TriHard Emote in Twitch Chat: Origin, Use, and Popularity

TriHard is a Twitch emote based on the smiling face of the streamer and speedrunner, Mychal “Trihex” Jefferson. The emote is usually used to express excitement or hype. According to Know Your Meme, the picture comes from Trihex’s time at the Akon-23 anime convention in June 2012. The emote was introduced on Twitch after it rose in popularity in 2013 as fans spammed it when Twitch staff were polling for new emotes to be added. Trihex later uploaded a video about how the Twitch emote came into being.

Talking about the emote’s origin to Kotaku, TriHard said when he posted his ‘eternal panic smile’ on Twitter, fans responded by photoshopping the now-famous meme into high-pressure situations. “It went viral in my own chat, and I was happy with it. I agree, that was a very cringe smile I made. That girl was cute and I was freaking out and lost all of my spaghetti, and it’s forever documented in that face being super-awkward.” According to StreamerElements, TriHard is one of the most popular Twitch emotes used on the platform right now with over three billion hits.

TriHard’s controversial use

The Twitch emote which was used to convey hype has been co-opted by some users to denote black people and black culture on Twitch with racist undertones. The emote later devolved to being used in a derogatory way against other people of color. Speaking to Kotaku about the issue, Trihex said, “It’s not the emote’s fault that it’s being used for racist things. Nothing in the emote is racist at all. It’s not like there’s exaggerated lips, or anything to make it look offensive. It’s a picture of me very, very happy.” He continued, “If for any reason I got rid of the Trihard emote, or if was deemed derogatory speech or whatever, all chat would do is migrate ‘cmonbruh,’ ‘punchtrees,’ and ‘kevinturtle’—the other black guy emotes.”

Trihex said he wasn’t going to let the racists win saying, “If anything you’ve empowered them, you’ve told them, ‘Oh, if we cause enough ruckus, we caused them to react.’ If you give the s******* attention they’ll say ‘Let’s just rock and roll further.”