Raise Your Dongers

2013catchphraseclassic

Published September 24, 2026

Raise Your Dongers is a Twitch chat catchphrase and emoticon coined in 2013 by League of Legends streamer Michael Santana, better known as Imaqtpie. Born from his nickname for the champion Heimerdinger, "donger," the phrase became one of the defining Twitch emoticon copypastas of the early streaming era.

twitch chat memescatchphrase memesemoticon memescopypasta memesstreamer memes

Overview

The full spam form is "ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ raise your dongers ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ," an ASCII figure with both arms raised, flanking Santana's catchphrase1. Twitch users blast it in chat during hype moments, especially on League of Legends streams, treating it like a group cheer where everyone throws their hands up.

The meaning of "dongers" is unclear even to fans, and that ambiguity is part of the joke2. Related tags like "#dongsquad" and the "dong squad 420" spam came from the same Imaqtpie chat, mashing his subscriber password with the older "420 blaze it" bit1. Together they formed a chunk of the shared Twitch chat vocabulary that traveled to other streamers' channels.

Origin & Background

Platform
Twitch (chat spam) / Twitter (viral spread)
Creator
Michael Santana
Date
2013

Michael Santana, better known as Imaqtpie, streamed League of Legends and often picked the champion Heimerdinger, whom he nicknamed "donger," setting "dongsquad" as a password for his Twitch subscribers4. Fans began spamming the term in his chat next to the code "420"1. On April 8, 2013, Santana tweeted using the hashtags "#dongsquad" and "#FrankerZ," pushing the joke past his channel. The rally cry itself landed on June 17, 2013, when he posted "ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ raise your dongers," pairing the catchphrase with the arms-up emoticon that would define it4.

How It Spread

The catchphrase moved through League of Legends fan spaces fast. On April 28, 2013, poster TheeSeacow started a LoL Forums thread asking what "dong squad 420" meant; replies pointed to Imaqtpie's Twitch chat as the source1. On May 24, 2013, Team-Dignitas listed a "Dongsquad" T-shirt showing Santana's face, giving the joke its first piece of merch4.

After the June 17 tweet, the emoticon version took over. On June 20, 2013, LoL Forums user iJamioo asked for a translation of "raise your dongers," with commenters again citing Twitch chat as the source2. The same thread pointed newcomers back to Imaqtpie's stream to understand the joke2.

The joke drifted out of League fandom next when YouTuber DumiPL uploaded "The Raise of the Donger," a dubstep video set to Heimerdinger gameplay, on July 21, 20133. The emoticon then traveled through Reddit and Urban Dictionary copypasta collections, settling in as a piece of early Twitch chat vocabulary.

How to Use This Meme

Users typically type or paste "ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ raise your dongers ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ" into a Twitch chat, Discord, or forum during a hype moment, often stacking multiple copies to flood the channel. The two arm-raising emoticons flanking the phrase are the visual signature, since the joke is the group hand-raise motion. Common variants swap "raise your" for "raise ur" or trade "dongers" for a related in-joke like "dongsquad."

Frequently Asked Questions