malding

Malding means getting visibly, comically angry, usually over a game. It is a blend of “mad” and “balding,” the joke being that someone is so furious they are pulling their hair out.

What does malding mean?

Malding is a specific flavor of anger: loud, frustrated and a little ridiculous to watch. Think of a streamer losing the same fight for the tenth time, yelling at the screen while chat spams “malding.” It is almost always used to tease, not to describe real rage.

How to use it

• “He lost to a level 5 and is absolutely malding right now.”
• “Stop malding, it’s just a warm-up match.”
• “Chat, I’m not malding. I’m calm. I’m completely calm.”
• “The whole fandom is malding over the season finale.”

Where it comes from

Malding grew out of Twitch chat culture in the late 2010s, where fast, jokey insults spread from stream to stream. The “balding” half piles on the image of a stressed-out streamer tearing their hair out, and a related emote helped the word catch on in chat.

Malding vs. rage quitting

Malding is the anger. Rage quitting is what sometimes happens next, when someone gets so mad they leave the game entirely.

Related terms

• rage quit: quitting in anger
• copium: comforting excuses after a loss
• Kappa: Twitch’s classic sarcasm emote
• pog: Twitch slang for excitement
• EZ: “easy,” the taunt that causes a lot of malding

See more terms like this in our gaming slang dictionary.