what is the kappa meme

The channel dedicated to gaming, Twitch, was so popular that it became its own site, Twitch.tv, in 2011. Well, in the viral content age, it’s difficult to truly know why something flourishes. DeSeno’s face, taken from his photo ID, embodies the troll and trash-talking culture of the internet, especially when it comes to the world of online gaming. The Golden Kappa emote is an easter egg on the Twitch platform. It will randomly be given to best forex crm for brokers altima cloud crm for mt4 a user on Twitch for a period of time before it disappears again.

Created in conjunction to the release of Twitch’s creative directory and to celebrate Bob Ross. Released in December 2015, this emote is generally used as a substitute for Kappa during the holiday season.

Kappa Meaning

what is the kappa meme

Then you will probably know about options trading Keepo, the combination of Kappa and Meepo, the popular hero from the game. As you expect, the emoticon is usually used in Dota 2 live streams and peaks during the Dota 2’s The International. The emoticon is also used to troll League of Legends streamers.

How popular is Kappa?

Those numbers are so high partially because Twitch users don’t just post one kappa at a time. Kappa is a Twitch chat emote used to convey sarcasm and sometimes used to troll others. It is a grayscale picture of Josh DeSeno, who at that time worked for Justin.tv., the website whose gaming section was later separated and rebranded as Twitch. DeSeno added the grayscale version of his employee ID photograph and named it Kappa after a demon or imp in Japanese folktales, dating back to the 19th century. The Kappa emote (or just the word “kappa”) is used either at the end of a message or spammed in the chat to imply sarcasm, irony, or just the act of trolling. DeSeno has explained that he was a huge fan of Japanese mythology and named his emote Kappa, after the turtle-like, Japanese water spirit of the same name.

Golden Kappa

Kappa started appearing on Twitter (in the text-based form #Kappa) in 2011 thanks to Twitch users and Twitch’s own account. Golden Kappa replaces the original Kappa in the chat seemingly at random and on random channels. Because of the spontaneous nature of the emote, the metrics show low daily usage, but recent spikes on May 13th, 2021, and May 22nd, 2021 registered usage of 2,950 and 1,445 respectively. This one has a rainbow palette on DeSeno’s face, which in this context denotes the LGBTQ+ pride flag. The emote is used in the chat to either inquire or confirm someone being part of the LGBTQ+.

what is the kappa meme

As Kappa grew in popularity, artists and Twitch streamers created variants of the popular emoticon. In 2014, Justin.tv was shut down by its parent company to shift the focus entirely to its more popular “son,” Twitch.tv. However, the Kappa emote has remained incredibly popular among Twitch users, even though Josh DeSeno has since left the company. The most gimmicky and elusive native emote on Twitch, Golden Kappa features the original emote in a shiny gold coloring. Multiple theories and myths surround the emote’s appearance in chats and Twitch never officially confirmed or denied any of the claims, making it seem like an elaborate joke by Twitch. Despite the mysterious origins and meaning, the emote sees daily average usage of around 150,000.

Kappa, also known as ‘Greyface,’ ‘Trollface,’ The brand ambassador of Twitch’ etc. is in my opinion an icon of the gaming world and the most popular emoji used in Twitch Chat. Kappa is an informal name given to the picture of Josh Kappa, a former Twitch (then called Justin.tv) employee captured in greyscale where the man casts a look of utter sarcasm. A journalist at heart, she loves nothing more than interviewing the outliers of the gaming community who are blazing a trail with entertaining original content. When she’s not penning an article, coffee in hand, she can be found gearing her shieldmaiden or playing with her son at the beach. The “Kappa Guy” is Josh Deseno, a former employee of then Justin.tv (later Twitch) who was responsible for uploading the Twitch global emotes.

  1. Well, in the viral content age, it’s difficult to truly know why something flourishes.
  2. When she’s not penning an article, coffee in hand, she can be found gearing her shieldmaiden or playing with her son at the beach.
  3. Twitch also ran a nonstop marathon of all the episodes of “The Joy of Painting” on the bobross Twitch channel.
  4. According to StreamElements Chat Stats, Kappa is the ninth top Twitch emote in use and has been sent over one billion times on Twitch.
  5. Twitch’s increasing popularity prompted Justin.tv to make a separate website in 2011 which is how Twitch.tv came to be.

As you learn more about web, apps and software development blog the top emotes on Twitch, you will be able to better understand all of their definitions and how you can use them to replace words on the popular streaming platform. In addition to the emote, people will either type the word “Kappa” or speak the word to convey the same meaning. Many more variants of Kappa appear from time to time, like KappaClaus for Christmas, but Twitch has actually disallowed anyone from making their own versions of Kappa for their channel emotes. One of the most popular variants is KappaPride, a rainbow version that was created after the United States Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples were allowed to marry in 2015.

But even if you’ve never used livestreaming site Twitch before, you may have seen the phrase used online. Outside of Twitch, the word Kappa is used in place of the emote, also for sarcasm or spamming. The Kappa face appears on a wide array of merchandise, and in homage to it, many variations of it have been made. Kappa is widely used on Twitch in chats to signal you are being sarcastic or ironic, are trolling, or otherwise playing around with someone.

However, the wealth was limited somewhat, since whoever is surprised with the golden Kappa is only able to use it for one day. “When I was in a stream recently, someone started to write golden Kappas. So the question is, how to get this golden Kappa,” they wrote. In a Reddit AMA on the phenomenon, DeSeno said he picked the name because it was short—most emotes at the time were lengthy—but he never expected to be popular. Maybe you’re just not embedded in gaming culture, or have been too embarrassed to ask someone.

This doesn’t include the hundreds of other Kappa variations made by other streamers or BTTV and FrankerFaceZ emotes. Twitch used to have an employee named Josh Kappa back when it was Justin.tv. Kappa the monochrome face received popularity for being synonymous with either sarcasm or trolling and they kept the emote after he left.

One part of Justin.tv became hugely popular—its gaming section. That section would later split off into a separate website, known as Twitch. Here is the official list of all the Kappa emotes available right now through Twitch’s native Twitch chat.