If you love playing video games or chatting with friends on different social media platforms, you must have come across the name poggers. This term is not new to many people. However, some people are hearing it for the first time, and are wondering: What does poggers mean and how can I use it? If you are one of them, this article will help you understand everything about poggers.
What Is the Meaning of Poggers?
The term poggers is commonly used on live gaming platforms such as Twitch. It is also very common in comment sections of live stream videos on YouTube, Facebook, and other social media sites. Some people refer to it as ‘Pog’. Basically, the term poggers refers to a type of emoticon used in video games and live stream videos.
This emoticon is depicted as a surprised Pepe the frog. In gaming, this emoticon is used to show excitement while playing or discussing a game with a fellow gamer. Apart from showing your excitement and surprise, poggers also serves as a source of great fun when playing a game with friends and relatives.
But it is important to understand that at first the word poggers didn’t exist in the dictionary and was not considered part of the English vocabulary. It was just a slang word that had gained a lot of popularity among a certain section of society. However, its popularity has earned it a place in the Oxford dictionary.
This emoticon first appeared on Twitch, a popular gaming website that offers the live streaming option. With this live streaming feature, you are able to broadcast your gaming screen to other people with all the relevant emoticons for more fun. This also means that you can chat with your fellow gamers while playing.
History of Poggers
As mentioned above, the term poggers originated from Twitch–one of the most popular gaming platforms. In the beginning, you had to have an additional extension to use or see the poggers emoticon. It was incorporated into many games including Florentine in which you make a nice move to earn coins as a sign of excitement.
These features are designed to make the game more exciting and give players real-time communication while enjoying their favorite games. Although this emoticon was intended for the gaming world, its use has spread to other sectors including music, writing, social media chatting, and other general transmissions.
Nevertheless, poggers is still centered around gaming, especially the realm of Twitch gaming. Next to the live stream video is a chatroom, where gamers can discuss and share their experiences of the game. This is where this poggers emoticon is commonly used.
How to Use Poggers Online
Although most gaming sites restrict the number of emoticons you can use in your chatroom, you can still download as many emotions as you want. Remember that the poggers emoticon is meant to stimulate your conversations with other gamers. Therefore, make sure you know the perfect time and place to use it.
You also need to understand that you can’t use this and other emoticons continually. There is always a right way and right time to apply it while gaming. For instance, poggers is only supposed to be included in a conversation when you want to express excitement and surprise. So, if something unexpected happens in the middle of a gaming session that excites or surprises you, it is a perfect moment to throw in a poggers emoticon to denote your surprise or excitement.
This emoticon can also be used in different conversations on social media platforms to symbolize something that brings Pepe-The Frog memes to mind. You can also use it to show the scandalous face of Ryan Guiterrez. Today, most Twitch broadcasting gamers understand poggers to mean “that’s awesome”.
Examples of How Gamers Use Poggers
1, Gamer: “Did DaveCrispy just run past me to destroy the King’s Landing and in turn saving himself?? Poggers!!!”
This means that Dave has made an unexpected move to save himself and destroy the King’s Landing. So, the other gamer is shocked and surprised at the turn of events. By using poggers, the gamer is expressing the legitimacy of the surprise move.
2, Gamer: “Poggers!! Did Lina just acquire a brand new grenade? All Hail our queen!”
In this situation, the gamer is using poggers to express his surprise at the fact that Lina has managed to acquire a new gerenade, which probably hasn’t been done before.
Pepe the Frog for Poggers
Pepe the Frog is a popular internet meme comprising a green anthropomorphic frog with a hominid body. This meme was developed in 2005 by Matt Furie in his comic titled Boy’s Club. Its popularity continued to grow steadily, even becoming one of the most commonly used memes on 4Chan and Tumblr in 2015.
On the face of it, you can possibly guess the motivation behind the ‘Poggers’ emote, which is the old ‘Pogchamp’ emote, that Twitch recently altered to include a different streamer every day. Poggers usually faces left, as opposed to right, like the original emoticon, but several other animated versions can be found reversing back and forth.
Is Poggers a Bad Word?
As mentioned above, poggers is not a bad word. It is actually meant to express happiness, excitement, and surprise. It is also used to cultivate a healthy relationship between gamers. However, some people have started misusing this emoticon.
It is now common to find images of the green Pepe frog with protruding eyes and a wide grin being used for political satire. Although the emoticon was never designed to be a political figure, he has been transformed into a symbol of vile meme culture and the darkest parts of the internet. This Pepe imagery has also seeped into the Twitch culture, with some Twitch streamers banning the use poggers emoticons on their channels.
The misuse of poggers and Pepe emotes started in the 2016 US election when some people started sketching Trump supporters as images of Trump and Pepe. This meme was also acknowledged by Hilary Clinton in her campaign. It was even shared by Donald Trump Jr on his Instagram page.
Soon, bigoted memes of poggers and Pepe the Frog became so prevalent that a prominent anti-hate organization, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), listed the emote on their website, along with several other hateful symbols like the swastika, the Confederate flag, and the Ku Klux Klan’s burning cross.
In Summary
Now that you know what poggers mean and how you can use it online to make every gaming session exciting and fun, you should no longer waste time typing words like ‘epic’, ‘shocked’, or ‘awesome’. Just use the poggers image and your fellow gamers will understand what it means.
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