Emote

For the research project on robotic tutors, see EMOTE (project). For the way of expressing emotions through text art, see Emoticon.

An emote is an entry in a text-based chat client that indicates an action taking place.[1] Unlike emoticons, they are not text art, and instead describe the action using words or images (similar to emoji).

Overview

In most IRC chat clients, entering the command "/me" will print the user's name followed by whatever text follows. For example, if a user named Joe typed "/me jumps with joy", the client will print this as "Joe jumps with joy" in the chat window.

<Joe> Allow me to demonstrate...
 * Joe jumps with joy again.

In online chatrooms that do not support the "/me" command, it is conventional to read text surrounded by asterisks as if it were emoted. For example, reading "Joe: *jumps with joy*" in a chat log would suggest that the user had intended the words to be performed rather than spoken.[2]

In MMORPGs with visible avatars, such as EverQuest, Asheron's Call, Second Life and World of Warcraft, certain commands entered through the chat interface will print a predefined /me emote to the chat window and cause the character to animate, and in some cases produce sound effects. For example, entering "/confused" into World of Warcraft's chat interface will play an animation on the user's avatar and print "You are hopelessly confused." in the chat window.[3]

Emotes are used primarily online in video games and, more recently, on smartphones. Image-based emotes are frequently used in the chat feature of the streaming service Twitch.[4] Twitch also allows users to upload animated emotes encoded with the GIF format.[5]

See also

• Emoji

References

1. "Acorn IRC: Introduction to IRC". Archived from the original on 2016-07-31. Retrieved 2011-10-17.
2. "Acorn IRC: Introduction to IRC". Archived from the original on 2016-07-31. Retrieved 2011-10-17.
3. ZAM EverQuest: Game Emotes
4. Community, The. "Twitch Emotes – Bringing a little Kappa to you everyday". twitchemotes.com. Archived from the original on October 25, 2017. Retrieved September 28, 2021.
5. "Customer Support". help.twitch.tv. Retrieved 2022-10-30.

Sources

• "History of emotes and why we use them": Reader's Digest
• "History of emotes in gifs": PC Gamer
• "Complete history of the emote": Wired
• "Animate your Emote and Convert it to a GIF: SuperEmotes"