How Twitch emotes revolutionized Internet Culture
For when words are just not enough
Traversing the bizarre frontier of Internet culture, you may have stumbled upon some seemingly nonsense terms like ‘Kappa’, ‘PogChamp’, or ‘Kekw’, amongst many others. You have discovered the mother tongue of Twitch chat, commands that spawn emotes for viewers and streamers to express their feelings - for the moments when words are simply not enough.
Emotes are an integral cornerstone of Twitch culture, and its influence has spilled to every corner of the Internet. There is a suitable emote for almost any situation: celebrating the epic moments worth immortalizing, making fun of hilarious fails, expressing love and grief (F’s in the chat), and giving viewers the chance to feel like they are part of an engaged community. So pivotal to its culture are Twitch viewers, that they have been collectively referred to an entity simply known as ‘chat’. Hundreds of thousands of emotes are spammed across the site every second in the infinite scroll of ‘chat’, but have you ever wondered why or how this wacky tradition started?
Whether you’re a fluent veteran of Twitch-speak or literally have no idea what the f*ck is going on, this is the origin story of how Twitch emotes came to be and evolved into what they are today.
Many might be surprised to learn that emotes and ‘chat’ culture predate even Twitch. Its predecessor, Justin.tv, was a platform that featured a single live-streaming channel starring our very own Justin Kan. For some inexplicable reason (sorry Justin), people seemed to be interested in watching a twenty-four-seven stream of his life.
Prior to its launch in 2006, the co-founders of Justin.tv came up with a brilliant idea that would revolutionize the online content and media space. Instead of silent and passive voyeurs, what if the audience was an active and engaged participant in the live content experience? The team brainstormed ideas for ways in which viewers could talk and interact with each other and streamers and thus, ‘chat’ was born.
The founding fathers of Twitch argued incessantly about what features should be implemented in chat. They disagreed on the most minute details, such as the ability to customize color of names, and even spent an entire afternoon arguing about timestamp formats. One thing they did agree on however, was that all their faces should be added in to the chat. The first emotes were created with the following commands:
:JKanstyle: | Justin
:StoneLightning: | Michael
:OptimizePrime: | Emmett
:TheRinger: | Kyle
Fun fact: These emotes are still available on Twitch chat today, type them in to summon the forefathers of internet streaming!
The Birth of Kappa
Unsurprisingly, the content aspect of Justin.tv didn’t work out so great, but the platform did grow. After securing an initial venture round of $2 million, the team hired programmers to work on the site, and Josh DeSeno was one of them. You might recognize him as this guy.
A fresh intern in his early twenties at the time, Josh had extremely limited real-world programming experience, but was nonetheless responsible for building the chat function. The co-founders were self-admittedly terrible managers, and so Josh was left to his own devices to own the ‘chat’ feature.
Without any review processes in place, broken code was pushed to the site constantly with almost no oversight. At the same time, the team had stopped adding new emotes to the chat and it was largely kept as a secret - that is, until Josh (who was in charge of the code base) found the Easter Egg. Upon discovering the emotes of the Twitch founders, he decided to add his own face into the mix secretly. The keyword he chose was ‘Kappa’, a mythical Japanese trickster monster. Once viewers discovered Kappa (and how easy it was to spam), it became a popular method to troll and spam streamers in chat.
“By the time we realized that Josh had added himself to the chat, it was too late to tell him to take it out. Somehow it stuck, and (Kappa) became the internationally recognized symbol for ‘I’m trolling the shit out of you.’” - Justin
Josh eventually left the company, and Justin.tv pivoted to Twitch but the emotes remained and became a fundamental part of the site’s culture. As Twitch grew, more emotes were added - but Kappa still remains a staple and the most iconic emote on the site. It is used millions of times a day in Twitch chat and represents a revolutionary change in content consumption and active viewer engagement in Internet culture.
Here are some things to take away from this story:
Ask for forgiveness, not permission.
If Josh had asked the co-founders for permission to add his face as an emote, they probably would have said no. By brazenly doing it anyway, he created something of tremendous value simply by virtue of initiative.
You can’t plan innovation.
An environment that is conducive and encourages experimentation breeds the most innovative ideas. If you are managing a team, try to create and foster this type of culture instead of brute-forcing creativity.
If you’d like to learn more about Twitch emotes and their meanings, here’s a handy glossary of the most popular ones:
Check out the full story in Justin’s video:
Quest Minutes: Mathilde Collin
Radical Transparency:
Wellbeing in the workplace starts with transparency, vulnerability, and empathy. Mathilde Collin is the co-founder and CEO of Front App, where her mission is to help people everywhere find meaning and happiness with their work. Since going through YC in 2014, she has raised over $138 million in VC funding.
In this episode, you’ll hear about the importance of viewing founders and CEOs as people, and showing vulnerability as a leader. Mathilde also speaks about accepting change within ourselves and in other people, and its importance in framing our ideas of happiness.
You can find Mathilde on Twitter and read her musings here.
Here are some of the key takeaways from the episode:
Founders are people.
“I think there is always this perception that if you're the CEO of Stripe or Airbnb, and all these companies, you must feel really good because things are going really well.
But the reality is then you ask these people how they feel when they wake up, all of us feel the same way. One day we wake up and we'll feel good, and the second day we have this existential crisis.”
We often lose sight of this idea by idolizing successful CEOs and founders as untouchable symbols who have life all figured out. We expect them to just feel really happy all the time because things are perfect. If you ask them how they feel, the reality is that all of us have good and bad days. Remember that no one is above seeking help. Reach out and strive to empathize with others who are going through something similar. No one has all their shit figured out.
Transparency and vulnerability are key leadership traits.
“I care a lot about transparency… it's a mean to have people feel part of the journey and whatever you do… I think transparency around how the company is doing, what your customers like or dislike, is going to provide a level of engagement that cannot be matched by any other tool in my experience.”
This all starts by being honest with yourself and others. Transparency itself is not a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ thing – it is a means to let people feel like they are part of your journey, and vice versa. Doing so creates a bond of trust between yourself and others, which also contributes to each other’s wellbeing. Sharing our ups and downs facilitates empathy, and your co-workers and team will find their work much more meaningful and impactful.
People change, and that’s okay.
“Focus on the things that you like the most, which you know is great because it's usually what you're best at. I feel like the way I work has evolved.
But even if you ask me today, there are things I am doing and making that might not be the things that I enjoy the most, but I know that it's a good investment of my time and I'm reasonable about it. Should I be? I don't know, but I am.”
Our mindset, goals, and perspectives are constantly evolving. Whatever brings you happiness today might not make you happy five years from now. This is why it’s important to view happiness as a continuous process, rather than one tangible milestone you can capture.
Justin realized that building product and being a CEO wasn’t that fulfilling anymore, and he fell in love with meeting and connecting with interesting people instead. He changed his life trajectory to focus on being an investor and a content creator. It was difficult at first because he had constructed an identity as a startup founder, but he has found it much more fulfilling because this is what makes him happy. Accept that you will change, and that’s okay!
the best things happen almost by accident. it starts as just a toy...