Watching Twitch streamers can sometimes feel like watching reality TV in another language. Trends in language change so rapidly that even if you think you’re paying attention, you can still get left behind. While Wikis like KnowYourMeme can be a good resource, it doesn’t hurt to brush up on all of the slang that the “kids” are saying these days. You don’t have to be out of the loop; here’s a breakdown of the latest Twitch slang you’ll hear the most popular streamers using today.
The thing to keep in mind about basically all Twitch speak is that they are both a word and an emote. Typing the slang in chat like this :slang: will post the related emote into the streamer’s chatbox. Often, the emote is made first and the word is invented to follow it, but not always. We’ll try to dig into the history of each word and explain how it got it’s meaning as an emote.
As a final note: if you aren’t using Twitch plug-ins like BTTV or FFZ, a lot of these emotes will show up in chat as just the word instead of the emote. When you see people spamming “LULW” “BabyRage” and “PepeLaugh,” just know that they’re actually spamming emotes – you just can’t see them.
Pepega - Don’t Be One Of These
Pronounced “peh-pehgah” Pepega is a distorted image of Pepe the frog. While the history of Pepe is too long and sordid to cover here, you likely don’t need the context to understand how to use Pepega.
Pepega was created by a Discord user named Adew and added to FrankerFacez (the Twitch enhancement suite for emotes) on the same day, April 8th 2018. Pepega is most closely related to Forsen and is often followed by a horn emote and some version of “for san” as a way to mock the streamer.
Pepega is a pejorative. Many use it to mean the same thing as the slur for people with mentally handicapped people (the “r” word). Pepega is often spammed in chat when a streamer does something foolish or embarrassing, like missing an easy kill or dying. It’s a favorite of trolls and streamers with historically toxic chats.
Poggers and Pogchamp - Get Hyped
Poggers and Pogchamp are basically interchangeable and both are used to express hype and excitement. Though they mean the same thing, they are used by different communities and have very different origins.
Pogchamp is one of the oldest emotes on Twitch and is based on Youtuber/fighting game player Gootecks. The emote first appeared on 4chan back in 2009 and has endured because, frankly, it’s just such a great reaction.
Poggers, on the other hand, has only been around since 2017, created during the height of Pepe’s popularity. Poggers is essentially just Pepe drawn over Pogchamp, but it’s used more commonly in League of Legend communities.
LUL, LULW, And OMEGALUL
LUL and it’s offspring have one of the most interesting stories of all emotes, and one of the saddest. LUL is an image of TotalBiscuit, also known as beloved video game Youtuber John Bain who passed away just last year from bowel cancer. LUL is simply a picture of TotalBiscuit laughing and was first added to his own personal Twitch channel. Oddly enough, the emote was removed due to a copyright dispute with the photographer who took the picture.
TotalBiscuit added the emote to BTTV and eventually it was added to Twitch as a global emote. LULW is a slightly cropped and rotated version of LUL, making TotalBiscuit’s face parallel to the frame rather than cocked.
OMEGALUL, as most Twitch memes do, began in Forsen’s chat in a battle between viewers to make the most absurd version of LUL. After multiple iterations (MEGALUL, GIGALUL, ULTRALUL) the community finally settled on OMEGALUL as the supreme LUL inversion. It features the same picture of TotalBiscuit as LUL but with his mouth expanded to take up his entire face.
GachiBASS, GachiGASM, and GachiHYPER
To understand the Gachi memes, you first need to know about Billy Herrington and the Japanese meme “Gachimuchi.” Herrington was a bodybuilder and adult film actor in the early 2000s who became a popular figure online in Japanese message boards. Clips of Herrington in workout videos and porn films were used as a fake-out similar to a Rickroll. Thousands of mashup videos have been made featuring Herrington, also known as Aniki, and he is often referred to Gachimuchi, a Japanese word that means muscular and fat.
GachiGASM and GachiBASS both originated on Forsen’s channel (big surprise) after a mashup video of Herrington was shared on social music site plug.dj. Both emotes are the same image of Herrington mid-orgasm, and are used to express intense satisfaction, such as when a streamer makes an impressive play.
GachiHyper, like OMEGALUL, is the furthest logical extent of the Gachi emote. It features an all-red Herrington with glowing eyes that expresses maximum pleasure. GachiHyper is meant to be used in the most special of circumstances, or of course, ironically.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of popular emotes, but these are the most popular emotes on BTTV today and the ones you’re most likely to encounter on Twitch. Next time chat starts Spamming Pepega, at least you’ll know what they’re on about.
READ NEXT: DrLupo Shatters Records With $2.3 Million For Charity, Twitch Donates $1 Million
