Kappa

Kappa is a Twitch emote, a grey face with a smirk, used to signal sarcasm, trolling or “just kidding.” Typing “Kappa” after a message means don’t take it seriously.

What Kappa means

On Twitch and in gaming communities, Kappa works like a wink or the “/s” tag some people use for sarcasm. “I’m definitely going to win this game Kappa” means the opposite. Chat also spams it when a streamer says something obviously untrue or when trolls are at work.

Examples

• “Totally meant to fall off the map Kappa”
• “Best player in the world right here Kappa”
• “This patch is perfectly balanced Kappa”
• “Chat, be nice Kappa”

Who is the face?

According to Dictionary.com, the image is engineer Josh DeSeno, who worked on the chat client at Justin.tv, the site Twitch grew out of. He made the emote from a greyscale photo of his own face, taken from his employee ID, and named it after the kappa, a water spirit from Japanese folklore. Viewers quickly adopted it for sarcasm.

Where Kappa comes from

Kappa started on Justin.tv, which launched the gaming spinoff Twitch in 2011. Sources differ on the exact year the emote was created, but it is one of Twitch’s best-known emotes, with variations like “Keepo” and “KappaPride.”

Related terms

• Poggers: Twitch’s hype emote.
• Copium: another popular chat emote.
• GG: good game.
• Malding: mad and frustrated.

Find more gamer talk in our gaming slang dictionary.