Top 5 most-used Twitch emotes and what they mean

Twitch has had a long history of being the premier place for streamers to call home, but what makes it a standout contender amongst the ever-growing crowd of competition? One of the things that makes the platform special is the selection of emotes, and how easy it is to create and customize them.

While there are thousands on the site to choose from, many chat users only use their favorite few emotes. This list will go over the most-used emotes and explain how they are mainly used by the community on Twitch (according to StreamElements).

Top 5 most-used Twitch emotes include chipsaKEK, TriHard and more

5) chipsaKEK - 3,492,196,000 uses

A variation of KEKW, chipsaKEK (Image via Twitch)

This pixelated face might be familiar to some, as it is based off of the the same person who is used for the KEKW emote. Similar to KEKW, it's used to express laughter either at what's happening on stream or for what the viewer had just typed. The emote comes from the channel ChipSA, who almost exclusively plays Overwatch on stream.

4) TriHard - 3,741,593,000 uses

This is one of the platform's official emotes, using the face of the streamer TriHex that was found in an old photo from 2012. It's used to express excitement, and can be seen when a streamer announces something big. Fortunately, it is rarely used in a racist context.

3) R ) - 3,747,006,000 uses

Eyepatch-wearing emote R ) (Image via Twitch)

This is the only emote on the list without a clear use, as it has a very niche use. The image is a variation of the platform's classic emoticon face, with an eyepatch covering its left eye with no other differences. This could very well be a manufactured increase in uses, using an automated bot that spams the emote as much as it can.

So either people really liked using this eye-patch-sporting emoticon, or someone spammed it so much that it overtook other entries on this list.

2) homyLol - 4,200,000,000 uses

Homyatol's face used in homyLol (Image via Twitch)

While the previous entry might have used a bot to increase it's numbers at one point, this entry is without a doubt using a bot to spam the emote as much as it can, at over 1,000 times per second. This can be seen on the StreamElements site, where the number has increased at breakneck speeds, presumably for the last few days.

The emote comes from an Italian gambling streamer, but it's not clear if it's the streamer or a fan who is deliberately boosting the popularity of the emote. Either way, fans of the streamer seem to use it to convey their happiness, much like the classic smiling emoticon.

1) forsen5G - 4,506,473,000 uses

Forsen's distorded face in forsen5G (Image via Twitch)

This entry includes the face of Forsen, one of the online community's favorite memes at the moment. However, its spot on number 1 was not gained through normal means.

That's right, the top 3 entries on this list have all supposedly used bots to artificially boost the numbers on the emotes. This emote's use is similar to the original "forsenE" which has been used by Forsen's fans to annoy and troll other communities on the platform.

With the current state of the popularity list, it clearly shows that not everyone's favorite emotes like LUL, Kappa, and even the purple heart emoticon are as popular as they seem. Even excluding the entries that had supposedly used bots to fabricate their popularity, there are still some entries in the top ten that some veteran chatters may not even recognize.