MingLee

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About

MingLee is an emote on Twitch featuring the face of Twitch employee Chris Mead, also known as MingLee. The emote is typically used in chats on Twitch to imply laughter, but also sassiness. Similar to the TriHard emote, MingLee also has some controversial use as a form of racism, as it is often spammed during the appearance of an Asian person on stream. It was added to Twitch in 2015.

Origin

The image used for the emote comes from a photo taken of Chris Mead, who’s currently the VP of global partnerships at Twitch. The original emote itself (seen below) was added to the streaming platform early on in 2015, and currently ranks number 55 out of Twitch’s top 100 emotes, according to StreamElements^[1] chat statistics, with over 44 million uses. In early 2020, Twitch Metrics^[2] lists the emote’s usage at roughly 140,000 per day.

Spread

Use of the emote on Twitch can be seen in a video from Twitch streamer ShannaNina, uploaded to her YouTube^[3] channel on November 10th, 2015, where she sings a song about MingLee as users spam the emote in chat (shown below).

On December 9th, 2015, a YouTube^[4] video titled, “MingLee invades Forsens aidsfest,” shows an example of the emote being used, where it is pronounced, “MingRee.” The video (seen below, left) received over 230,000 views and 1,600 likes. On December 13th, 2015, YouTuber^[5] Yung TriHard uploaded a video titled "Hotrine Ming," which included a parody cover of the 2015 hip-hop song "Hotline Bling" by Drake voiced by a person performing a caricature of an Asian accent. The video (shown below, right) was viewed over 1.1 million times, liked 14,000 times and commented on 750 times.

The emote also exists in form of several various copypastas, seen on TwitchQuotes.^[6] The most popular copypasta (seen below), with 2,867 likes, was added to the site in November 2015.

twitchquotes: KNOW WHEN THAT HOTLINE MING THAT 2867 ONE TO CELLPHONE CAN ONLY MING LEE USED ON A MY YOU CALL МЕ

On March 10th, 2018, Twitter^[7] user JetSetJamerson, also a Twitch streamer, tweeted about MingLee’s appearance during his livestreams as a reply to another user discussing the controversy surrounding the TriHard emote. The tweet (shown below) received 446 likes and 83 retweets.

Jamerson @JetSetlamerson 100% this. Whenever I see MingLee used to refer to me on stream, I'm taken back to when I was 7-13 years old and literally pointed at & taunted by giggling kids yelling, "Chino! Chino! Chino!" It's a f------ s----- feeling being reduced to an emote, my race, and into a spectacle. Malik Forté * Black Lives Matter O @Malik4Play · Mar 10, 2018 Is the Trihard emote racist? No. But spamming it whenever a black person is on the screen and only then is 100% racially insensitive, rather that's the intent or not. To me, it's a sly way of saying "hey gais, luk! A black guy heheh". It's been happening to me for about 3 years

On June 5th, 2020, Twitch streamer Asmongold uploaded a video (seen below) to his ZackRawrr YouTube^[8] channel under the title “Racism on Twitch and Ways to Stop it.” About the clip, he stated, “There's been a lot of talk about racism recently and I figured I'd give my take on ways Twitch and streamers can prevent it,” receiving over 111,000 views, 10,000 likes and 1,700 comments. On June 6th, 2020, Dot Esports^[9] covered the video in an article titled “Asmongold speaks out about racism on Twitch.”