# KEK > Kek is 1998 internet slang originating from Korean StarCraft players' "kekeke," popularized by World of Warcraft's cross-faction chat filter that translated "LOL" to "KEK. Kek is an internet slang term equivalent to "LOL" that originated from Korean StarCraft players typing "kekeke" (ㅋㅋㅋ) for laughter, then became widely known through World of Warcraft's cross-faction chat filter, which translated "LOL" typed by Horde players into "KEK" for Alliance players[2]. The term spread across gaming forums and 4chan through the 2000s and 2010s, picking up associations with a Turkish snack cake brand called Topkek and, more controversially, an ancient Egyptian frog-headed deity that alt-right communities linked to Pepe the Frog during the 2016 U.S. presidential election[3]. ## Origin The roots of kek trace back to Korean, where ㅋㅋㅋ (a string of the consonant ㅋ, pronounced like a raspy "k") is the standard written representation of laughter[2]. When Blizzard released StarCraft in 1998, the game didn't support Korean characters. Korean players typing their usual laugh had it rendered in Roman letters as "kekeke," which English-speaking players quickly picked up as an amusing alternative to "hahaha"[2]. The term got its biggest boost from Blizzard's next major game, World of Warcraft, which launched on November 23, 2004[4]. WoW splits players into two rival factions, Alliance and Horde, who can't directly communicate. When a Horde player types "LOL" in the chat, Blizzard's language filter converts it to "KEK" on Alliance screens. This was likely a deliberate nod to StarCraft's Korean laugh[2]. The translation became one of the game's most recognized quirks. By March 22, 2005, Urban Dictionary user "drat" had defined kek as "'lol' in Orcish"[4]. - **Platform:** StarCraft (Korean gaming), World of Warcraft (mainstream adoption), 4chan (meme evolution) - **Creator:** Unknown (community-created from Korean gaming culture and Blizzard's WoW language filter) - **Date:** 1998 (StarCraft origin), 2004 (World of Warcraft spread) ## Overview At its most basic, "kek" is just another way to type "lol." It signals laughter, amusement, or the acknowledgment that something is funny. But unlike most internet slang, kek accumulated layers of meaning over two decades: a gaming in-joke, a 4chan food meme, a Twitch emote, and briefly a politicized symbol tied to the alt-right's "Cult of Kek." The word's journey from Korean onomatopoeia to culture-war flashpoint is one of the stranger paths any piece of internet slang has traveled. In practice, typing "kek" in a Discord server or Twitch chat today is no different from typing "lol." The stretched form KEKW, paired with a laughing face emote of Spanish comedian Juan Joya Borja, became one of Twitch's most-used global emotes after 2019[8]. The older form "top kek" implies something is extremely funny, riffing on both the superlative "top" and a Turkish cupcake brand[4]. ## How It Spread Kek moved steadily outward from WoW's playerbase through the late 2000s. A 2007 Yahoo Answers thread discussed the cross-faction translation[4], and by 2008, GameSpot forum users were documenting which words translated to what across the faction barrier[11]. WoW Insider (now Engadget) published a guide in June 2009 noting that shouting "KEK" as an Alliance character would not actually translate back to "LOL" for Horde players, debunking a common misconception[9]. By September 2011, the term was listed on InternetSlang.com as standard internet shorthand for "LOL"[4]. The meme took a new turn in May 2013 on 4chan's /s4s/ (Shit 4chan Says) board. A user called "prime minister face" started posting images of Topkek, a brand of Turkish cupcakes made by the ETi food company, riffing on the existing "Top Lel" meme format[1]. The word "kek" in Turkish simply means "cake," making the brand name a happy accident[2]. The original Topkek thread ran for over 40 days and hit 6,200+ posts before dying, with 4chan moderators removing the bump limit to keep it alive[1]. A Facebook page called "Top kek" launched on June 5, 2013, and by July, Reddit's r/4chan was sharing Topkek screenshots[4]. The most dramatic chapter began around 2015, when 4chan users discovered that Kek is also the name of an actual ancient Egyptian deity. Kek (sometimes spelled Kuk or Keku) was an androgynous god of chaos and darkness, depicted in male form as a frog-headed man during the Greco-Roman period[3]. The coincidence with Pepe the Frog, already 4chan's mascot of choice, was too rich to ignore. Users began posting about Kek as a kind of meme deity whose "meme magic" could influence real-world events through posts ending in repeating digits ("dubs" and "trips")[4]. By 2016, this joke had fused with the alt-right's embrace of Pepe during the U.S. presidential election. After Donald Trump's victory, "Praise Kek" flooded social media[2]. Users constructed an elaborate satirical religion: the Cult of Kek came with its own theology, prayer texts, and a fictional homeland called the Republic of Kekistan[3]. The Kekistan flag deliberately mimicked a German Nazi war flag, swapping the swastika for a "KEK" logo and using green instead of red[3]. Alt-right figures carried Kekistan banners at rallies designed to provoke confrontations with counter-protesters[3]. ## How to Use Kek is a direct substitute for 'lol' with a slightly more knowing tone that signals gaming-culture fluency. It works best in gaming contexts, Twitch chat, Discord servers, and online forums. 