Real talk, doe, Kappa is the portrait of Justin TV former employee Josh. His portrait has been used hundreds of times today, and countless times over the last four years, to express an emotion in an online chat. It has a name: others like it are called PJSalt,BionicBunion, SwiftRage and DansGame. But this is
Kappa. And
Kappa rules the online fighting game scene.
Early adopters of these emoticons saw a similarity between Josh’s enigmatic smile and the internet meme
Trollface. A sarcastic smirk, like he’s trying not to laugh at something. Maybe you.
Josh’s face itself reminds me of the
Mona Lisa: the soft shadows, face tilted to one side, an unreadable smile. Is he laughing with you, or at you? And it functions in much the same way when used. ‘I’m being sarcastic, do you get the joke?’ I am superior, but I’m one of us. The image is vague enough to be read in many ways, to be related to by many people, but specific enough to be instantly recognisable. Like a brand created by accident. It is no longer an image, it is a signifier, a marker of belonging, of the joke being on you for even caring.
That being said, the Man, the Myth, The Legend.
