If you’ve seen twitch streams, you must have come across the KEKW emote in the chat. In this article, we’re going over what this emote means, where it originated, and how it became so popular. 

Where did KEKW originate?

The emote came from a Youtube video featuring Spanish actor and comedian Juan Joya Borja, also called the Spanish Laughing Guy, following the video going viral. The video will make you burst out with laughter even if you don’t understand a single word simply because his way of talking and laughing is actually quite contagious. You can see this for yourself in the video below.

The fact that the video is in a local language, meaning memers and comedians can literally use it as a clean slate, also played a huge role in making the emote popular. Memers instantly adopted a screenshot of Borja bursting out in laughter (in quite a hilarious way, we must admit) and started using it as a template for all sorts of memes. 

Also read: What does HRU mean? 

What does KEKW mean?

If you haven’t understood already, the emote essentially stands for laughter, usually when the streaming does something hilarious or stupid. The actual term ‘KEKW’ is a combination of two separate bits of emoji language.

You see, the work ‘kek’ is a Korean equivalent of LOL. Another possible point of origination could be that World of Warcraft transcribes the word ‘LOL’ as ‘KEK’ or ‘Bur’ depending upon the typing player’s faction. If a Horde player writes LOL in chat, an Alliance player will read KEK, and if an Alliance player types LOL, it changes to Bur.

As for the suffix ‘W’, it’s essentially Twitch’s emote slang for an exaggerated facial expression, eventually spawning the term KEKW.

Also read: What does WYWTTA mean?