Twitch streamer Sushipotato recently noticed that an elderly Japanese man who looked familiar during one of her IRL streams said that the man resembled a popular Twitch emote KEKW.
Sushipotato called the elderly man’s attention, pointing out how similar he looked to the laughing emote. This resulted in a hilarious moment in which a stranger appeared to be one of Twitch’s most popular emotes.
The video begins with the Twitch streamer pleading with the elderly Japanese man to watch her stream. Sushipotato tells the Japanese man what’s going on while the elderly man looks on.
The Japanese man grinned as he watched the said KEKW emote appear in Sushipotato’s chat after she informed chat that the man wanted to see it. The two strangers laugh together as the KEKW emote is repeatedly spammed in the chat, creating a heartwarming moment.
KEKW is one of Twitch’s top 15 emotes, and it’s used almost everywhere on the platform. Emotes are one of Twitch’s most popular and widely used modes of communication. Emotes are universal, and the whole language isn’t, Twitch has a global audience.
Emotes are known to be used for expressing a wide range of emotions, and while each Sushipotato’s community has its own, some, like KEKW, are universal.
The KEKW emote is based on comedian Juan Joya Borja and is also known as Spanish Guy Laughing or Man Behind Laughing Guy. While not everyone understands Spanish, the man’s laugh, facial expressions, and mannerisms make the laughter contagious.
Juan Joya Borja, mid-laugh, mouth open, is the KEKW emote. It’s commonly used to represent laughter on Twitch, but KEK has two sources. KEK is the Korean version of LOL, but it also has World of Warcraft roots. When a Horde player writes LOL in chat, Alliance players interpret it as KEK.
In the KEKW emote, the W is a suffix. It denotes an exaggerated expression, such as a particularly loud laugh. When streamers like xQc started using KEKW, it exploded, and it’s now a worldwide phenomenon. When the KEKW emote appears, people know there’s something worth laughing about.
