What Does KEKW Mean on Twitch? The Story Behind the Laugh

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You are watching a stream. The streamer makes a bad joke, misses a jump, or simply bursts into laughter. Suddenly, the chat explodes. It’s not “LOL,” it’s not “LMAO,” and it’s not even the classic “LUL.”

It’s a wall of KEKW.

If you are new to Twitch, this grainy, wheezing face might look confusing. But in the streaming world, KEKW is the king of laughter. Here is everything you need to know about the emote, the legend behind the face, and why it took over the internet.

The Meaning: Pure, Hysterical Laughter

Simply put, KEKW represents hysterical laughter. It is used when something is so funny that “LOL” just doesn’t cut it. It is the visual equivalent of a wheezing, uncontrollable laugh.

On Twitch, it is often used in two scenarios:

1. Genuine Comedy: The streamer did something hilarious.
2. Mockery: The streamer made a stupid mistake, and chat is laughing at them (in a friendly way… usually).

The Origin: The Legend of “El Risitas”

The face behind the emote belongs to Juan Joya Borja, a Spanish comedian and actor better known as “El Risitas” (The Giggles).

The image comes from a 2007 interview on a Spanish variety show called Ratones Coloraos. In the clip, Borja tells a story about leaving paella pans in the ocean to clean them, only to find the tide had washed them away. As he tells the story, he breaks down into his signature, high-pitched wheezing laugh.

That laugh was infectious. Years later, the internet rediscovered the clip. People started adding fake subtitles to the video—making it look like he was laughing about everything from Apple MacBooks to video game developers.

How it hit Twitch: Around late 2019, the emote was added to FrankerFaceZ (FFZ) and BetterTTV (BTTV), the popular browser extensions that add custom emotes to Twitch. It was popularized by communities like xQc and AdmiralBulldog, eventually dethroning “LUL” and “LULW” as the go-to laugh emote.

Wait, What Does “KEK” Mean?

To understand the name, we have to go back to World of Warcraft.

In WoW, if a Horde player types “LOL” in chat, Alliance players see it translated as “KEK”. It’s a reference to the Korean onomatopoeia for laughter (“kekeke”).

• KEK = LOL (in Orcish/Gamer slang)
• W = Widen/Zoom (Standard Twitch naming convention for exaggerated emotes)

So, KEKW literally means “LOL, but zoomed in and exaggerated.”

Don’t Miss the Laughter

When your chat starts spamming KEKW, it usually means you just created a “clip-worthy” moment. High chat velocity and specific emote spikes are the best indicators of viral content.

But you can’t stop playing to clip every funny moment manually.

This is where Eklipse helps. Our AI technology monitors your chat in real-time. When it detects a spike in “KEKW,” “LUL,” or laughter, it automatically captures that segment, crops it to vertical, and generates captions—so you can post that hilarious moment to TikTok before you even finish your stream.