
A Former Twitch Employee Has One of the Most Reproduced Faces - JacobAldridge
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-a-former-twitch-employee-has-one-of-the-most-reproduced-faces-ever/
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swang
Imagine having your likeness frozen in time becoming this famous. Look at his
photo in 2015. It is obviously him but he grew out his hair, looks thinner,
and he's aged (6 years!), then you see his own self on his shirt.

I mean its a bit different than being famous and having a famous photo taken
of you. Most of the time the photo is famous because the person _and_ event
are famous. But with this, it almost becomes a completely different
person/thing when the "famous" aspect is just some random photo taken of you.

The question I have is does he own any rights at all to his likeness (from
2009) being reproduced? Twitch took that picture, and they own the rights to
that photo taken, so I guess that part of it belongs to twitch. But now people
are making statues of him and taking large photos of his head to eSports
tournaments, so what rights does he have to say, "Whoa, those busts are cool,
but I'm really uncomfortable with that. Take it down please"?

~~~
emmett
Technically he uploaded the picture himself when he was working at Twitch
(then Justin.tv) -- it used to be an employe e benefit that you could add your
face to the emoticon list.

As to how Josh feels about it, I leave you with this link to my TwitchCon
keynote presentation:
[http://www.twitch.tv/twitch/v/17714623?t=37m0s](http://www.twitch.tv/twitch/v/17714623?t=37m0s)

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ilitirit
If I'm not mistaken it was popularized by the Fighting Game Community (FGC).
There's a related subreddit (r/Kappa). PogChamp and Bible Thump (which are
also on the list on the linked page) were also popularized by the FGC. The
interesting thing is that in terms of viewers, Fighting games have a
substantially less proportion of the total audience compared to MOBAs and
FPSs. It's possible that FG viewers just spend much more time chatting than
other spectators because the average Fighting Game match goes by in about 2
minutes.

Besides trolling, r/Kappa is also known for sponsoring many FG players to get
to tournaments around the world, so you might come across players who list
them as a sponsor (in the same way you'd maybe see someone sponsored by EG -
Evil Geniuses).

In "twitch speak" the term can in some ways be used to indicate sarcasm, as
replacement for "j/k", or just trolling in general.

eg. "This stream's quality is fantastic kappa!"

~~~
crazypyro
I think you are overestimating how much of the popularity came from the FGC.

All of the popular emotes represent pretty common reactions, especially with
respect to watching e-sports. BibleThump is a crying eyes, which is pretty
much the best emote for sadness or, more commonly, faking sadness. PogChamp is
a guy screaming so when people are demanding stuff (e.g. "FIX SOUND PogChamp")
its an obvious choice, but it can also be used for things of excitement, so it
has a lot of uses. I think, even without the FGC, the emotes that have risen
to the most used would've been very similar, if not the exact same.

~~~
ilitirit
> I think you are overestimating how much of the popularity came from the FGC.

I'm really not. PogChamp is Gootecks, host of Cross-Counter and FG player. The
meme is based on an ad they did for MadCatz Fight Sticks

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkBDZ8Davvg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkBDZ8Davvg)

"BibleThump" started out as meme involving an incident with streamer Spooky
and FG player Wolfkrone.

[http://36.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7921h1cU41qcriw6o1_1280.p...](http://36.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7921h1cU41qcriw6o1_1280.png)

BibleThump resembled Wolfkrone in that image so literally thousands of viewers
started spamming it with the text "spooby pls" on Spooky's chat whenever
something went wrong, or the stream was going to end.

That is why you'll often see people type "<topic> pls biblethump", eg.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=df_C79cFhoM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=df_C79cFhoM)

~~~
crazypyro
Right, but I'm saying past the origination of those emotes, I don't think a
huge portion of their popularity is directly tied to the FGC. They grew out of
the FGC, but they've long taken on meanings of their own across the entire
site that have no relation to the FGC and center around what emotion the face
represents.

~~~
runevault
They've expanded to use outside the FGC, but I would be the FGC viewers who
also watch LOL/DOTA/etc is what spread them to the rest of the streaming
world. At least with PogChamp (hell maybe DansGame too even though it isn't
TECHNICALLY Floe it might as well be at this point).

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crazypyro
I've pretty much assimilated the word Kappa into my vernacular, just because
of how popular its become in competitive video games. Its almost like the old
/s that was popular on Digg, where it makes it way more obvious when you are
joking about something, which is crucial in conversations where you can't see
the other persons face. "You suck" and "You suck, Kappa" have completely
different meanings. Its a little weird to use in real life and I only use it
in private or joking with friend, but I've even got my girlfriend to
understand the meaning and occasionally use it herself, even though the only
video game she's ever played is The Sims.

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irl_zebra
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.

~~~
JoshTriplett
> 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?

~~~
mmanfrin
Kappa.

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myth_buster
I was under the impression that Yao Ming held that distinction.

~~~
baldfat
No the kappa is strong in Twitch. I swear I will see kappa on my death bed.

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bmsleight_
The Head of State in the UK, (aka The Queen), has quite a few reproductions.
Every item of money (coins and notes) and a lot of stamps.

[http://www.royalmint.com/discover/uk-coins/circulation-
coin-...](http://www.royalmint.com/discover/uk-coins/circulation-coin-mintage-
figures) \- more than 50,000,000 coins in circulation. Then add notes and
stamps, plus other commonwealth countries, plus tourist items....

~~~
rconti
Sentence #5: "Outside of the queen and the other famous people on currency,
how did DeSeno’s face become perhaps the most reproduced one in human
history?"

~~~
Keyframe
How about Colonel Sanders or Che Guevara?

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wnevets
and my hate for twitch chat related memes only burns hotter. Who needs to be
original when you can just spam a meme?