1. Type 'kek' anywhere you would normally type 'lol' to signal laughter or amusement 2. Use 'top kek' for something extremely funny — the 'best' laugh 3. Use 'KEKW' on Twitch, typically paired with the El Risitas laughing emote 4. Use 'kekeke' for the elongated Korean-style version, referencing the original StarCraft usage ## Cultural Impact Kek crossed from gaming slang into mainstream awareness primarily through the 2016 election cycle. The Southern Poverty Law Center published a detailed explainer on the Cult of Kek and its role in alt-right organizing[3]. WIRED covered the phenomenon alongside Tumblr's witchcraft community as examples of internet-born quasi-religions, noting that "the internet giving birth to new religions, or new versions of existing religions, is just another sign of it becoming a real place"[7]. The Destiny 2 armor incident in 2017 illustrated how kek's political baggage could create problems for game studios. Bungie's community manager stated that "the more contemporary, vile derivation that has been repurposed by hate groups was not surfaced" during their review process, and the company committed to investigating its creative pipeline[6]. Dictionary.com added an entry for kek as internet slang, tracing it from StarCraft through WoW to the alt-right appropriation[2]. The Anti-Defamation League classified Pepe imagery as hateful only when combined with extremist intent, a distinction that applied to kek-related content as well[8]. On Twitch, the KEKW emote gave the term a second life entirely divorced from politics, becoming one of the platform's most-used reactions[8]. ## Fun Facts - The word "kek" in Turkish just means "cake." The Topkek brand name literally translates to "cupcake," and the ETi company had nothing to do with the meme[2]. - In August 2013, 4chan used the coupon code "topkek" for registration at an official 4chan panel at Anime Weekend Atlanta[1]. - WoW's language filter is asymmetric: a Horde player typing "LOL" produces "KEK" for Alliance, but an Alliance player typing "KEK" does not produce "LOL" for Horde[9]. - The real Egyptian god Kek was part of the Ogdoad, eight primordial deities representing the state of the world before creation. Kek's domain was darkness and obscurity[3]. - Bungie designed the controversial Destiny 2 armor in June 2015, over a year before kek became associated with the alt-right, but the timing didn't prevent backlash when the game shipped in 2017[6]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Kek? Kek is internet slang meaning "LOL" or "haha," originating from Korean StarCraft players' written laughter (ㅋㅋㅋ, rendered as "kekeke") and later popularized through World of Warcraft's cross-faction chat filter[2]. ### Where did Kek come from? The term originated in the Korean gaming community around 1998 with Blizzard's StarCraft, where Korean players typed "kekeke" because the game didn't support Korean characters. It became widely known through World of Warcraft (2004), where the game translated Horde players' "LOL" into "KEK" for Alliance players[4]. ### What does Kek mean? In gaming and general internet usage, kek simply means laughter, equivalent to "lol." In the alt-right context that emerged around 2015-2016, it refers to a satirical deity figure connected to the ancient Egyptian frog god Kek and Pepe the Frog[2]. ### How do you use Kek? Type "kek" in place of "lol" to express amusement, particularly in gaming, Twitch, or Discord contexts. "Top kek" means something is extremely funny. KEKW is a Twitch-specific emote featuring a laughing face[8]. ### Is Kek still popular? The KEKW Twitch emote ranked among the platform's top global emotes as of the early 2020s[8]. The basic gaming usage of "kek" for laughter persists in gaming communities, though the alt-right "Cult of Kek" peaked around 2016-2017[3]. ### What is the Cult of Kek? A satirical religion created by alt-right users on 4chan, built around the coincidence that an ancient Egyptian chaos deity named Kek was depicted with a frog's head, matching their Pepe the Frog mascot. It included mock theology, prayers, and the fictional Republic of Kekistan[3]. ### What is the Kekistan flag? A green-and-black banner designed to mimic a German Nazi war flag, replacing the swastika with a "KEK" logo. Alt-right users carried it at rallies to troll political opponents[3]. ### What is Topkek? Topkek is both a real Turkish cupcake brand made by ETi and a 4chan meme. In May 2013, a user called "prime minister face" started posting images of the snack on 4chan's /s4s/ board, combining the existing "kek" slang with the "Top Lel" format[1]. ### What happened with Kek and Destiny 2? In 2017, Bungie discovered that a piece of armor in Destiny 2 inadvertently referenced the kek meme and its alt-right associations through its design. The armor had been designed in June 2015, before the political connotations existed, and was partially removed via hotfix[6]. ### What is KEKW? KEKW is a Twitch emote that combines "kek" with the laughing face of Spanish comedian Juan Joya Borja (El Risitas). It became widely used after 2019 and is one of Twitch's most popular emotes[8]. ### Is Kek a hate symbol? Context matters. In gaming and Twitch chat, kek is apolitical slang for laughter. The alt-right appropriated the term and the Egyptian deity during 2015-2016, linking it to white nationalism and Pepe the Frog imagery[2]. The ADL classifies Pepe as hateful only when combined with extremist intent[8]. ### How is Kek connected to Pepe the Frog? 4chan users noticed that the ancient Egyptian god Kek was depicted as a frog-headed figure, matching their Pepe the Frog meme. This coincidence led to Pepe being treated as a modern "avatar" of Kek within the satirical Cult of Kek[4]. ## References 1. [Topkek - Encyclopedia Dramatica]() 2. [kek | Slang | Dictionary.com]() 3. [What the Kek: Explaining the Alt-Right 'Deity' Behind Their 'Meme Magic']() 4. [Kek - Know Your Meme]() 5. [Kek]() 6. [Kek - Urban Dictionary]() 7. [Urban Dictionary: kek]() 8. [Destiny 2 dev Bungie: we didn't know hate groups appropriated kek meme | Eurogamer.net]() 9. [Witchblr, Kek, and the Widening Schism of Internet Religions | WIRED]() 10. [Tales of the Drowning Mind — KEK:  The origin of a laugh, and the loss of it to...]() 11. [Kek Meme: The Frog-God Gag That Keeps the Internet Laughing – WAHUP]() 12. [WoW Rookie: Talking with the enemy]() 13. [Text Slang - Chat Acronyms - IM Chat - InternetSlang.com]() 14. [Topkek - Encyclopedia Dramatica]() 15. [Yahoo Search - Web Search]() 16. [LOL = KEK but KEK != LOL - GameSpot.com]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/kek Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library