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Comment by irl_zebra | Hacker News Reader

It appears that while he technically may have one of the most reproduced faces, it's only because his face is an emoticon on Twitch that is constantly used, something like 800+ times/minute. So those unfamiliar with Twitch (like me) would have never seen this face or recognize it.

Also, fivethirtyeight is using the phrase "IRL." Is this in the dictionary or something now? I thought it was slang and not generally used in more reputable sites.

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Yeah, I was going to say "this makes me feel old", but I've never been a gamer so even in my younger days I would have been unfamiliar with this level of "popularity". I think the Internet encompasses so much of life now that being neck-deep in tech is no longer enough to guarantee you'll feel plugged in to all of the latest trends/memes.

They used it in the same sentence as the emote itself, so I'd imagine it's not meant to be taken too seriously. The Kappa face is not generally used in more reputable sites, but this is a internet subculture piece, so I think it fits.

> Also, fivethirtyeight is using the phrase "IRL." Is this in the dictionary or something now? I thought it was slang and not generally used in more reputable sites.

Like HN usernames?

Kappa.

To give an idea how much Kappa is spammed in Twitch chat, here is a wordcloud from the chat of a popular Twitch streamer: http://i.imgur.com/ntoEaLt.png

Kappa dominates over all other emotes and even simple words such as "is"

Part of that is because people will spam a wall of emotes in a single line, and many such lines.

Now that the internet very much is a part of real life, I believe the more appropriate word is AFK:

DeSeno guest-starred in fewer than 80 selfies at TwitchCon, which makes his face far less popular AFK than online

I think AFK is more appropriate for when you are away from the keyboard while logged on to something (chat, a game, etc).

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