When your cat prefers sweet potato to canned tuna

July 22, 2021 12:24 PM

Ryan adopts street cat Choonsik. Korean mega-messaging app KakaoTalk's most popular character is a lion who looks like a bear because he has no mane (he's a bit insecure about his short tail as well). Who are the Kakao Friends?

Over 97% of smartphone users in Korea are active users of Kakao (pdf of investor report).

posted by spamandkimchi (5 comments total)

That is *impressive* market penetration, yeesh. The adoption cartoon is very cute, too.
posted by tavella at 6:11 PM on July 22, 2021

I mean Kakao bought Daum right? And they are also a bank and mobile game distributor and and and. So yeah I guess messaging is their first thing, but it is also a lot more than that.
posted by Literaryhero at 6:25 PM on July 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

tavella: I have seen business cards with Kakaotalk account IDs as contact info instead of phone numbers and addresses. Since Kakaotalk offers voice chat and nearly everyone is on Kakaotalk, you can pretty much use your mobile phone like a normal phone but without ever actually using the phone function (and by bypassing the telcos, also talk to people internationally for, basically, free). They are effectively a public utility.
posted by ardgedee at 6:30 PM on July 22, 2021 [4 favorites]

I have seen this character before - RM from BTS collects them, so it's nice to have context for the shelves and shelves of bear figurines in his VLives.
posted by HypotheticalWoman at 8:26 PM on July 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

Renowned Korean baker Ari (아리키친/ARIKITCHEN) baked a Choonsik cake a couple of weeks ago.
posted by soundofsuburbia at 12:38 AM on July 23, 2021 [1 favorite]