It’s almost impossible to watch a Twitch stream without encountering a quirky emote or two. Whether you spot a few of them used in the middle of a conversation in a stream’s chat or catch a random flurry of images flying across the stream itself in an animated explosion of color and excitement, emotes are almost as much a part of the Twitch experience as the video games and streamers themselves. Here’s everything you need to know about Twitch emotes, plus ten examples of the most popular ones currently being used by the community.

What Is Twitch?

Twitch is an incredibly popular video streaming platform that mostly focuses on video game broadcasts but also offers some live streams involving artwork creation, cooking, talk shows, and casual conversation. Popular streamers are frequently upgraded to Twitch Affiliate or Twitch Partner status, which grants them new community and stream features. Viewers on Twitch can choose to support their favorite Twitch Affiliate or Partner by subscribing to their channel with a recurring monthly donation. Twitch subscriptions support the streamers financially, with many choosing to stream on Twitch fulltime once they get enough subscribers. As a reward for subscribing, people get priority access in channel competitions, personal in-stream alerts, and access to exclusive emotes they can use in Twitch chatrooms.

What Are Twitch Emotes?

Twitch emotes were first introduced to the Twitch streaming platform in 2015. There are literally thousands of them, with global emotes being available to everyone and others being exclusive to Twitch Affiliates and Partners subscribers. Emotes typically consist of unique artwork or a photograph that’s been shrunk down to a size just a bit larger than a traditional emoji. Most emotes reference a niche in-joke or meme that’s well-known to its creator’s audience and no one else. Some become so popular their usage expands beyond Twitch to social networks such as Twitter or Instagram, where they’re referenced by name and given extra meaning.

How Are Twitch Emotes Used?

Once someone gets access to an emote by becoming a subscriber to a Twitch Affiliate or Partner, it can be triggered in a Twitch chatroom by typing its name. While viewers can only activate them in chatrooms, some streamers incorporate emotes into their stream’s alerts so larger versions of them appear onscreen when they’re used.

How Many Types of Twitch Emotes Are There?

There are four main categories of emotes on Twitch:

Robot Emotes: These are basic replacements for the traditional emoji for :), :(, :D, etc. They’re available to everyone.Global Emotes: These consist of faces or icons associated with Twitch staff members or popular Twitch streamers. They’re triggered by typing their names, such as Kappa, DoritosChip, bleedPurple, etc. Anyone can use these.Subscriber Emotes: These emotes are only available to Twitch Partner and Affiliate subscribers and usually feature photos of the associated streamer or artwork relating to their channel.Turbo Emotes: Twitch Turbo is a monthly paid subscription service. Its users gain access to special emotes that are basically alternate styles for the traditional emoji. One set features purple Twitch speech bubbles while the other uses cartoon monkeys.

Examples of Twitch Emotes

Here are some common Twitch emotes and examples of how they’re used.

Example #1

Image: Small photo of Josh DeSeno’s face. Activation: Kappa Meaning: The Kappa Twitch emote is basically just a photo of Josh DeSeno, an original employee of Justin.TV, the company that eventually became Twitch. DeSeno was in charge of creating the chat experience on Justin.TV and thus he became associated with it. The emote has since evolved to express an eye roll or a sarcastic “Well done!” or “lol” and has become so popular that gamers often say “Kappa” out loud when they do something embarrassing while playing. The emote’s name comes from the Japanese mythical creature the kappa, though there’s no connection beyond that.

Example #2

Image: A small image of a can of salt being poured into a pile. Activation: PJSalt Meaning: The PJSalt emote is a reference to the gamer slang for being a sore loser, “salty.” It’s frequently used as a way to troll a Twitch streamer in their chat after they lose a match while playing a game and are visibly frustrated or angry.

Example #3

Image: A small version of the yellow lightning bolt from the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers TV show. Activation: MorphinTime Meaning: Simply a fun reference to the Power Rangers TV series. Occasionally used in Twitch chatrooms to drum up excitement. Usually interpreted as the poster yelling out, “It’s morphin’ time!!”

Now that you have an idea of what Twitch is and how emotes are used on the platform, here are some of the most popular ones you’ll encounter there.