The emote was added in October 2015, as part of the celebration of Twitch Creative. The emote doesn’t have a particular meaning and rather serves as a tribute to Bob Ross. The smug smile that DeSeno has in the picture was a major contributing factor to the emote becoming an alternative to Trollface, which was popular at the time. As Twitch steadily gained in popularity in the early 2010s, so, too, did Kappa.
Kappa is a grayscale photo of Josh DeSeno, a former employee of Justin.tv, a website created in 2007 to allow anyone to broadcast videos online. One part of Justin.tv became hugely popular—its gaming section. That section would later split off into a separate website, known as Twitch.
Documented by Twitch user Lirik, this almost nine-hour video shows both Lirik and a number of other Twitch users using the Kappa emote as much as they can during the stream. Ultimately, Lirik came out first, having used the emote 12,087 times in 60 seconds. This website, claimed to be created by a user named OptionalField, detailed not only how many times Kappa was used per minute on Twitch but many other emotes. The black-and-white emoticon of a slightly smirking man bubbled up from the depths of the streaming community in 2011 and quickly became ubiquitous in online gaming circles.
Like a lot of emotes on the site, it’s sometimes spammed relentlessly. There’s no better way to emphasize just how kappa something is than by absolutely flooding the chat with the image. Over time, this simple image https://www.day-trading.info/currency-converter-calculator/ detached from its original meaning. It transformed, becoming a symbol of irony and humor on Twitch and beyond. And just like that, a staff member’s ID photo evolved into one of the internet’s most recognized memes.
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. This variation is mainly used in chats of Dota 2 related streams. In this variation, DeSeno’s head is edited to have a Santa Claus hat. The emote has the same meaning as Kappa and sees increased usage during the winter holidays. Despite the seasonal connotations, the emote’s daily usage averages around 150,000.
In 2015, Kappa was being used on Twitch an average of 1 million times per day on average. What came after was a number of responses as users came together to try and figure out where the golden Kappas came from and how they could get them. In 2007, Justin.tV was founded to allow anyone to stream content online.
But even if you’ve never used livestreaming site Twitch before, you may have seen the phrase used online. The Kappa icon, predominantly seen on Twitch, represents sarcasm, irony, or a joke. When used in a chat, it suggests that the preceding statement should be taken with a pinch of humor or skepticism. When someone says Kappa on platforms like Twitch, it indicates sarcasm or irony. The term is used to signify that the statement should not be taken seriously.
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. However, the wealth was limited somewhat, since whoever is surprised with the golden Kappa is only able to use it for one day. While the Ancient Romans did use the letter Kappa in their alphabet, the emote is actually based on a Japanese water spirit in folklore. Josh Deseno loved Japanese folklore and named the emote after the creature when he uploaded the image to Twitch. The emoticon is a mashup of the popular Kappa emote with Bob’s distinctive hair.
Justin.tv was created in 2007 as a web platform for broadcasting videos. From all of the channels featured on the website, the channel dedicated to games, Twitch, quickly became the most popular on the website. Twitch’s increasing popularity prompted Justin.tv to make a separate website in 2011 which is how Twitch.tv came to be. Kappa is a Twitch emote that is generally best online brokers for buying and selling cryptocurrency in march 2021 used to relay sarcasm or as an “eye-roll” response to something the Twitch streamer says or does on screen. Known as a “troll” emote, Kappa is often spammed in chat when someone is sarcastic or checking to see if they have the Golden Kappa. This emote is gifted to a Twitch user for 24 hours, seemingly at random, and it’s an event every time one appears in a chatroom.
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. Luci is a novelist, freelance writer, and active blogger. 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.
The emoticon is also used to troll League of Legends streamers. One of the most popular variants is KappaPride, a rainbow version that was created after the United States Supreme Court ruled that same-sex https://www.topforexnews.org/books/download-the-final-trade-audiobook-by-joe-hart/ couples were allowed to marry in 2015. As Kappa grew in popularity, artists and Twitch streamers created variants of the popular emoticon. Still, there’s a good chance you don’t know what it means.
If you want to know more about internet memes, also read our article on Kekw. 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+.
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. It is usually typed at the end of a string of text, but, as can often the case on Twitch, it is also often used on its own or repeatedly (to spam someone).