KEKWait

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About

KEKWait is an emote on Twitch and a variation of the KEKW emote, featuring the face of Spanish comedian and actor Juan Joya Borja, better known as the Spanish Laughing Guy. The emote is commonly used in chats on Twitch when a KEKW moment (something that prompts laughter) doesn’t go as planned and viewers witness an unexpected outcome. KEKWait gained popularity on the streaming platform in early to mid-2020.

Origin

The image used for the emote comes from the Spanish-language television program Ratones Coloraos, where Juan Joya Borja was interviewed in June 2007. During the interview, Borja bursts into laughter after telling a story about throwing pans into the ocean while he was working at a restaurant in his younger years. At one point, Borja is speaking with the host and makes the face around the 2:25 mark (seen below). On June 25th, 2007, the Jesus Quintero YouTube^[1] channel uploaded the segment, which has since been viewed over 8 million times.

Spread

On Twitch, the emote (seen below) was submitted to FrankerFaceZ^[2] by user foxboxx on September 17th, 2019. According to FrankerFaceZ’s stats, the emote is used in 5,758 different sets. On BetterTTV,^[3] KEKWait was added on February 15th, 2020, by user TheMisterRobot and is used in 1,770 channels.

In early to mid-2020, the emote saw increased usage on Twitch as it was added to additional channels, seen on the StreamElements^[4] chat statistics. As of June 2020, KEKWait was ranked fifth overall in the top 100 FrankerFaceZ’s emotes with 230,480 total uses.

On April 7th, 2020, Rivalry^[5] published an article titled, “What does KEKWait mean?” that discussed the use of the emote in various contexts on Twitch with the following examples:

"I thought the streamer was gonna get wrecked KEKW but wait they won KEKWait"
"KEKWait this is actually happening"
"when you KEKW too soon it's a KEKWait moment"

On May 2nd, 2020, KEKWait was added to Urban Dictionary^[6] by user opobdtfs (shown below) under the definition, “A Twitch emote used when the intention to spam KEKW to laugh at a streamer's misfortune was thwarted by a fortunate change in events. Portmonteau of ‘KEKW’ and ‘wait.’”