I once typed OMEGALUL in a work Slack channel. Nobody understood. I stand by it.
It’s the warped, stretched-out face of the late John “TotalBiscuit” Bain, mouth blown wide open like he’s laughing at you from another dimension. Regular LUL says “that’s funny.” OMEGALUL says “I am physically unable to breathe, and also you’re a clown.” It’s the nuclear option of Twitch laughter.
OMEGALUL in the Wild
Some OMEGALUL examples, as observed in their natural habitat.
Over in Twitch chat, during a speedrun:
Streamer: “World record pace. Easy from here.” Streamer, thirty seconds later, falling off the same ledge twice: “That has literally never happened before.” Chat: “OMEGALUL” Chat: “WR PACE OMEGALUL” Chat: “the ledge is a paid actor”
Meanwhile on Discord:
Ren: “watch this clip, I clutch the 1v4” Ren: shares a video of himself whiffing every shot and dying to fall damage Kai: “OMEGALUL” Ren: “wrong clip. DO NOT react to that” Kai: “reacting to it twice”
And the version that escaped Twitch entirely, plain text in a group chat:
“I told my ranked team I was ‘smurfing’ and then went 2/13.” “OMEGALUL why would you admit that here”
The self-burn is always the healthiest use.
The Origin of OMEGALUL
Where did OMEGALUL come from? It starts with a photograph. At MLG Anaheim in 2013, event photographer Jonathan Tayag snapped a shot of game critic John “TotalBiscuit” Bain doing his signature cynical laugh. Bain uploaded it to his own channel as a subscriber emote called CynicalLaugh, Tayag issued a DMCA takedown over the unauthorized use, and the emote got yanked. So the community did what it always does: it re-uploaded the face to BetterTTV as “LuL,” where it spread far beyond Bain’s channel.
Then came the mutations. On September 11th, 2016, a user named DourGent uploaded a grotesquely stretched version of the laugh to FrankerFaceZ under the name OMEGALUL, with a BetterTTV version following on November 19th. Around the same era, Forsen’s community was running what can only be described as an arms race of LUL variants (MegaLUL, GigaLUL, UltraLUL, TeraLUL), and OMEGALUL emerged as the one that stuck. In 2017 Twitch finally made LUL an official global emote, using an illustrated version to dodge the copyright mess. OMEGALUL itself never went official. It lives on BTTV and FFZ to this day.
The numbers are absurd. By StreamElements’ count it has been used well over a hundred million times, enabled on hundreds of thousands of channels. I’ve been watching Twitch long enough to remember chat before it, and honestly? I can’t picture it anymore. (Bain passed away in 2018. Twitch’s own tribute called him one of the most influential voices in gaming. The emote is a strange, loud, fitting monument.)
Why OMEGALUL Stuck Around
Most laughter emotes are interchangeable. OMEGALUL isn’t, because it does two jobs at once. It’s an intensifier, the laugh you use when a plain LUL feels too small for the moment. But it also carries a specific flavor of mockery. There’s a reason chat reaches for it when someone is being confidently wrong. LUL laughs with you. OMEGALUL laughs at the situation, at the streamer, at the concept of dignity itself.
The meme moment: during the PogChamps chess tournament, xQc lost a game to MoistCr1tikal in just six moves. Chat didn’t rage. Chat didn’t comfort. Chat simply became a wall of OMEGALUL for a solid minute, which is honestly the correct response to watching a grandmaster-speed blunder.
The one thing nobody hands you when you install BTTV is a laugh hierarchy, so here’s mine after a decade of field research:
| Emote | Laugh level | Deploy it when |
|---|---|---|
| LUL | standard chuckle | something is mildly funny |
| LULW | harder, slightly unhinged | the joke lands perfectly |
| OMEGALUL | nuclear, laughing AT someone | confident stupidity meets instant karma |
FAQ
Is OMEGALUL the same as LUL?
Same face, different dosage. LUL is the official Twitch emote of TotalBiscuit laughing. OMEGALUL is the fan-made, heavily distorted version that only exists on third-party extensions like BTTV and FFZ. You use LUL for a funny moment. You use OMEGALUL when someone destroys themselves so completely that normal laughter feels inadequate.
When should I use OMEGALUL?
When something is extremely funny, especially if it involves someone being confidently wrong. Streamer predicts an easy win and immediately loses? OMEGALUL. Friend brags in Discord and gets humbled? OMEGALUL. Keep it playful. Spamming it at someone genuinely upset isn’t laughing with them anymore.
Do people still use OMEGALUL?
Constantly. It’s one of the most-used emotes on BTTV by a huge margin, past the hundred-million-use mark years ago and still climbing. Like kappa before it, the word escaped the emote entirely. People type OMEGALUL in Discord servers and group chats where no extension exists to render the face. That’s when you know it’s permanent vocabulary.
Why can’t I see the OMEGALUL image in Twitch chat?
Because it’s not an official Twitch emote. It lives on third-party extensions, mainly BetterTTV and FrankerFaceZ. Without one installed, you see the literal text “OMEGALUL” scrolling past while everyone else sees the stretched face. Install the extension and chat gains about 40% more emotional range.
How do I explain OMEGALUL to someone who doesn’t game?
“It’s a stretched-out photo of a laughing game critic. People post it when something is so funny that a normal laugh emote won’t cut it. The face belonged to a beloved YouTuber, and the internet kept him laughing forever.” They’ll get it faster than you think.
If you want to go deeper down the chat-culture rabbit hole: the whole emote ecosystem, OMEGALUL’s equally unhinged cousin pepega, and the one that started the sarcasm economy, kappa.
