young promoter of intangible cultural heritage, led her team to design a series of memes with cliff paintings from Helan Mountain in Ningxia, which have existed since ancient times.

"In this way, more young people in other places can learn about this cultural heritage," Li said.

By drawing inspiration from popular websites young people like to visit, Luo has become a prolific meme-maker, creating a new series of memes every two or three months.

"Attractive memes are emerging every day, while users' tastes are always changing. For us designers, it causes great pressure but also presents immense opportunities," Luo said.

Xinhua